Volunteer FAQ's

We want to place as few limits on who can volunteer as possible and we encourage volunteering from all sections of the community, whether you have a background in the arts or not.

However, our need to keep all volunteers safe and desire to give you a meaningful experience must be achieved within the limited resources we have - whether that’s about the staff we have available to support and engage you, the needs of our performers, or the legal requirements we must fulfil. We recognise that, unfortunately, we don’t always have the means to support all volunteers in all situations.

Therefore, we assess all expressions of interest on a case-by-case basis. This includes supported volunteering (where individuals may require enhanced or additional support to participate, for example where they have a disability, a limiting condition or experience neurodiversity) and volunteering for those under the age of eighteen, for whom additional duties of care apply.

Currently, we have a team of around 85 volunteers.

Whilst most of our current team have volunteered for several years, we don’t expect all volunteers to make a long-term commitment. We do however ask that you let us know in advance if there is a limit to the length of time you anticipate volunteering.

Every volunteer is different, and though we do have volunteers who engage regularly, we don’t expect all volunteers to join us every week. We strive to be as flexible as possible in helping you to fit your role in with and around your wider life.

You can find more guidance on our expectations of volunteers within the Volunteer Handbook and Agreement. Some may have minimum commitments; others will offer flexibility. Generally, our expectations are framed more as behaviours and qualities we ask you to demonstrate rather than commitments you measure in hours or years.

We ask all volunteers to remain mindful of our vision and mission when signing up to our events; it takes a diversity of events to make up an enriching cultural programme, so we ask volunteers to mirror this intention by actively supporting a balance range of events as volunteers – including those outside of our seasonal highlights or beyond their own personal areas of interest.

We need volunteers to engage right across our programme to help keep our volunteering programme viable and our events programme sustainable.

We also ask that you consider and respect your fellow volunteers at these points, not all of whom will have the flexibility to volunteer at different times of the day or week or may miss crucial sign-up windows due to their other commitments.

We ask that all volunteers, at all times, keep the inclusive and diverse vision and mission of the Hall in mind. These objectives are more important than any of us individually, and they can help us guide our engagement in volunteering.

Please note, the majority of our event roles can be quite physically demanding, carrying legal obligations around the health and safety of our visitors. We therefore do ask questions about your current health status when you submit your expression of interest.

Imagine a typical theatre or performance space – our events include many common elements and as such events volunteering encompasses a broad range of activities. These include stewarding, greeting visitors, selling programmes or ice cream, wayfinding (supporting visitors to make their way safely around the building) and staying alert to any issues or concerns during performances, intervening where appropriate or alerting staff where not.

Duty Managers are responsible for the delivery of events and provide specific guidance and allocation of roles and tasks on site. We will always try to assign these roles and tasks in co-operation with volunteers, working within your abilities or playing to your natural strengths.

Assemble is the volunteering management platform which we use within Saffron Hall Trust.

We welcome volunteers from all backgrounds and believe all have a positive contribution to make. We recruit volunteers in a variety of ways, from word of mouth to public adverts. We want volunteering with us to be truly inclusive and welcome feedback on how we can improve our practice and remove as many barriers as possible for different communities.

We are committed to equity, diversity and inclusion in our practice. If you have suggestions on how we can better welcome those from all backgrounds and abilities into our volunteer group, please share them with us.

We hold your details as a volunteer (on a secure server and behind password protected logins) for a number of reasons, including to manage and administer our cohort of volunteers, to document the contribution made by volunteers and for insurance and health and safety purposes and, with your permission, to keep you informed of other news and activities concerning the Hall.