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- 06 January 2025 - 09:00amBy
- 06 January 2025 - 09:00amWe are looking for a Festival Administrator and a Social Media & Marketing Assistant to support both the Festival and the Shared Reading Project.
Both roles are offered as freelance contracts from February to 31 December 2025.
If you have the skills for these roles, please read the job description and person specification. Details of how to apply are at the end.
FESTIVAL ADMINISTRATOR
Job Description
Role: To provide administrative support to the Festival team and Trustees in the day-to-day management of Derby Book Festival and its community programmes.
Freelance Contract period/rate: up to a total of 92 days between February – 31 December 2025 at a rate of £100 per day (£9,200 based on 7 hour working day).
Hours: Workload fluctuates across the year due to the Festival work cycle and this means working days each week can vary from 2 – 5 days. An indication of the pattern across the year will be discussed but there is flexibility from month to month. Around the Festival periods (23 May – 1 June and 14 – 18 November) this can mean working every day for a period with some days potentially being from 8am – 10pm. These will be agreed in advance. Generally working hours are 9am – 5pm.
Flexible working is offered with some home working by agreement. Zoom meetings are also used.
Contract Fee: £9,200 (to be invoiced each month based on days worked)
Based at: Derby Book Festival Office, University of Derby, Kedleston Road campus, Derby DE22 1GB.
Responsible to: Festival Director
Outputs:
Administrative support
• Provide day-to-day support to DBF team members as required: Festival Director, Festival Manager, Children & Young People’s Coordinator and Social Media & Marketing Assistant
• Organise and minute Trustees’ and other meetings including distribution of agenda, papers and minutes within 10 working days following meetings
• Support funding applications by managing, collating and inputting data
• Oversee the Festival’s email account (hello@), acknowledge and keep a record of all enquiries
• Oversee key Festival documents, including databases, to ensure compliance with GDPR and to support Festival management
• Support the Social Media & Marketing Officer by uploading information to Festival website, producing simple design as required
• Maintain the stationery requirements of the Festival team including printing stock levels
• Support organisation of events such as Christmas event, Volunteers’ Thank You event, Festival Friends’ event, Derby Reads.
Festival Support
• Support the organisation and management of the Festivals including maintaining Master Programmes, producing and distributing Event Forms and Performance Agreements
• Support the activity related to all authors and interviewers attending events eg liaise with publicists re. obtaining books, travel and accommodation etc.
• Maintain data and produce management reports on Festival events including daily ticket sales, book sales, guest lists, complimentary tickets and produce reports for Trustees
• Production, preparation & transportation of support materials for Festival events eg. price lists, event slides, evaluation packs, kit boxes, pop up banners, sail flags, A boards, badges, t-shirts, tote bags for volunteers
• Organise the Book Fairs including communication with stall holders, liaising with venues, invoicing
• Support Festival Manager with organisation of volunteers’ rota for Festivals
• Liaise with sponsors to organise tickets and banners for their events
• Support catered events with dietary requirements and table plans and liaise with venues.
IT support and database management
Set up and maintain files, databases, spreadsheets and Mailing lists (in Excel and Google Drive) to comply with GDPR for the following key areas:
• Sponsorship inc logos and details
• Partners and Venues’ contacts
• Venue & ticketing costs/income split
• Authors and Publicists
• Distribution/marketing
• Media
• Marketing (Mailchimp - eshot)
• Book Fair
• Distribution of programmes
Finance support
• Support the Festival Manager with preparation of invoices and chasing payment
• Manage ticket sales info sold through DBF website on a daily basis and produce weekly sales reports
• Working with the Festival Manager to order books and arrange deliveries and returns before and after Festivals
Person Specification
Essential Skills, Knowledge and Experience
• At least two years’ experience of managing administrative systems for a project or organisation
• Excellent understanding of using and managing a range of software including Microsoft Word and Excel, Google Drive and support staff in their use
• Excellent organisational skills and ability to review and manage filing systems
• Working experience of confidentiality and the principles of GDPR in handling personal data.
