Volunteer

Volunteers:

The ‘Many Hands Department’...

We welcome involvement, contribution and commitment in whatever way you are able. Possibilities range from working with instruments through office tasks, publicity/promotion and other ‘behind the scenes’ input.

(Note: proximity to Stirling may be essential for some roles, but not all. If you have skill and experience you would like to offer, please get in touch.)

No-one can do everything!

And, to be sure, none of us who are part of the MILL knows everything about everything that needs to be done. We do our best to keep up, but good help is always welcome.

When the MILL opened in 2019, we had a small number of instruments and a few folk (most fairly local to Stirling) who borrowed them. Five years on, we have 400 instruments plus accessories and gear, music and instructional materials; the MILL has made thousands of instrument loans to hundreds of Patrons across the many communities we serve.

We now have 10 different locations to access instrument loans. Demographics require a unique approach to assure we can serve rural residents, villages, small towns and urban centres alike.

Here are some areas where the MILL could use more specialized assistance:

Electric Guitars, FX and Gear

If electric guitars, FX, amps and pedals are really your thing, something you know and love, have played and teched for yourself... We’d love to have you come visit and spend a while with some of ours.

We could use a hand to help keep the MILL’s collection of electric instruments up on line and working their best. The MILL has over 30 electric guitars, an electric mandolin plus multitudinous FX pedals, amps and other gear. Not exactly a ‘Keef Richards’ size collection, but quite a lot to look after, especially with the frequent wearing/tearing of going out-on-loan and back.

Brass/Woodwinds

Only one of our MILL Staff, a high-school volunteer, has playing experience with a woodwind instrument. And, although our staff have learned a bit about service and maintenance of brass and woodwinds over the years, it’s different when you don’t actually play the instrument yourself... We have access to excellent (paid) professional tech support, but this costs dollars it is sometimes hard to spare. The MILL would welcome volunteer assistance from someone knowledgeable to help keep our brass and woodwind collection in top condition.

Drum Tech

Drum sets... Yes, we have them; quite a few, actually. And several partial sets (kind of ‘in process’), a number of ‘lonely’ drums, plus spare drum shells, spare drum skins and a colossal collection of assorted drum hardware. What we don’t have is a volunteer who loves drums, and has the time and interest to help us maintain and care for it all. We do the best we can but, for sure, our drum collection could use a little more love.

Orchestral Strings

The MILL is extremely fortunate to have volunteer assistance from an experienced professional luthier (Bruce West Instruments) to help maintain our orchestral string instruments. Even so, we have rather a lot of them and, like everything else in a library loan program, they are not immune to wear and tear, let alone accident or misadventure.

We could really use a regular volunteer who has an affinity and some experience of basic care for these instruments to help us out at the MILL with regular TLC for violins, violas and cellos. A little bit of love is important to keep our instruments in good playing condition.

Data Entry

We will be needing a couple of reliable folk for data entry as the MILL prepares to switch over to the new Library Operating System we are preparing. The new Library System/Software (LS) will allow direct access from each of our Public Library partners and support ‘diversity’, multiple locations where instruments can be housed and directly available for MILL Patrons to borrow in those Partner Libraries. Exciting...!