Storybarn Manager (Operational)

The Storybarn is The Reader's imaginative play space for children and families to share a love of books, imagination and Reading for Pleasure. This role is responsible for overseeing all aspects of Storybarn engagement working with young people from birth to 9 years through family and school programming.

What else can we offer you?

• A chance to personally experience the wellbeing benefits of Shared Reading - we do lots of reading in the workplace and you'll have the opportunity to visit our community groups and train in Shared Reading if you'd like to lead one yourself.
• Generous holiday entitlement.
• Beautiful Head Office location at Calderstones Mansion House, in the middle of Calderstones Park. Here you can benefit from walking meetings in one of Liverpool's largest parks and staff discounts in our caf and ice cream parlour.
• Great colleagues - you'll be working with a whole range of supportive, creative colleagues who bring insight into our digital products and their users.

Job Requirements

• Shares The Reader's beliefs, ethos and values and fosters a genuine willingness to work as part of a team to help The Storybarn evolve and develop in the most exciting and positive ways.
• Have a flexible and innovative approach to adapt, change and grow in a fast moving environment.
• A confident and creative approach to curate and implement a range of engagement products for a mix of audiences.
• Demonstrably able to lead with prior experience in people and/or project management.
• Excellent practical and organisational skills with the ability to work unsupervised and be self-motivated, keen to learn new things.
• Work in an enthusiastic and positive manner, with the flexibility to work weekends on a rota basis.
• Able to work collaboratively with staff at all levels of seniority.
• Excellent knowledge of children's literature or experience of working with children in the charitable sector.
• Confident with finances, spreadsheet, reports, or willing to learn.

Job Responsibilities

• Overseeing the provision of an excellent customer experience through the delivery of high quality Storybarn sessions either on site, off site or virtually with the requirement to deliver sessions on a regular rota basis.
• An awareness of and active commitment to upholding our safeguarding policies and procedures.
• Line management of the Storybarn team (Story hunters). This includes a responsibility to conduct regular one to ones, lead regular full team meetings, provide ongoing training support/coaching/guidance alongside day-to-day operational overview.
• Work closely with the Head of Events and Commercial and Storybarn Creative Manager to develop creative content for The Storybarn, as well as planning and delivering an exciting annual programme of large-scale family events and schools engagement with Reading for Pleasure at the heart.
• Take responsibility for reporting on Storybarn performance and ensuring effective monitoring and evaluation takes place where necessary.

We’re a national charity that wants to bring about a Reading Revolution, so that everyone can experience and enjoy great literature, which we believe is a tool for helping humans survive and live well.

Through a growing movement of 1,000 volunteers and partners, we bring thousands of people together each week to share and discuss great novels, short stories and poems. We call this Shared Reading.