Volunteer Treasurer

Volunteer Treasurer

Ngaio Marsh House & Heritage Trust | Christchurch
Approximately 3-5 hours per month

Love numbers and looking for a meaningful way to put your skills to good use?

The Ngaio Marsh House & Heritage Trust is looking for a Volunteer Treasurer to help us look after the financial side of preserving one of Christchurch's remarkable cultural treasures.

Dame Ngaio Marsh was one of the great crime writers of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, as well as an influential theatre director and artist. Her Cashmere home has been preserved much as she left it and today provides a fascinating window into her life, work and legacy.

We're a small charitable trust with big ambitions for the future, and we're looking for someone who can help us keep our finances organised, transparent and on track.

What you'll be doing

Working alongside our Trustees and other volunteers, you'll take responsibility for the Trust's day-to-day financial administration and reporting, including:

• Preparing regular financial reports for the Board
• Managing the payment and recording of invoices and other transactions
• Assisting with financial documentation and reporting for grants and funders
• Helping prepare and maintain the Trust's annual budget
• Supporting good financial processes, record-keeping and accountability
• Providing practical financial insight to help the Trust make sound decisions

The role generally requires around 3-5 hours per month, with a few additional hours required around annual reporting and budgeting time.

Who we're looking for

You don't need to have spent decades in senior finance, and you don't need previous governance experience.

We're interested in hearing from people at any stage of their career who have suitable accounting or financial knowledge and are comfortable taking responsibility for the Trust's financial records and reporting.

You might be:

• An accountant or finance professional looking for a meaningful volunteer role
• Early or mid-career and wanting to broaden your experience beyond your day job
• An experienced professional looking to contribute your skills to the arts and heritage sector
• Retired or semi-retired and looking for an interesting, manageable way to stay involved
• Someone wanting practical exposure to charity finance, budgeting, grant reporting or working with a Board

We're particularly looking for someone who is reliable, organised, comfortable with numbers and willing to ask questions when something doesn't look right.

An interest in literature, theatre, art, history, heritage, gardens, social history or the story of Dame Ngaio Marsh would be wonderful, but you certainly don't need to arrive as a Ngaio Marsh expert.

Interested in governance too?

This is a volunteer Treasurer position and does not require you to become a Trustee.

However, if you're interested in developing governance experience—or you're an experienced governor looking to contribute at Board level—there may also be an opportunity to become a Trustee in the future.

This is entirely optional. We're equally happy to welcome someone who simply wants to be our Treasurer and do that role well.

What you'll gain

Alongside the satisfaction of helping preserve an important part of Christchurch's cultural heritage, the role offers an opportunity to:

• Gain hands-on experience in charity and not-for-profit finance
• Work directly with a charitable Board
• Build experience in budgeting, financial reporting and grant accountability
• Develop your professional network within Christchurch's heritage and volunteer communities
• Gain governance exposure if that is something you'd like to explore
• Make a tangible contribution without an enormous time commitment

You'll also become part of the community of people helping ensure Dame Ngaio Marsh's remarkable home and legacy are preserved for future generations.

For practical reasons, we would prefer someone based in Christchurch or the wider Canterbury area, but we can review this on a case by case basis.         

Please send us your CV and a few sentences telling us a little about your financial experience and why the role interests you to [email protected]

Not sure whether you tick every box? We'd still encourage you to get in touch. We're much more interested in finding the right person than the perfect CV.

If you'd like an informal conversation about the role before applying, we'd be very happy to hear from you.