The rail heritage community has a history of informal, sharing of skills and knowledge. Building on this the Office of Rail Heritage has engaged Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) to work directly with the rail heritage groups in a 12 month pilot skills transfer project.

The pilot includes:

Skills register of practitioners and experts with heritage rail skills which will be made available on the website. This makes it possible for interested volunteers to find individuals skilled in specific techniques that may help them in their conservation work.

Capacity Building and Knowledge Sharing - Skills Audit

The CVA partnership will coordinate a volunteer skills audit. This will result in a Skills Register.

CVA will also examine how groups recruit, manage and retain volunteers. Follow-up options include a program of training and assistance to groups interested in developing better volunteer management systems, such as the nationally accredited "In Safe Hands" system which provides a readily implemented approach to risk management for volunteer groups.

Fast Track Heritage Teams

Fast Track Heritage projects bring together a team of specially recruited volunteers for up to one week to deliver a concentrated work program nominated by a rail heritage group. The work undertaken is generally unskilled but labour intensive, so that skilled regular volunteers can continue to do the more pressing conservation tasks that require specialist knowledge.

Rail Reserve Teams

Rail Reserve recruits volunteers for longer-term volunteering opportunities typically up to six months - to work in small teams of two to five volunteers for two days per week. Rail Reserve projects are supervised by a volunteer from the host group, who is trained in the skills needed for the task. Suitable projects include cataloguing a collection of small objects, cleaning and sorting stored items, or preparing items for public exhibition.

The outcomes anticipated from the pilot are:

• Core heritage assets are conserved and maintained, now and in the future
  
• Critical heritage skills are available when needed
  
• More people in the community are engaged in knowledge sharing
  

Cataloguing Workshops

Cataloguing is an important part of conservation for all organisations. Not only will it allow you to understand what you have in your collections, it can help you develop ways to conserve it for future generations.

In February of this year, the Office of Rail Heritage facilitated two cataloguing workshops in both Sydney and Wagga Wagga. To help you further your cataloguing journey and build on the knowledge you have acquired from these sessions, links to suppliers

State Library of Victoria –
Suppliers of conservation material & equipment
www.slv.vic.gov.au/services/conservation/guides/suppliers.html ,

Tyvek Tags
www.preservationaustralia.com.au/products/range/tags-labels/tags-tyvek

the Powerhouse Museum's online thesaurus www.powerhousemuseum.com/pdf/publications/phm-thesaurus-sept09.pdf

as well as an example of an accession register have been provided.