Volunteering with the BOU
As a not-for-profit charity, the BOU is reliant on its members and supporters to help us deliver much of what we do.
BOU committees
Most of our volunteers sit on one of our committees. These groups oversee key BOU activities, developing and delivering projects, conferences and other activities. In total, around 50 people serve on our committees annually.
We have six committees for which we annually seek nominations from our membership:
Awards Nominations Committee
Engagement Committee
IBIS Management Committee
Grants Committee
Meetings Committee
Records Committee (BOURC)
Members can self nominate for a position on one of our committees. Please see the individual committees above for details.
BOU Council
Our Council is an elected body of members who, as Trustees of the BOU, are legally responsible for everything we do. Our committees and staff report to our Council on all key activities.
Conference Scientific Programme Committees
The Meetings Committee usually appoints an individual to Chair the Scientific Programme Committee for each event. The Chair then recruits additional volunteers to help plan and promote the scientific content of each event.
We are always open to people volunteering conference/meeting topic suggestions and to take on the responsibility of Chairing the Scientific Programme Committee. If you would like discuss this, please contact either the Chair of Meetings Committee or Chief Operations Officer (details on the Meetings Committee page above).
In-person conference volunteers
We usually recruit one or two volunteers for each conference to run the audio-visual/front of house and registration desk. See individual conferences listed on our conference pages for details if/when we are seeking volunteers for any event, or contact the BOU Office.
Virtual conference volunteers
We run two types of virtual conferencing – Twitter events and Zoom conferences. We rely on volunteers for each of these to help chair sessions, run the behind the scenes admin and tech, and so on. See individual events listed on our conference pages for details if/when we are seeking volunteers for any event, or contact the BOU Office.