Join ABRSM as a volunteer
If you’re a musician or music-lover, have you thought of joining our network of volunteers without whom the running of ABRSM’s exams would be impossible?
They’re known as Honorary Local Representatives (HLRs) in the UK & Ireland, and number over 200. They help to make sure that our exams run smoothly and provide a network of support for local teachers and their students.
Representatives have been part of the fabric of ABRSM since its inception in 1889 and played an important part in ensuring the integrity of ‘local’ exams when they were first introduced. For this reason, in the earliest days they weren’t allowed to be musicians (this is no longer the case) and a list of the founding representatives reveals a range of volunteers from a lieutenant general in Cheltenham and a rector in Aberdeen to a justice of the peace from Derby.
What we look for
So what qualities and skills do you need as a representative?
You should enjoy working with young people, have plenty of patience, good organisational skills and tremendous diplomacy. As a representative, you’ll deal with the ordinary to the bizarre, from flat tyres and late candidates to noisy neighbours, forgotten music and occasional examiners locked in toilets!
You also need unfailing patience and the ability to keep calm under pressure. We want to ensure the conditions are right for each candidate and that their experience of the exam is positive.
Benefits you’ll enjoy
As an HLR, you’re assured of full support from staff at our London office and are kept up to date through webinars and annual seminars which we host in venues in London and across the UK. You also receive discounts on our publications and free or discounted places on our courses.
A more unusual benefit for Helen (and one we can’t guarantee!) was the invitation by one of the examiners at her centre to sing Elgar’s Sea Pictures with his orchestra in London.
“It was such a wonderful and unexpected opportunity,” Helen reminisces, adding that it “really encouraged me to pursue my singing!”
To apply for this job please visit gb.abrsm.org.