Development Phase Activity Planner - Didcot Railway Centre
Posted 1 day 16 hours ago by Aim Museums
Job Title: Activity Planning Consultant
Salary: The budget for the Activity Plan is circa £25,000 excluding VAT but including all expenses.
Terms: Freelance consultant
Location: Great Western Society, Didcot Railway Centre, Didcot, OX11 7NJ.
The Great Western Society (GWS) is seeking to appoint an experienced Activity Planner to help secure the Delivery Phase National Lottery Heritage Fund (Heritage Fund) application for Didcot's Historic Engine Shed project. This brief sets out the requirements for the commissioning of an Activity Planning Consultant.
The consultant will work closely with the GWS client and professional services team (project managers, design team, interpretation and evaluation consultants) to deliver the Development Phase.
Background
The focus of the Heritage Fund project is to:
- Restore and repair the Engine Shed roof, windows, doors, walls and floor
- Install solar panels and rainwater harvesting
- Provide light touch interpretation in the body of the Shed to retain its authenticity
- Create fuller interpretation in side rooms to explain the work of the maintenance and train crews, past and present
- Deliver a range of activities designed to engage core and priority audiences with the building, objects and stories
- Signpost people to explore the rest of the site
- Doubling our visitor and participant numbers to 80,000 per annum, improving our sustainability.
The overall project will cost £5.8 million with an anticipated opening in the Summer 2028. The development phase of the project is expected to last from Summer 2025 until May 2026.
The scope of the work
The Activity Plan will cover community engagement, formal and informal learning, volunteering and training and will be written in accordance with the National Lottery Heritage Fund's Activity Planning Good Practice Guidelines (2024).
In undertaking the preparation of the Activity Plan the successful consultant will:
- review existing activities and documents including our existing Outline Activity Plan.
- undertake consultation with stakeholders to ascertain the context and aspirations for the project.
- undertake a market assessment of potential audiences.
- research comparator organisations to learn from best practice.
- undertake consultation with potential partners who may help to deliver the programme.
- undertake consultation with the community (organisations and individuals).
- undertake consultation with the formal learning sector (schools, FE and HE).
- deliver a range of pilot projects to test the ideas in the Outline Activity Plan
- write an Activity Plan that draws together all the research and makes a cogent argument for priority audiences and the activity programme.
- produce a fully costed action plan as part of the Activity Plan.
- produce a Volunteering Plan and Training Plan for the project.
- attend the Heritage Fund Mid-Term Review
- produce regular progress reports and attend at least two Project Board meetings at key milestones.
Tenders must be submitted by no later than 18 August 2025 via email or WeTransfer or other file sharing system to Jason Lowe, and the email subject title to state "DRC: Activity Planner".