Crediton Museum is run entirely by volunteers, and more are always needed. If you have an interest in local history and would like to be involved please contact us. The main areas of activity are:
- Museum Stewarding. If you enjoy meeting the pubic and chatting about local history, stewarding may be for you. It's not demanding, the natives are friendly, and it can be very rewarding. The museum is open Wednesday to Friday, 1000 until 1600 and Saturday 1000 until 1300, from April to October. Stewards work sessions of 3 hours. Training will be given.
- Downes archive. Each week a group works on our archive (at Downes House whilst the museum exhibition is on, transferring to the museum over the cold winter months!) to better organise the storage and cataloguing of our collection. Volunteers read the contents of old documents (see Paleography article), and catalogue them on our Modes computer system. The main object is to make the material available to researchers, but our helpers also find discovering the contents of our archive quite fascinating in itself. If you can spare a few hours most weeks to help, please let us know because this is a huge job!
- Research Corner volunteers. The research corner volunteers have some experience of family history research - typically having started by researching their own families - as well as a reasonable level of computer literacy. They assist customers who are either uncomfortable with using PCs and the Internet, who aren't clear about what family history records are available, or who need help with interpreting the records. At the moment we open the Research Corner on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1000 to 1300 (other times by appointment), but this is limited by the number of volunteers available. If we can recruit more volunteers we can expand the service.
- None of the above. If none of the foregoing appeals, but you'd still like to get involved, please contact us anyway. There are plenty of other things to do, e.g. fund raising, event organising, researching and constructing exhibitions, local publicity etc.
To volunteer for CAHMS you will need to become a member.