The Volunteering Hub at the RAF Museum London

The RAF Museum was proud to open its new volunteering hub on Thursday 4th April , as part of our Centenary Programme and Historic Hendon project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Located directly in the centre of the Museum’s site, the volunteering hub is a space in which volunteers from any team can relax, socialise, catch up on the latest Museum and volunteer news and access a computer. Visitors are welcome to view the interior and to learn more about the history of parachuting and its incorporation into the RAF, and to find out about our latest volunteering opportunities.

To celebrate this proud achievement, a small house-warming party was held in the refurbished building; a former parachute packing hut, known as ‘Building 69’, when the site was an active aerodrome up until 1968 (when the last aircraft landed on its runway).

Rachel Ball, Volunteering Manager at the RAF Museum for nearly 5 years, had this to say at the opening:

During the event, we also had a chance to catch up with some volunteers and ask them what it was about volunteering at the RAF Museum that has kept them coming back, Daniel, one of our Public Events volunteers had this response:

The house warming party held on the Thursday afternoon was not only a chance for people to get together and celebrate the new opening, but it was also for many their first glimpse inside the Hub since work began on Building 69 and for our volunteers, a glance into the future of what is now their own space.

We asked the volunteers what they thought about the volunteering hub and what they felt it meant for volunteering at the RAF Museum, this is what our volunteers Natasha and Jeremy had to say:

The team here has put enormous effort into refurbishing this building to make sure it is perfect for the volunteers. A key feature of the space is the meeting table, which has been constructed from original parachute packing tables.

Maggie Appleton, CEO of the RAF Museum, also came to the house-warming party and was kind enough to share a speech marking the occasion:

Across both our sites, as well as remotely, the Museum has over 400 volunteers, so it is paramount for the Museum to provide this type of facility, in order to incorporate the volunteers into the Museum’s community, but to also show its gratitude for all the hard work and time collectively put in by our volunteers.

If you are interested in volunteering at the RAF Museum and joining our community then please look at our Opportunities Page today or come down and apply via the tablet available in the Volunteering Hub, which is open most days.