* Voluntary Curator, Archivist, guide and social media roles
Voluntary Curator, Archivist, guide and social media roles
Working Hours: Flexible Salary: N/A Location: North Queensferry Closing date: 20/01/2026
About the Role
Introduction
North Queensferry Heritage Trust (NQHT) is a registered charity that offers many opportunities to volunteers who are interested in pursuing a career or retirement activity in looking after local heritage, whether it is cultural or natural heritage. North Queensferry is on the main ScotRail Fife Circle line from Edinburgh’s Waverley Station. The trust’s main office is located on Platform 1 at the railway station in North Queensferry where it manages an Art Gallery, 2 meeting rooms with display facilities, a kitchen, accessible toilet facilities, and an extensive basement storage area.
Volunteering with NQHT offers a wide range of personal benefits, including enhanced wellbeing, increased confidence, and a stronger sense of purpose. It has the power to transform lives by reducing social isolation, promoting social mobility, and fostering meaningful connections within communities.
To ensure volunteering has the greatest impact—for both individuals and the museums we support—it must be thoughtfully managed and well-supported. We provide flexible options to accommodate different needs: volunteers can work from home, and internet access for research is available either through personal laptops or devices supplied by the Trust.
Volunteers with creative thinking are important to help sustain the Heritage Trust by helping to regenerate local interest in our common heritage. In return, the Heritage Trust provides valuable endorsements for volunteers. These can be used as proof of essential qualifications sought by many organisations and will be invaluable when seeking higher level achievements, such as The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, presenting a CV to potential employers, or even a business plan when seeking funding.
VOLUNTEERING ROLES
Guide/Curator Assistant:
Located at the Light Tower and adjacent ‘fisherman’s hut as part of the Forth Bridges Lighthouse Museum. It opens daily, subject to weather for visitors to come and go as they please. The annual number of visitors is 10,000 plus and, so far, from 96 countries. Visitor experience is important to the Trust, and the Guide/Curator would encourage visitors to add their comments to the Visitor Books in either the Light Tower or Fisherman’s Hut.
Volunteers are expected to learn about our collection from our extensive Website. The information learned from the website allows a volunteer to help and interact with visitors. In many cases this builds the confidence of our volunteers and increases their well-being and opens the door for employment opportunities in the museum sector.
Archivist –
The trust’s collections require archiving with detailed item descriptions for our basic documentation for the accreditation of our collections. From these basic descriptions, we use Artificial Intelligence to create accreditation lists. The main location for this position is at a Meeting Room in the Forth Bridges Heritage Centre at North Queensferry Railway Station, using our WiFi.
Social Media & Website Planner –
This position should appeal to those with social media and computer skills who wish to extend their expertise in the museum domain. Before applying, have a look at our website www.nqht.org and entries on Facebook and see for yourself the extent of the trust’s commitment.
Much of this work can be done on a day-to-day basis from home. To make a start, training is available with familiarisation of existing systems at the trust’s main office at North Queensferry Railway Station.
Walking Tour Guide:
This position is an ideal opportunity for a volunteer to organise various walking tours around the extremely rich natural and cultural backdrop of the North Queensferry peninsula. The recently published brochure entitled ‘Forth Bridges Trail – Self-Guided Walks’ illustrates the richness of the area. A tour guide working with a group usually brings both enjoyment and educational value to the walk participants. A vast amount of information is also found in our website, however, personal research is also encouraged to make this role as rewarding as possible. Start, rest and end points are selected by the tour guide. These points can include the various Heritage Trust venues, including the Forth Bridges Heritage Centre at the station, St James Chapel, the Robert Stevenson Light Tower on the old Town Pier, Hilton Hotel and Rankins Deli in the old village. There is always the possibility of ‘tour guiding’ becoming a business opportunity or self employment through the whole tourism industry.
How to Apply
Applying for a volunteer position
If you are interested in any of the roles, please get in touch via email.
Please include a description of why you believe you are suitable for a particular role. It is also possible to play several roles as it is not uncommon for a volunteer to enjoy some guiding roles to help and advise visitors of other heritage locations, within and outwith the village. It would also be useful to know where you live and if transport is required. Some roles do not require you to be onsite if you are computer literate, particularly with documents and spreadsheets. However, these roles do require you to be onsite occasionally to collect information that you can then process the information remotely, or onsite using our WiFi.
For more information please visit the North Queensferry website
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