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Volunteer with Kawe Mahara
Kawe Mahara has a range of activities suitable for volunteers, many of which involve working from home, online as well as working with collections directly.
- Volunteer Activities
- Schedule of Activities
- Stay In Touch
- Unsubscribe from the Volunteer List
- Index Cards Transcription
Volunteer Activities
Volunteers need not have specific archives, museum or library skills or professional training to become involved as a volunteer. Many of the skills you use in your job or personal activities will be of value to us. We try to find activities that are a good fit with your personal interests.
Volunteer drop-in sessions via Zoom every Thursday
Every Thursday, 7pm-7.30pm
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87514323134?jst=2 (no password, we use waiting room).
Join us for a chat, to get quick feedback or demos on your current activity, or to find out which activities are a good fit with your skills and interests. We tailor the agenda to fit whoever has joined us.
Email board@laganz.org.nz to give us a heads up and receive a Zoom link.
Collection Activities
- Working bees - We often work in groups at National Library to arrange and list new collections so they can be accessed by researchers. You could be working with audio and video tapes, with manuscript papers of groups and individuals, with posters, photos or ephemera. Contact: Roger Swanson.
- Collecting material from queer and takatāpui events and venues. Contact: Roger Swanson.
- Trans & Intersex Archive Recovery Aotearoa (TIARA) working group - A working group who will collect trans and intersex archives in Aotearoa, with a focus on digital collections. "Trans" includes whakawahine, tangata ira tane, tangata ira kore, MVPFAFF+, non-binary, and other diverse gender communities.
Outreach Activities
- Building our queer and talatāpui contacts directory - We are developing a nationwide directory of groups and networks so we can improve our contact with these groups. Your community knowledge and contacts, or your web research and data entry skills could be really useful. Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
- E-newsletters - Contribute content and/or editing/design skills for our irregular newsletters. This can range from interviewing and writing a profile of some recent donors of collections to preparing and formatting our Mailchimp newsletters.Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
- Presence at Big Gay Out, Out in the City and local Pride events - Help us have an effective presence at these events. We always have a presence at Out in the City (Wellington) but would love to have local support people in other centres helping us have a presence around New Zealand. Contact: Roger Swanson.
- Kawe Mahara events - We often need support with organising events for Friends and the wider queer and takatāpui communities. Contact: Roger Swanson.
Website
- Website redevelopment - We have a small working group focusing on options for redeveloping the website and improving its content. Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
Digitisation and the Digital Archive Project
Digitisation is important to enable online database access to the descriptions of items in our collections initially and ultimately to digital versions of collection items. At the moment researchers must visit the Archives in Wellington or ask a curator to search for them in the card catalogue. We are also developing our plans to commission a Digital Archive platform over the next five years.
- Homosexual Law Reform submissions and finding aids digitisation and transcription - We are scanning and correcting OCR'd indexes to the 989 submissions made to Parliament during the campaign of 1985 and 1986 and from July the submissions themselves. This is one way we are marking the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in 1986. Volunteers can correct the OCR'd and AI-generated text or transcribe directly the handwritten submissions in a fun web tool called From the Page at https://fromthepage.com/kawemahara. Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
- Index cards digitisation, transcription and metadata mapping - We have scanned and corrected the OCR'd data from 4838 index cards. After our two week Index Card Transcribathon in July 2021 and successful pilot with Posters Index Cards there is still work to do to map the index card data to our metadata schema. Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
- Digital Archive Project planning and funding - We are developing a digitisation and digital archive strategy for the Archives and will need to seek funding for specific projects or initiatives. Help us to communicate why these initiatives are important and to develop effective funding proposals. Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
- Metadata standards - Join a small working group researching metadata standards for digital and physical collections. We're looking at DCMI Terms and Records in Context, for example, as well as specific controlled vocabularies that can be applied to the metadata describing Kawe Mahara collections and items. This work is critical for our digitisation initiatives. Contact: Gavin Hamilton.
Schedule of Activities
| Date/Time | Description | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Oct and Nov dates TBA, National Library, Wellington, 9.30am-12 Noon | Saturday Working Bees with Collections Volunteer help working directly with some collection items is welcomed at our Saturday working bees. The work will include:
|
Contact Roger at roger.laganz@gmail.com for further information and to express your interest. |
Every Thu, 7pm-7.30pm https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87514323134?jst=2 (no password, we use waiting room). |
Volunteers' Thursday Drop-in Sessions Join us for a chat, to get quick feedback or demos on your current activity, or to find out which activities are a good fit with your skills and interests. We tailor the agenda to fit whoever has joined us. Find out the range of volunteer activities we need help with. These are informal sessions where we try and match up your interests and skills with activities that will help us achieve our goals.