• The ability to work in a fast-moving, stressful environment from time to time
Essential Qualities
• A warm, calm and clear thinking mind and manner
• Excellent people and communication skills
• The ability to meet deadlines and remain calm under pressure
• Resourceful with the ability to work as part of a team or on own initiative as the situation requires
• Ability to work co-operatively and respectfully with a range of people and stakeholders
Desirable Skills, Knowledge and Experience
• A passion for books and reading
• Experience of using Mailchimp, Canva, website software, Hootsuite, Google Drive, Google Analytics
• Good knowledge of Derby city and surrounding area.
Other requirements
• Ability to lift some heavy objects such as boxes of books and stock
• Flexibility to work at the DBF team base and at home (as agreed)
• A current, clean GB driving licence.
SOCIAL MEDIA & MARKETING ASSISTANT
Job Description
Role: To support the marketing functions of Derby Book Festival and the Festival's community projects, including social media, website, marketing and evaluation of Festival events and projects.
Freelance Contract period: up to a total of 90 days between February – 31 December 2025 at a rate of £105 per day (based on 7 hour working day).
In addition, this role will also provide marketing support for the Shared Reading project for two days each month (total of 24 days) at £105 per day. This role would therefore be for a total of 114 days. You will be required to invoice for Shared Reading separately to other Festival work.
Hours: Workload fluctuates across the year due to the Festival work cycle and this means the allocation of working days each week can vary from 2 – 5 days – an indication of the pattern across the year will be discussed at the start of the project, but there is flexibility from month to month. Around the Festival periods (23 May – 1 June and 14 – 18 November) this can mean working every day for a period with some days potentially being from 8am – 10pm. Generally working hours are 9am – 5pm.
Flexible working is offered with some home working by agreement. Zoom meetings are also used.
Contract Fee: £9,450 (to be invoiced each month based on days worked) for Festival plus £2,520 for Shared Reading.
Based at: Derby Book Festival Office, University of Derby, Kedleston Road campus, Derby DE22 1GB.
Responsible to: Festival Director and Strategic Lead, Shared Reading
Outputs:
Social Media
• Plan and draft regular social media posts throughout the year in Hootsuite for X, Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram
• Create content using Canva to promote Shared Reading groups
• Review and advise on the development of other social media channels for the Festival to reach new audiences eg. Tik Tok, BlueSky, Threads
• Produce a social media strategy and plan for each Festival including competitions/ advertising, live posting at events, production of videos/interviews with authors
• Follow, engage and tag all Festival authors, sponsors, partners and stakeholders to encourage their support of Festival and those associated with the community projects such as Shared Reading venues and partners
• Respond to social media comments and messages (contentious ones in agreement with Festival Director)
• Monitor social media activity and produce monthly analysis reports on for staff and Trustees to inform future activity
• Be responsible for listing both Festival and Shared Reading events on Facebook to reach wider audiences
Marketing
• Draft copy and produce simple design work for marketing collateral including fliers, posters, website, eshots, blog posts and press releases
• Produce videos to market the Festival, including interviews with authors
• Organise distribution of all marketing collateral to venues and sites in city and county, identifying new sites eg. Fliers, programmes, posters, bookmarks and manage stock levels
• Research Festival authors and books to produce media stories and social media posts
• Organise recruitment campaigns for Shared Reading volunteers and participants for groups linking in with your social media work
• Liaise with local media to promote the Festival and community programmes eg. set up author interviews and features and highlight Shared Reading groups
• Monitor daily ticket sales in the lead up to the Festivals (6 week period) to identify events which need additional marketing and plan response
• Liaise with designers to produce marketing materials eg. pop up banners, Festival brochures, Shared Reading marketing
• Liaise with sponsors to arrange collection of banners etc for their events and ensure delivery at venue/s
• Identify and support any bloggers attending the Festival
• Gather data and information from partner organisations on marketing activity to inform final Marketing Report and ACE evaluation
• Produce final Marketing Report gathering data from partner venues and analyse social media, website and media activity.
