Reading Museum is looking for volunteers to support Reading Borough Council’s ‘High Street Heritage Action Zone’.

High Street Heritage Action Zones (HSHAZ) are a heritage-led regeneration initiative, led by Historic England, working with local councils and the community to create economic growth and improve the quality of life in our historic high streets.

The HSHAZ programme has three complementary strands:

Physical interventions to restore and repair buildings and improve the public realm

A programme of cultural activities to celebrate the high streets and their importance to local communities

Community engagement which will give local people a key role in deciding what work they want to see happening on their high streets

We are looking for volunteers to form a team who can help us with the Community engagement strand. We are particularly interested in working with volunteers who live in or work with the communities in the three HSHAZ zones we are working in.

What you will be doing:

Starting in March the first part of the project, volunteers will be involved with the evaluation stage of our Cultural Pilot Project ‘Re-imaging the high street through your stories’. This will include:

Working with the Community Engagement & Cultural Officer and the University of Reading research team to plan methods for and then deliver the collection of contributor and general public feedback on the pilot project

Training will be provided by the University of Reading team, with opportunities to work alongside the research team before working independently. (All location work will be done in pairs)

Depending on pandemic restrictions, this could involve in-person survey and collecting feedback along the Oxford Road, or virtual engagement via video calls or phone calls. You may also be asked to send emails on behalf of the project, to collect feedback and circulate online surveys

There will also be online meetings with the evaluation teams to feedback about the process and exchange ideas, as well as report back on feedback

The work that you do to support the evaluation stages will help to inform the end of project report that we will send to our funders, Historic England

After this pilot stage, further roles will include:

Working alongside the Community Engagement & Cultural Officer and the Conservation Officer, to support engagement work for the physical improvement strand of the programme

Helping to establish links with commercial/cultural and community groups to help foster engagement and build new relationships

Supporting community research, including: face to face interviews, survey collecting, evaluation, delivery of communications and online engagement support

Helping to empower local residents within the communities to take an active role in their town’s development

Assisting with the delivery of consultation sessions/workshops with the community

Social media planning and digital engagement support

More information about the project and location of the zones is available at www.reading.gov.uk/hshaz