|
Contact Gavin Hamilton at gavin.laganz@gmail.com or 021 0200 7913 to register your interest. Late notice is fine. Txt preferred on the day. Gavin can also make sure we cover your areas of interest in these sessions if you email to introduce yourself in advance. |
| In Person AND Via Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87387438305 (no password, using waiting room) Sat 12 Sep, 10am - 12.30pm Sat 19 Sep, 10am - 12.30pm Sat 3 Oct, 10am - 12.30pm Sat 19 Oct, 10am - 12.30pm |
In Person (including Zoom) Working Bee: Transcribing the Homosexual Law Reform Submissions Join us in person (or drop in from online via Zoom) to find out how to help transcribe and correct the optical character recognition (OCR) and AI-generated text of digitised finding aids using From the Page. The OCR process recognises text and the AI LLM used by From the Page does a great job of recognising text and handwriting, but it is vital that someone checks it all against the original and makes corrections and reformats where needed. Some submissions were handwritten and so will require direct transcription. This is also a great opportunity for volunteers working on transcriptions to check in with the team and get answers to any queries! We will show you how to create a free Transcriber account at From the Page https://fromthepage.com. We welcome questions and discussion about this project, about the Homosexual Law Reform campaign and the activities of the Archives. You can drop in and leave at any point. We will repeat the demos periodically through the session. |
Contact Gavin Hamilton at gavin.kawemahara@gmail.com or 021 0200 7913 to register your interest. |
| Sat 10 Oct, 10am-2pm
Gus Fisher Gallery, Levels 3 & 4, Kenneth Myers Centre, 74 Shortland Street, Auckland |
Drop In Working Bee: Transcribing Homosexual Law Reform Submissions Friends and volunteers in Tāmaki Makaura are very welcome to join us for our volunteer event in Auckland which has been coordinated with our hosts the Gus Fisher Gallery, artist Frances Libeau and the University of Auckland. AS LOYAL KIWIS WE CANNOT DESIRE is a new multimedia installation by Frances Libeau that explores the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986. Drawing on both institutional and personal archival records and technologies, Libeau traces how governmental modes of communication (broadcasts, petitions, written letters) and radical threads of queer life (oral histories, queer organising, physical acts of resistance) served as channels for the dissemination and discussion of cultural rhetoric. You can explore the exhibition from 26 September to 12 December 2026. Find out more about the exhibition. If you are able, please bring a laptop and mouse. We will have some spare laptops and mice; let us know if you would like to reserve one. We will use the wifi at Gus Fisher Gallery and will create a free Transcriber account for you at From the Page https://fromthepage.com/kawemahara. Our demos at intervals during the drop in session will show you how to get started with correcting the optical character recognition (OCR) and AI-generated text of digitised HLR submissions using From the Page. Some submissions were handwritten and might require direct transcription. This is a "Drop in" session, so it's OK to arrive at any time and to stay for as long as you are able. Light refreshments will be provided. We welcome questions and discussion about this project, about the Homosexual Law Reform campaign and the activities of the Archives. Please register at Homosexual Law Reform 40th Anniversary: Submissions Transcription Working Bee at Gus Fisher Gallery. |
Contact Gavin Hamilton at gavin.kawemahara@gmail.com or 021 0200 7913 if you have any queries. |
| TBA - None scheduled | Trans & Intersex Archive Recovery Aotearoa (TIARA) working group The TIARA working group is organising to collect trans and intersex archives in Aotearoa, with a focus on digital collections. “Trans” includes whakawahine, tangata ira tane, tangata ira kore, MVPFAFF+, non-binary, and other diverse gender communities. Being part of the Trans & Intersex Archive Recovery Aotearoa (TIARA) working group involves:
To join TIARA, you:
We are organising into three subgroups: Ethics; Technical and Identification. |
Contact Will Hansen at tiara.kawemahara@gmail.com for the Zoom details, information on the working group and to join in. |
Stay in Touch
We operate one MailChimp list for both Friends and Volunteers. Emails to volunteers however are targeted at those who tag Volunteering as one of their interests in the signup form.
Unsubscribe from the MailChimp Friends and Volunteers List
If you would like to unsubcribe, and be taken off our list of prospective volunteers, please submit your email address at Unsubscribe from the LAGANZ Friends and Volunteers List. Thank you for your contributions to date!
If you'd like to remain a Friend but not be approached about volunteering use the 'Update preferences' link in a recent email from us to remove 'Volunteering' as one of your interests.
Contact a Trustee
Feel free to make personal contact with the Trustee or Curator contacts listed above to find out more about these activities.
- Gavin Hamilton: gavin.kawemahara@gmail.com, +64 21 0200 7913
- Roger Swanson: curators@laganz.org.nz, +64 27 444 3961
Last updated: 12 Sep 2026
Kawe Mahara Queer Archives Aotearoa formerly Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand Te Pūranga Takatāpui o Aotearoa (LAGANZ)
Alexander Turnbull Library, 70 Molesworth St, Wellington 6011
NEW ZEALAND
Curator Tel: +64 4 462 3972 |
Trust Secretary Mob: +64 27 444 3961
curators@laganz.org.nz | facebook.com/kawemahara | instagram.com/kawemahara