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Work with Us

At Rural Arts, we’re a friendly team dedicated to enriching lives and connecting communities through inspiring and inclusive creative opportunities.

Working across 3,500 square miles of England’s largest county, our vision is creativity in every community in North Yorkshire.

Through our work, our actions and our operations we strive to live our values: to be inclusive, passionate, enriching, innovative and ambitious.

We currently have two vacancies. Find out more below!

1) Board of Trustees

Trustees are integral to making sure charities run smoothly and achieve their goals. Being a Trustee is a legal responsibility as well as a great way to support a cause you’re passionate about.

For more general information about being a Trustee, click here. You will also receive a more comprehensive list of roles and responsibilities before joining as a Trustee.

Trustees at Rural Arts serve a term of three years. They may be re-appointed for a second term of up to three years. During the course of their term, trustees are invited to take on specific roles on the Board, which currently include Chair, Deputy Chair, Treasurer, and Board Champions for the four ACE Investment Principles. Additionally, trustees are also expected to be a member of a sub-committee of the Board. Our sub-committees are: Finance; Artistic Planning; and Personnel & Succession Planning.

The Board of Trustees Recruitment Pack can be found here.
 
We hope this pack gives you all the information you need. If you have any questions, please email our CEO Ian Read (ian@ruralarts. org) or call 01845 526 536.
 

We look forward to receiving your application, which we’re asking you to submit by 09.00am on Monday 16th October 2023.

2) Part-Time Café Assistants

Are you a friendly, helpful, polite individual who takes pride in providing excellent customer service?

We are seeking Café Assistants to join our Rural Arts Team in the daily running of our busy Courthouse Café in our lively arts centre in Thirsk.
 
Experience in food preparation, baking, and food service is desirable. You’ll be able to use initiative to deliver a great customer experience while maintaining high standards of cleanliness and hygiene. Part-time hours are available, between Tuesday and Saturday, daily hours to be discussed. 
 
Full training will be given, meals provided on shift and staff discount.
 

Salary: National Living Wage.

If this sounds like you and you are interested in applying, please call in with CV, or email ellie@ruralarts.org
or call us on 01845 526 536

 

There are lots of other ways you can get involved with Rural Arts – check them out below!

And be sure to watch this space, and follow us on social media or sign up to our newsletter for regular updates

We love volunteers! You can find out more by visiting our dedicated volunteering page by clicking here.

Every year, we welcome work experience students through formal placements via their secondary school. If you are interested in doing your work experience with Rural Arts, contact Ellie Stephenson (Operations Coordinator) on ellie@ruralarts.org or 01845 526 536.

If you are required to complete a study placement for your further or higher education course, and would like to discuss doing this with Rural Arts, please send details of your requirements and interests to admin@ruralarts.org

You might also want to check out our page on volunteering with Rural Arts by clicking here.

Yes! One of Rural Arts’ seven aims is to train and retain creative talent in North Yorkshire, and internships are a really important part of how we do that. In fact, over half of our current staff team joined the organisation through some form of internship or trainee position.

Rural Arts pays all of its interns. Whilst this ensures everyone is fairly treated, and that our interns benefit from real growth and learning experiences, it does mean that we don’t have the funds to run a rolling internship programme.

Any open opportunities will be advertised here on our website, and you can follow us on social media to be the first to know of any opportunities!

You might also want to check out our page on volunteering with Rural Arts by clicking here.

 

You can find out all about how to get involved with Rural Arts as a performer / company by clicking here. This includes information our our timelines, the type of work we programme and how it works to receive bookings from our volunteer promoters.

Our shop features work from over 60 wonderful designer-makers but we’re always on the lookout for exciting new products.

We currently stock a diverse range of ceramics, jewellery, glass, textiles, prints, papier-mâché and much more.

The majority of work we stock is on a sale or return basis. When sales are made, we give 60% of the retail price to the artist and retain 40% as commission. Please take this into consideration when pricing your work.

If you’re interested in selling your work with us please email Ellie Stephenson, Operations Coordinator, ellie@ruralarts.org

We love hearing from new artists who want to run workshops with us! This could be for adults or young people. We also look out for people with specialist skills, both technically but also in terms of working with particular communities. 

To find out more, send an email to Julian Hartley, Senior Creative Producer (Visual Arts), julian@ruralarts.org, detailing:

  • what type of workshops you can offer (both in terms of artistic form – e.g. ceramics, printmaking – and for what audience, whether these are one-off or courses etc. 
  • what you require (including your fees)

We support independent artists and designer-makers from across Yorkshire and beyond. There are three main ways you could get involved:

  • Sell your work in our artisan shop – see FAQ above
  • Be part of our ‘Café Collection‘, which showcases a different artist each month on the walls of our award-winning cafe
  • Through our programme of professional and community exhibitions hosted in The Courtroom

To enquire about any of the three above opportunities, please contact Julian Hartley, Senior Creative Producer (Visual Arts) on julian@ruralarts.org.