On average, 150 hours of volunteer work go into running and maintaining the Rising Sun every month. So as you might expect, our volunteers are incredibly important to us! Volunteers use their knowledge and skills to support their local arts centre to thrive. And we're always looking for more people to join the team and help make everything we do as fantastic as possible.

Why volunteer?

Our volunteers have many reasons for volunteering. A few things you might gain from joining us as a volunteer include:

• A chance to make new friends – our volunteers are a very friendly and diverse bunch of people with many shared interests so you’re bound to find some like minded people. We have regular socials for volunteers throughout the year.
• New skills – we don't limit the areas in which our volunteers work and this flexibility allows you to gain new skills. You might start out working behind the bar and decide you would really like to try out doing sound for our gigs – we encourage that!
• Fun – we always have exciting projects going on and cool events to attend, we like to think that the fun of it all is what makes our volunteers stick around.

What opportunities are there?

Our volunteers do a little bit of everything. The broad areas that volunteers initially start in include:

• Programming – making decisions about what events happen at the centre, liaising with events organisers and working as a team to create a strong programme of events
• House managing – looking after our events, making sure everything runs smoothly and performers, promoters, volunteers and our community have everything they need
• Marketing – social media, putting flyers out and about around town, designing posters and leaflets, anything that will spread the word about who we are and what we do
• Bar – serving customers, developing ideas for activities that can happen in the bar area, keeping the bar a welcoming and friendly space
• Sound – with many music nights happening at the centre, we’re always looking for people interested in PA and sound to make sure musicians sound as good a possible

If we’ve convinced you and you’d like to find out more about becoming part of our volunteer community, contact our Volunteer Coordinator via nikita.moody@risingsun-artscentre.co.uk