The Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive has grown out of Scotland’s first LGBTQ+ bookshops, Lavender Menace and West & Wilde. Bob Orr and Sigrid Nielsen, the owners of the original Lavender Menace Bookshop founded the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive in 2019 to keep this valuable LGBTQ+ book heritage alive and share it with the community.

We have a mission to bring together the queer community in Edinburgh and beyond; celebrate LGBTQ+ authors and their works; and collect and preserve LGBTQ+ books (focusing on those published between 1970 and 2000). We work to create and maintain a free and welcoming community archive space for reading, research, and socialising. The archive is open to visitors and hosts a variety of author events, workshops, community groups and book clubs. We also have a digital catalogue of our collection.

To support the next stage of our growth, we are seeking a General Manager to build the sustainability of the Archive and ensure effective delivery of our programmes. Working closely with the Board, this exciting new role will lead organisational development, fundraising, financial administration, governance, and long-term planning, while managing and leading the work of a high performing staff team. Specifically, the postholder will provide high-level oversight of collections policy, ethics, and risk, ensuring the archive remains accessible, cared for, and responsive to community needs; whilst also leading the team to effectively deliver our new project “Unlocking Scotland’s LGBTQ+ Heritage”, which is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to expand the reach of the Archive, and better connect communities to their heritage.

This role would suit a proven leader with professional experience in archives, libraries, museums, or heritage collections, who has a strong degree of LGBTQ+ cultural competence and who is able to operate with autonomy in a collaborative and supportive way. It presents a fantastic opportunity to grow your leadership and project delivery skills, and contribute to the long term sustainability of a vital community resource in Scotland.

JOB PURPOSE

This role has two purposes:

1. To support the fulfilment of the Membership Strategy, drive and lead a membership engagement and recruitment re-focus across the region as a whole, providing support at an individual property level.

2. In support of the Membership Strategy, feed a from-the-ground perspective into current and future campaigns, initiatives and offers to optimise their success.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

At a property/regional level:

1. In fulfilment of the Membership Strategy, drive and lead a membership re-focus across the region as a whole. Supporting individual properties with specific action plans.

2. Understand the challenges and opportunities for membership engagement and recruitment for the region and at each property, and use this knowledge to give context to driving the pragmatic operationalisation of Membership Strategy campaigns and initiatives through bespoke property membership recruitment plans – including:

• implementation activities supporting campaigns and initiatives
• development and delivery of staff training (employee and volunteer)
• agreeing milestones for achieving agreed targets

3. Actively seek opportunities to challenge current property thinking and delivery of membership engagement and recruitment, and help the property “do things differently” if this will have a positive impact.

4. Support the Membership Marketing Manager with the roll-out of campaigns – including developing collateral to support properties achieve membership recruitment targets, local media messaging etc.

5. At a regional-level, contribute a membership perspective to cross-regional/cross-functional projects – for example in collections & conservation-in-action, events & formal learning, functions, food & beverage, gardens, holidays, nature conservation, retail, new systems and processes

6. Across the region, drive income generation in year and drive conversation of visitors to members from 2.5% towards 9%, through developing tools and practice to support and sustain income growth beyond the fixed-term period.

At a central Membership function level

7. Using insight and performance data, review target achievement, test new approaches, monitor results, evaluate effectiveness, and identify opportunities for continuous improvements – and, as appropriate, feed these back into central the Membership team to influence future approaches, campaigns, and initiatives for roll-out to other regions/properties.

8. Contribute to projects that improve the member journey at our places, including: online and in-person sign-up processes, data collection, membership administration, digital cards, and EPOS till related service improvements.

9. Build a network of peer membership organisations as a forum for exchanging initiatives, information, best practice etc.

The current duties of this job do not require a criminal records (Disclosure Scotland) check to be carried out.

The Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive has grown out of Scotland’s first LGBTQ+ bookshops, Lavender Menace and West & Wilde. Bob Orr and Sigrid Nielsen, the owners of the original Lavender Menace Bookshop founded the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive in 2019 to keep this valuable LGBTQ+ book heritage alive and share it with the community.