Marketing support
• Maintain databases, spreadsheets and Mailing lists (in Excel, Mailchimp and Google Drive) for the following key areas:
• Distribution of marketing materials
• Media distribution
• Marketing (e-shots – general, Festival Friends, families)
• Oversee the Festival’s photo files and folders (Dropbox)
• Support the Strategic Lead of Shared Reading with the organisation of marketing materials on Google Drive
• Support the analysis of Audience Agency data on events to inform future marketing
• Support Festival and community events as required by Festival Director and Manager
Evaluation
Organise the evaluation of Festival events on and offline by: preparing evaluation questions with Festival Director and Manager using Survey Monkey
• uploading/testing online form
• producing questionnaires for each Festival event to be carried out face-to-face by volunteers
• producing Evaluation packs for Lead Volunteers for each event
Analysis of Festival evaluation
• input evaluation data online from completed questionnaires
• produce evaluation analysis report from Survey Monkey
• draw conclusions from the report and make recommendations.
Website
• Upload event details to Festival website for launch date (early April and mid September) and update accordingly
• Upload Shared Reading event details to the website and update the Shared Reading webpage at the end of every quarter with the new group dates and information
• Research events listings websites and upload Festival details to support marketing e.g. Writing East Midlands, Net Mums, Mumsnet, Cathedral Quarter, Arts Derbyshire, Love Derbyshire
• Provide promotional information to other partners and sponsors e.g. Arts Council, Déda, Visit Derby, Derby LIVE, QUAD, to enable them to support the marketing of the Festival through their channels
• Keep online events information up to date eg. sold out, cancelled
• Archive events each day during Festival
• Monitor and produce monthly analysis of website activity and post Festivals.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
The Social Media & Marketing Assistant should have a keen interest in the arts world with a passion for books and reading. They should have practical experience of using a range of online channels and software and creative ideas about the marketing of the Festival which they can turn into exciting and engaging copy and social media posts.
Experience, Personal Skills and Attributes
Essential criteria
• Experience of online and offline marketing of events
• Experience of regularly using social media platforms, such as Hootsuite to schedule posts eg. X, Facebook, Instagram
• Excellent IT and Admin skills (Microsoft Office inc. Excel, Hootsuite, PPT etc)
• Experience of using Canva for design purposes
• Experience of analysing website and social media data to inform activity
• Ability to work flexibly as required - from home, office, venues
• Provision of own laptop and mobile phone
• Excellent English language and grammar skills including GCSE English at Grade C or above
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work as part of a team and without close supervision
• Ability to work under pressure and must be able to meet deadlines, particularly around Festival periods
• Ability to lift, carry and erect equipment eg. boxes of leaflets/programmes, erect sail flags etc
• Ability to drive and own a full, clean driving licence and access to use of a car during the freelance period.
Desirable criteria
• Good knowledge and understanding of Derby area
• Experience of using design packages eg. Indesign and Photoshop to produce simple marketing collateral
• Experience of using image manipulation/photo and video editing software eg. iMovie, Premier Pro, Final Cut Pro or something similar
• Experience of video uploading and streaming eg Facebook Live, Instagram Reels and Youtube
• Experience of conducting market research
• Experience of and excellent skills in copywriting for marketing channels
• Experience of using Mailchimp to produce e-communications
• Experience of events management.
How to Apply:
For each job, please send a CV and covering letter, explaining how your skills and experience meet the Job Description and Person Specification, to:
sian@derbybookfestival.co.uk or by post to Derby Book Festival, 13 Lavender Row, Derby, DE22 1DF.
Deadline for applications: 5pm, Monday 20 January 2025
If you are invited for an interview, you will be informed by Tuesday 28 January 2025.
Interviews will take place on Tuesday 4 February 2025.
If you have any questions about the role, please contact Sian Hoyle, Festival Director by email: sian@derbybookfestival.co.uk
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