Community & Participation Manager

This highly strategic role will play an important part within the portfolio’s Leadership Team, supporting the General Manager at Formby with all aspects of community engagement and participation. 

You'll play a fundamental part in supporting the Formby and Lunt Projects. You’ll do this by sharing key messages and information at the right time in the right way to keep key community stakeholders and everyone who loves to visit locally involved and engaged in what’s happening. As well as ensuring our onsite team are fully engaged and involved in both the project and work we do with the local community.

Hours: Full time 37.5 hours per week. Some of our busiest days are at weekends and on Bank Holidays, so all staff are expected to take part in a regular weekend and Bank Holiday working.

Salary: £30,996p. This salary will be applicable from 1st April 2024

Contract: Fixed term for 20 months, this may be extended

Face to face interviews: 8th April (TBC)

If you have any questions about this role please contact: Vicky.Blane@nationaltrust.org.uk

With dramatic sand dunes, glorious beach and coastal pinewoods, Formby is an ever-changing landscape. Home to red squirrels and prehistoric footprints, there are many coastal walks which bring visitors to the area, year round.

Formby’s shifting sands create ever-changing dunes sculpted by the wind and squeezed by surging tides. Sea views over Liverpool Bay to the hills of North Wales can be enjoyed from the windy sandy beaches. Footprint trails 5000 years old sometimes reappear as the sea erodes ancient mudflats. Pinewood walks with red squirrels lead to open fields and the Formby Asparagus trail. Formby is the place for simple pleasures of a family day out, for healthy exercise, fresh air and relaxation, and for a seaside picnic in the perfect spot.

At the heart of everything we do on site is conservation and visitor experience – to look after these special places for ever, for everyone. We must ensure we keep everyone informed and able to participate in the decisions we ultimately make regarding the property’s future. This is where you come in.

You’ll use your strong people skills to establish good working relationships with property colleagues, as well as continuing to forge great relationships with our partners and communities across the Sefton Coast.

Any visitor coming to a site linked with the National Trust expects a great experience, and you will help to ensure that we don’t disappoint. You will develop and lead on all community related strategic aims and plans, with the support of our Operations Manager and the Senior Programming and Partnerships Officer.

It’s a significant role within a busy portfolio, focussing on a major Coastal property (Formby) delivering key projects so we will need someone who can take on a challenge. You will support our Project Managers, offering expertise in participation and community engagement, and play a key role within the property team to further develop and enhance engagement opportunities for local people.

Extensive experience of relationship management, plus the ability to plan for and manage how we communicate and collaborate with those around us about the varied issues that arise at Formby, will be a must. You’ll lead in development of our staff and volunteer team’s confidence and capability in these key strategic areas. Understanding how we discuss, inform and engage about the strategic aims we have for both that and the project going forwards will also be integral to the role you’ll play within our fantastic team.

Our sites are busy and varied. Our friendly, outgoing teams are passionate about the work we do to conserve these special places and to share the stories with a wide range of visitors. We’re looking for people to work with us who are enthusiastic, flexible, adaptable, enjoy variety and are full team players. (As we have relatively small teams on site, everyone helps each other out.)

To succeed in this role ideally you'll have:

• extensive experience of relationship management
• strong people skills to establish good working relationships with colleagues, partners and communities
• the ability to plan for and manage how we communicate and collaborate with those around us 
• experience in developing staff and volunteer team’s confidence and capability
• experience with informing and engaging with strategic aims.