The IHBC is investing in additional support for our volunteer education and events activities as we establish a full-time equivalent post as IHBC ‘Branch Events Support’ (‘BES’) Officer – with job-share offers also considered – responsible for helping IHBC volunteers deliver training events across our networks, and with a starting salary from £17,000 and a closing date for applications of 15 January at 5pm sharp.
IHBC Chair Mike Brown said: ‘I’m delighted that we’re in a position to offer this additional support post to our members and colleagues, adding more capacity to the role of ‘LETS’ Liaison Officer, we filled last year with the part-time appointment of Kate Kendall. This is a huge opportunity for a person – or perhaps persons – to help the IHBC move to the next level of support for our volunteers, members, their colleagues and our diverse sector partners.’
‘Clearly any successful candidate will have to be aware of volunteering roles and needs, as well as the pressures of managing events. They’ll also need to be able to work alongside our members, both as assistant and, where appropriate, as adviser.
Our voluntary network is very local too, so our ‘BES’ Officer will have to be prepared to travel extensively across our UK Branches. That first hand experience is the only way to get to know our members properly, their concerns and their work, and to be able to offer the help they need. So anyone in this new role will need to enjoy helping out in conservation events and learning activities, working alongside real heritage enthusiasts and genuine experts, as well as those in the earliest stages of their career or heritage-related trade or practice.’
IHBC President David McDonald said: ‘This new role underpins both the IHBC’s national educational work and our members’ evolving training on the ground. While we are closely tied to day-to-day conservation practice through our volunteers, not least through our trustees and our Branch-led Schools, as well as more recently our IHBC+ initiative, we still lack capacity to manage the overlaps as effectively as we might. Filling this new role will mean we can all benefit from that much-needed support’.
Charles Strang, IHBC’s Communications Secretary said: ‘We know that modern social and digital media are central to connecting with new volunteers as well as career changers and younger members, so we’d hope that online social networking and the use of digital media will be an important part of any IHBC BES Officer’s life and work.’
In particular, we would like to see good IT and social networking skills and experience, as we will use this added capacity to communicate at all levels, integrating volunteer support more closely with our online services. While we would especially welcome interests and skills in these areas, don’t worry if that’s not necessarily what you’d like to offer us. Enthusiasm, interest, energy and capacity are critical, and after that, once you have the willingness to learn, we can help you get the right skills.’
DETAILS OF THE POST
Title: IHBC ‘Branch & Events Support’ (‘BES’) Officer(s)
NB: Job sharing and contracted services considered
Job description
As the IHBC ‘BES’ Officer(s) you will be both assistant to and adviser on training events that are planned, organised and delivered with the help of IHBC volunteers, officers, trustees and staff. Your role will be to help support activities and networks that raise the profile of, and cross-sector interest in, the IHBC’s educational and related operations. You will be the key link between our Branches, across all the UK, and the National Office, with particular responsibility for:
- Raising the profile of IHBC’s Branches and related networks, and
- Providing technical support as well as training and event development.
You will carry out this role under the direct line management of, and in partnership with, the IHBC’s ‘LETS’ Officer.
Role overview?
- The Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) is a limited company and a registered charity that serves as the UK’s professional body for built and historic environment conservation specialists. Full details of our operations, services, benefits and structures are posted on our website at www.ihbc.org.uk.
- The new role of BES Officer has been established to support the IHBC’s local voluntary networks, our Branches, which are responsible for delivering services, support, and for enhancing the IHBC’s profile regionally and nationally as appropriate.
- You will operate both on the ground and ‘virtually’, including extensive travel to Branches and their events, as well as managing digital resources on the IHBC’s website and virtual networks, all of which is intended to maximize the potential and impact of conservation-related training and events to members, their colleagues and their networks.
- The post may be full-time, part-time or job-share, depending on applicants’ strengths, needs and circumstances.
- The role requires any post-holder(s) to provide support across all our UK-based Branches, volunteers and, where appropriate, partner networks as they deliver educational and related events.
- You will need excellent communication skills and ideally to be a reasonably confident speaker and ‘networker’, as on occasion you will also be required to promote the IHBC to a range of audiences, including members, non-specialist practitioners, public workshops and at stakeholder events.
- This role demands distance working and would suit a highly organised and motivated individual who can operate remotely whilst liaising closely with the wider IHBC team of staff, trustees and officers, themselves based across the UK.
- You will work most closely with the IHBC’s LETS Officer, who is your line manager and currently works in a part-time capacity, as well as the Director, Projects Officer, IT Consultant, as well as elected officers and trustees.
- Regular and extensive travel across the UK is required.
- The post is funded wholly by the IHBC.
