In our latest ‘Volunteer Spotlight’ Q&A, we chatted to Puravi Kumar, who joined us in October 2018. After starting as a Mackintosh Visitor Services Volunteer, Puravi quickly demonstrated her interest in research driven projects and so became our new Mackintosh Research Assistant.

Puravi has played a crucial part in facilitating our Digitisation Project which is supported by the National Library of Scotland. Since the CRM Society was established in 1973, physical records of newsletters and Society Journals have been kept and the aim of this project is to make sure these are all preserved digitally to safeguard them for the future. Puravi reflects on her unique project and volunteering experiences below:

Q1. How and why did you first get involved with volunteering for the CRM Society?

Fresh out of university, I was keen to get involved in the heritage sector in Glasgow. As Mackintosh at the Willow had just opened, I wanted to see if there were opportunities available and luckily I came across the CRM Society advert on Creative Scotland’s website. It was a super quick and pain-free application and I think within a week I went in for orientation!

Q2. What roles/tasks have you undertaken while volunteering for the society?

I started off within Visitor Services at the Mackintosh at the Willow Tearooms. It was fun to work at the information desk and exhibition space, meeting people and helping with questions that they had to do with the Tearooms or Mackintosh in general as well as joining a number of the tours around Mackintosh at the Willow.
I am now based at Queen’s Cross working on the Digitisation Project for the Society’s journals. I have been given responsibility to maintain a database for the all the Society’s journals and copyright data so that they can be digitised and made available online.

Q3. How has volunteering helped you? Which skills have you developed?

Volunteering with the CRM Society has been a great in building my interpersonal and communication skills working within Visitor Services. It has been great to work on my presentation skills, as I was learning how to take on the role of a tour guide. I have equally enjoyed working on the database, as I have not just been building upon my IT skills, but I have been able to see how the journals have evolved and learnt a fact or two about Mackintosh.

Q4. Any tips or tricks for others looking to get involved in Heritage volunteering?

Keep looking at your favourite places, opportunities will come up!

Q5. Do you have a favourite memory from your volunteering or a favourite aspect of the work you’ve done?

Chatting away to some visitors and seeing how excited they are to be there!

Big thank you to Puravi for all of her hard work and for making this project happen. We couldn’t have done it without her!