Volunteering
The Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre is a community museum - and we’ve relied on volunteer support from our incredible community since our earliest days.
If you are interested in helping us with our mission to preserve and present Rossland’s history and heritage, consider signing up as a volunteer!
Volunteer Opportunities
We have many projects on the go, and can always use volunteer support! We can almost always find something that fits your skills and interests! Here are some options:
Research & Archives
Rossland Memories project: This is our oral history project - we interview Rosslanders and collect their stories! This project requires a huge amount of volunteer work to organize, interview, transcribe, and publicize the memories. Learn more about the project here. If you’re interested in conducting the interviews, please get in touch! We can set up a short training session to provide you with the basics of conducting oral history interviews, handling privacy and consent forms, and operating our tape recorder!
Edit captions on photos: We want better captions for our photos! Take a look at photographs in our collection and write descriptive captions, or cross-reference our digital captions with the hard-copy descriptions. If you recognize any of the people in the photos, so much the better - we want those names!
Public research requests: When someone has a question about the history of Rossland, you can help us answer it! Use our newspaper collection, census records, or archival material to help us dig into these puzzles.
Speaker Series presentation with Kim Deane and Lou Corrado, 2024
Events & Programs
Monthly Speaker Series: Have a story you want to share? Consider signing up to be a speaker! We can help you put together a presentation to share to an audience. Check out previous Speaker Series events on our YouTube Channel. Prefer the back-stage role? We always appreciate volunteer help with setting up or taking down these events!
Special events and holidays prep: We have public events almost every month! We can always use support — helping with kids’ crafts or activities, running guided tours, managing parking, or assisting with set-up or take-down. Check out the calendar of upcoming events here.
Collections Management
Collections Database entry: Transcribe details about artifacts into the back-end of our collections database to help make our artifacts, maps, photographs more accessible!
Upper Level storage/exhibition inventory: Go through our collections storage and check our artifact inventory to make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be!
Operations & Maintenance
There are always maintenance tasks on the list - like repairing the gold panning troughs!
Heritage Garden care: Our heritage garden is 100% managed by volunteers! We are always looking for gardeners to help with planning, preparing, or maintaining it.
Seasonal property and display maintenance: We host a volunteer work bee every spring and fall to tackle yard-work and some of the steps to prep our outdoor exhibits for the summer or winter. Keep an eye on our newsletter or events calendar to learn about the next one!
Handy-person tasks: There are always maintenance tasks on the list! If you’re handy with a hammer, please get in touch!
Upper-level landscaping: We’ve been working to re-work and re-landscape much of our outdoor area!
If you want some more information about any of these projects or have some ideas, get in touch with Fiona Lane at admin@ rosslandmuseum.ca. We can help you figure out where you can help!
Join one of our Community Clubs!
These clubs work directly with staff to develop certain special-interest projects and programs.
Genealogy Club
The Genealogy Club generally meets on the last Tuesday of every month and is open to everyone!
This club meets monthly at the museum to tackle personal genealogy projects or support museum research requests. Thanks to a number of trained genealogist volunteers, this is a great opportunity to work through your family history and learn about the many resources available at the museum or online.
Contact Fiona at 250-362-7722 or admin@ rosslandmuseum.ca
Ecology Club
The purpose of this club is to develop a local community resource within the RMDC, focused on our local ecology.
Contact Skylar at 250-362-7722 or community@ rosslandmuseum.ca
Roger Terhune Geology Club
This club is meant to inspire conversations on Rossland’s unique local geology and bring together a group of like-minded people who are interested in local geology in an amateur to professional capacity - all are welcome!
Contact Skylar at 250-362-7722 or community@ rosslandmuseum.ca
RMDC Committees
We are seeking community members for a number of our committees!
Contact Joelle for more info at museumdirector @rosslandmuseum.ca or 250-362-7722. Committees meet quarterly (or as needed), and participating from afar could be possible as meetings can be held virtually or hybrid. Click on each committee below to learn more about it!
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To develop and review the RHMAA’s institutional policies and supporting documents.
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(Full - but expressions of interest always accepted)
To ensure the RHMAA provides an appropriate environment for employees so that sound Human Resources (HR) strategies and policies are set and implemented.
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(Full - but expressions of interest always accepted)
To ensure the RMDC Collections and Research functions are established, implemented, and sustained.
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To ensure the RMDC’s community engagement, volunteer, and fundraising needs are being met sustainably.
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To oversee the financial sustainability of the RMDC and RHMAA activities.
Board of Trustees
Had some experience with the Museum’s committees or ongoing programs/events and want to help out further? Consider joining the Board of Trustees!
Our next Annual General Meeting is in late November, and we will have a few Trustees finishing up their terms.
What does the Board of Trustees do? Trustees meet every two months to help with governance and strategic guidance for the RMDC Staff. They also review and approve the policy work done at the committee level.
Our Nominating Committee contact is Mike Sloan - you can get in touch with Mike S via email at info@rosslandmuseum.ca or call the museum (250-362-7722) and we can let him know to return your call!
You can also fill out a nomination form (or nominate someone by having them fill out the form) and get that in to Mike S by mid-October 2025.