Select contractual details about the post(s)
- Term: 3-year appointment initially with a presumption to extend as agreed.
- Probation: 6 months from start.
- Salary/fee: Starting from £17,000 per annum (or pro rata).
- Pension: Arrangements, where applicable, will be confirmed following the probationary period.
- Employment standards & needs: The IHBC is an equal opportunity employer. Extensive travel will be required so candidates should be physically able to travel extensively, including to remote sites, and be prepared to stay away from home/office environments for short periods.
- Special points to remember:
- Travel: Candidates should note that the role requires extensive travel, often at irregular hours (including weekends) and so you should be able and prepared to attend meetings outside of the standard working day, including in evenings and over weekends
- Locations: Work environments also may include construction sites and other locations that require considerable physical exertion
- Networking & expenses: While there is a substantial Travel & Subsistence allocation, you are encouraged to use our voluntary networks to seek the lowest cost options to deliver maximum benefit for our volunteers, members and partner interests.
- Work base: Home or possibly an agreed own office-based location, but with extensive work-related travel.
Expectations for performance
With details all to be agreed under the oversight of IHBC’s Director (and with ‘pro rata’ arrangements to be agreed in the case of job-sharing), include to:
- Engage with and offer energetic support for c.100 IHBC ‘events’ each year, including:
o Internal IHBC Branch and related volunteer and national events
o Committee meetings
o Partner activities across the IHBC’s geographic remit
- Raise cross-sector awareness of IHBC events and activities:
o Build up specific and measurable practice, social and digital networks to ensure the optimum value and benefits from IHBC events
- Encourage, in line with the IHBC’s criteria and standards and under the institute’s guidance:
o New members to join IHBC
o Existing members to develop skills
o Non-members to be aware of our members’ educational activities, support and potential.
Additional expectations, subject to negotiation and personal strengths and capacity:
- Partner/promotion events, at about 10 each year
- Membership & member support, at about 5 each year
- Partner/promotion initiatives (non-events, eg. articles) at about 10 each year
- Member monitoring and data-gathering jobs, at about 5 each year.
Your personal specifications:
- An active and enthusiastic traveller who enjoys joining in all aspects of event development, management and, especially, delivery and who must be prepared to stay away overnight reasonably regularly
- Dynamic, independent and innovative, in particular in your forward planning and use of time and resources
- Interested in, and ideally familiar with, new digital technologies and training resources, from social networking to online learning
- Independent and self-motivated
- Enthusiastic helper
- Personable with sense of humour
- Enthusiastic learner
- Engaging communicator
- Hard working and adaptable
- Engaging educator
Qualities you will need to demonstrate (essential)
- Energetic & self-motivated
- Enthusiastic about conservation, volunteering, education and digital networking
- Appreciative of conservation values and potential
- Volunteering awareness, in any context
- Awareness & understanding of social and digital media and resources
- Good communication skills
- Good inter-personal skills
Qualities that will help in the post (recommended)
- Understanding of events management
- Understanding of conservation-related learning (any levels/areas/disciplines)
- Experience of volunteer support or processes
- Good IT skills
- Driving licence
How to apply
Please email admin@ihbc.org.uk attaching your application letter, stating why you think you should be appointed in the role of IHBC’s ‘BES’ Officer, and including a detailed CV or equivalent.
Please include in your application letter a statement on how you might propose, prefer, or be prepared to carry out the role, whether as a full-time staff member of the IHBC, part-time in a job-share, or in any other preferred capacity, including a shared consultancy role.
If you have any queries about the position please contact Sean O’Reilly, IHBC director, by email, at director@ihbc.org.uk.
Closing Date: 15 January 2014
Interview & assessment: Interviews will be held in London or Birmingham in February.
Interview expenses
Travel expenses for candidates will be paid based on presentation of receipts (pre-payments may be organised in special circumstances, so please enquire for details).
These above details constitute the formal information relevant to any interviews and appointments.
For more details on the IHBC see www.ihbc.org.uk
The IHBC has announced confirmation of the speakers for the 2016 School, to take place in Worcester on 23-25 June on the theme of ‘People Power: Catalyst for Change’, while the first sponsor is confirmed as architectural practice and heritage consultants – and HESPR member – Purcell.
Several local and national media outlets have been reporting on planning enforcement issues recently, with a record fine under action being taken over flats erected without permission; issues with security shutters on shops; debates on the colour and decoration of properties, and including positive news on the renovation of listed properties at risk.
Recent media reports have once again been voicing opinions on the planning applications affecting the City of Edinburgh World Heritage Sites – focus of much of the IHBC’s Annual School in 2014 – with a major planning application for the listed buildings forming the former Royal High School and other developments in the city, some of which will be reported on in the 2016 School in Worcester. 
