Do you Love London and want to help shape the conversation about our future?

We are recruiting: Freelance Content Curator

Do you Love London and want to help shape the conversation about our future?

THE LONDON SOCIETY is looking to appoint a freelance Content Curator to? co-ordinate the many threads of activity that the society initiates that help our members and others understand how London is changing and how we can influence the future.

In case you don’t know us, The London Society is for all those who ‘love London’.??

Our members share a curiosity and love of the capital.? They want to engage with debates about the city’s future whilst honouring and cherishing its past. Some are built environment professionals. Most are not. We have over 5,000 people who receive our newsletters, and a further 5,000 that follow The Society on social media.

The history of TLS is useful in understanding where we are going.

The Society was founded in 1912 by a group of eminent Londoners concerned about a lack of planning in the capital. It examined key issues about the future of London - housing, roads, railways, bridges and even airports - all of which are still high on the agenda today.?

Most importantly, the early membership of The London Society included ‘intelligent lay people’ including people from? business, culture, and politics. For example Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridges, saw it as an important forum to which he could contribute to the debate on the capital’s future and became a life member.

The London Society had influence and respect as a ‘place’ where ideas could be formed, debated, and enacted. Many improvements in the capital can be directly attributed to The London Society including the construction of the Rotherhithe Tunnel, the North and South Circular and the establishment of the Green Belt.

The London Society is now a highly respected membership organisation that attempts to bring clarity to built environment issues that affect Londoners and those who love London. Although there are many excellent professional bodies dedicated to these issues,the language they use is often inaccessible to a lay audience. Most professional organisations struggle with this lack of public engagement but lack a mandate or the capacity to address.?

This is where The London Society can make a difference. Our aim is to translate and bring clarity to these topics in a way that is informative and engaging, with a sharper focus to our talks and events so that they chime or align with the concerns of Londoners.?

The Content Curator will bring together our broad range of activities into more joined up conversations. In addition to the events we organise, we engage with our members and a wider audience through our website, social media and email newsletters.

Working with our Director, the Content Creator will ensure that all content (events, talks, blogs, social media posts etc) have TRANSLATION AND CLARITY at their core and appeal to a broad but intelligent and curious audience. It is a broad role, but the intention is for the Society’s output to increase beyond its present levels and for it to have a consistent voice across all of our platforms.?

This will include:

• Ensuring that all our events and content fits into our defined areas of content
• Ensure that content is accessible to the current membership whilst attracting new audiences
• Writing and editing
• Website content
• Email newsletters
• Social media posts
• Commissioning and editing content from members, stakeholders and others
• Liaising with our volunteer book review editor to ensure we are reviewing the widest range of relevant titles

Our defined areas of content fit broadly under the following headings.

• Travel and transport – more broadly how they move efficiently and smoothly around the city.
• Homes and neighbourhoods – good quality, affordable housing in a community where they feel connected
• Health and wellbeing – access to healthcare as well as air quality, access to green spaces
• Safety and crime prevention – how is London built for people to feel safe and how does the built environment impact on reducing social problems that lead to crime
• Leisure – culture, sport, play,? and worship
• The Environment – contributing to better environmental outcomes
• Economy – economic prosperity, skills and opportunities

The ideal candidate will have:

• Knowledge of the built environment
• Be able to communicate ideas to a broad, non-specialist, audience
• Be familiar with the range of communication channels that will reach both a general London and a professional audience
• Have an understanding and proven track record of working across digital and social social media channels
• Be able to work independently whilst collaborating with a remote team.?
• Be happy to work under the budget limitations of a charity but also have ambition and the wherewithal to reach a broader audience.
• Have excellent written skills
• Have extraordinary interpersonal skills – we rely on the generosity of our contributors to give their time and knowledge free of charge but we still need them to hit deadlines!

We envisage that this freelance role will be the equivalent of 2 days a week, which can be worked flexibly (e.g. 3 days one week, one the next) and will pay a day rate of ￡200.

For further information, please contact the Chair, Leanne Tritton on [email protected].?