We have a mission to bring together the queer community in Edinburgh and beyond; celebrate LGBTQ+ authors and their works; and collect and preserve LGBTQ+ books (focusing on those published between 1970 and 2000). We work to create and maintain a free and welcoming community archive space for reading, research, and socialising. The archive is open to visitors and hosts a variety of author events, workshops, community groups and book clubs. We also have a digital catalogue of our collection.

To support the next stage of our growth, we are seeking aResearch Coordinatortolead the development and delivery of community-led research into Scotland’s LGBTQ+ heritage, with responsibility for the Connecting Heritage strand of the project. The post holder will take forward a variety of work including research design, outputs and partnerships, supporting a team of volunteer researchers and producing accessible public facing outputs. Working collaboratively with the wider team, the postholder will ensure that the research is inclusive, ethical and embedded within community practice.

This role would suit an individual witha strong background in community based research, a strong degree of LGBTQ+ cultural competence and able to operate with autonomy in a collaborative and supportive way. It presents a fantastic opportunity to grow your leadership and project delivery skills, and contribute to theimpact and sustainability of thisvital community resource in Scotland.

The National Trust for Scotland’s curators are storytellers. The team co-ordinates research, helps to disseminate stories and supports property and central teams with the knowledge, tools and training that they need to share the histories of our places with our visitors and supporters in engaging ways.

The Curator North East provides curatorial support for the National Trust for Scotland’s North East region, excluding Fyvie Castle which is the responsibility of the Project Curator – Reimagining Fyvie Castle. They ensure that the cultural heritage of the properties in the region is well researched, understood and interpreted for the public. They have particular curatorial responsibility for the object collections and interiors at the region’s properties, but will also work with landscapes, gardens and intangible cultural heritage (ICH), facilitating cross-disciplinary research and ensuing integrated interpretation across all aspects of properties.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Undertake curatorial duties for a defined region or sub-regional cluster of properties, supporting regional and property teams to ensure collections, interiors, gardens and landscape elements are well researched, understood, and interpreted for the public. This will include:
  • Training and development of colleagues
  • Researching collections, interiors, people and places
  • Interpreting our properties and their stories in creative and relevant ways, informed by audience feedback and evaluation
  • Ensuring collections information is accurate and recorded in a manner consistent with policy and best practice.
• Support the development of and ensure work is consistent with policy and guidance on curatorial work, especially research, interpretation, and management of collections, with particular reference to the Curatorial Vison and Strategy.
• Support the development of Masterplan Projects at properties within the region, ensuring strategic direction is informed by strong understanding of cultural heritage and assets.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE

Qualifications and Experience

Essential

• Undergraduate degree in a relevant subject (e.g. art/architectural history, Scottish history, social history) or suitable equivalent experience.
• Experience of working with historic collections and period interiors and/or cultural landscapes
• Demonstrable experience of a wide range of curatorial and collections management responsibilities in a museum/gallery or heritage environment.
• Experience of building effective working relationships in complex, changing work environment and matrix-management structures.
• Competent object recognition and analytical skills, with proven ability and willingness to curate a wide range of object types.
• Sound understanding of SPECTRUM documentation standards and the requirements for Museum Accreditation.
• Experience of research from primary sources, producing and sharing research outputs.
• Experience of object cataloguing and use of collections management databases.
• Demonstrable experience of planning audience-focused exhibitions and displays.
• Demonstrable experience of creating and enabling audience-focused interpretive and visitor experience solutions.

Desirable

• A post graduate qualification in relevant subject (e.g. history, heritage interpretation, museum studies)
• Specialist knowledge expertise and a track record of publications in a relevant subject
• Experience of effective leadership in a dynamic environment
• Experience of developing and managing collaborative research projects
• A strong understanding of how to use evaluation and visitor research to inform exhibitions and interpretive developments.