An update from Kate Mavor

An overview of our work and achievements.

As you receive this issue, many of you will be busy preparing to bring history to life for the peak summer season. Thank you for the crucial support you give – your time, enthusiasm and dedication makes all the difference to our work.

Improving the volunteer experience

You can read more about our plans to grow and improve volunteering on pages 14–15. Our plans are based on the feedback you give us – so thank you to everyone who completed the recent people survey in March. We’ll be sharing results with teams shortly and working to improve those areas that you told us we could do better.

Highlights for 2023/24

At the end of February, the Senior Management Team set out the priorities and projects for this financial year, which is the second year of our three-year Strategic Plan – you can read the plan and watch the presentation on Fuse. With your support, we’re continuing to provide people from all backgrounds with inspiring and enjoyable opportunities to explore England’s past. Recent projects include the re-opening of Richborough Roman Fort in Kent with its new museum, refurbished visitor centre and improved accessibility and interpretation, while at Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, exciting new interpretation is helping visitors explore the castle through the stories of its historic residents.

Across the country, we’re expanding our schools offer by developing new curriculum-linked Discovery Visits and Free Education

Visits – read more on pages 8–11. We’re also developing programmes to involve a wider range of people at our paid and free-to-enter sites, helping to ensure that the nation’s heritage continues to play a vital and positive role in our communities.

New beginnings

On a personal note, my journey with English Heritage is very shortly coming to an end as I’m leaving to take up a new role as Master of St Cross College, Oxford University. I’m incredibly proud of all that we’ve achieved in the last eight years and have loved leading English Heritage – especially working with such passionate and dedicated people. I’ll miss you all greatly.

It’s now time to give others an opportunity to make their mark. The charity has a new Chair, Gerard Lemos CMG, who has given an interview to Volunteer Focus on pages 30–32, and Mark Stuart-Smith, our Chief Financial Officer, will be interim Chief Executive while the recruitment process for the permanent position is underway. I’m pleased to be leaving the charity in such a strong position and in such capable hands. Thank you, for the final time in this magazine, for your support, and I send you all good wishes for the future. ■

Get Involved

To find out about current volunteer opportunities across the country, go to www.english-heritage.org.uk/volunteer