Volunteers

We are always looking for volunteers to help support the society and its aims. Although we do have some key role types in mind, if you are keen to help out we will be able to find something for you to do, whether it's a front-facing role in which you are out and about meeting people or a support role keeping things running from behind the scenes! If you are interested in helping out, please contact us and we can discuss further.

Even if you don't think you are up to a formal role within the society, each and every one of you can help us out simply by telling people about us! Most of you are first- or second-generation Watsons and so undoubtedly have other Watsons in your circles. Many of you no doubt come across other Watsons or name variants in your travels and as you go about your daily lives. Please do spread the word, especially if you come across people with an interest in the name or their personal family history!

Roles

As can been seen from our short-term growth strategy, we are currently looking to build our numbers and underpin this with a more formal structure. At the same time, we are building our website, conducting research and creating Watson-themed items for sale and distribution to our members and representatives. All of this requires effort, and we are now at a point where our ability to grow further is constrained by the time available to our volunteers.

Below, we outline some of the roles that we foresee are required for our next phase of growth. As stated above, if you are willing to volunteer, we will put you to good use, so these roles shouldn't be seen as inflexible. If there's some way in which you think you can contribute that isn't listed here, let us know!

Ambassadors/Conveners

For our society to grow, people need to know about us, and our ambassadors are the ones going out there, finding events, and helping to establish The Clan Watson Society as a brand. For us to be present at events in any official capacity, it is almost always necessary for us to convene a stand. A convener's role is to book the space for the stand, set up the stand using materials we provide and any extras that they bring along and to engage with event attendees, giving information and advice as appropriate and directing people towards our website and social media channels. Post-event, we would appreciate some photos and even a small write-up. We can provide some standard items to set up a stand - see our Convener's Kit page for inspiration!

Regional Commissioners

We are now at a point where we have enough numbers in some regions that we need to start organising into regional chapters. To do this, we need people to volunteer to lead the effort to start up a regional chapter where they live. This will be far more effective than if we try to do it remotely, as we don't know the lie of the land so we won't know the best way to organise things, and we are generally in a different time zone! The key role of a regional commissioner at this stage is to define exactly what their region looks like and to take the lead in communicating with the members in it, ideally with the support of other volunteers. As regional chapters become established, we see a need for dedicated Facebook groups and subareas on the website to support more tailored messaging and activities.

Events Coordinators

We started attending events in the US in 2023 and are attending more in 2024. We'd like to start ramping this up, and to start attending events in other countries. There's only so much organisation we can do centrally, so we need people to start coordinating event attendance in their regions.

We foresee this as having several aspects:

Find events in your region and maintain a calendar, updating timings each year
Find volunteers to act as conveners
Act as our liaison for contacting event coordinators if more details are required
Be responsible for booking our space
Understand what materials are provided and what we need to bring, and ensure that conveners have procured or been supplied with all required materials
Help to publicise our presence at events
Maintain a log of which events we have attended and who represented us
Encourage conveners to provide write-ups and photographs for our newsletters, website and social channels

Merchandise Handlers

I'm sure there's a snappier title for this role, but hopefully this works for now! We currently provide materials to our conveners and are aiming to start producing other items of merchandise. Some of this is produced in the US, some in the UK, and we can currently print out our Watson booklets in Australia. We tend to get discounts and cheaper shipping if we ship stuff in bulk, so we are looking for people who are willing to take shipments of items and send them on to people in their country. This won't be truckloads of stuff - we are merely looking to reduce costs to a point where they don't become prohibitive per item, which typically requires a run of around 6 to 12 items as a minimum. Volunteers will, of course, be compensated for any costs that that incur.

Contributors

We currently put out one issue of our newsletter a year, are slowly building our website, and there are several posts a month on our Facebook group. We'd like to do more of all three, but to do that we need material! We'd love for our members to send in photos of them doing Watson-y stuff (attending events, having family parties, wearing their Watson tartan in front of the Christmas tree), and we'd welcome articles or other written contributions. If you are interested in contributing in any way, please do drop us a line!