Become a Volunteer
The Tacoma Preservation Society is a not-for-profit incorporated organisation. We depend on volunteers to keep the vessel sea worthy. If you believe you have something to contribute to the future of the preservation of the MFV Tacoma – what are you waiting for! We’d be delighted to hear from you.
The Tacoma Preservation Society is a group of people made up of volunteer members. It is their work that is seen when taking a trip aboard MFV TACOMA. There are three dinghies in the Society, but that is just the boats: Tacoma has an extensive archive collection as well as a shed full of very ‘interesting’ things .
Could you be one of them?
You might be anywhere – up the crows nest, painting, at sea looking for tuna, cataloguing photographs, cleaning the bilges, guiding visitors, answering the phone, compiling statistics, writing editorial, organising an outing, counting nuts and bolts, making a film, crewing or maintaining one of the heritage vessels, or you might be involved in maintenance or restoration – one of the never-ending jobs for which we are famous!
As you can guess, restoration involves welding, sheet metal work, painting, fibre glassing, wood-working skills and so on.
What you might not realise is that we can teach you many of these skills and activities within the team.
Our historic fleet also needs special skills like shipwrights engineering, which is almost extinct - we aim to keep them alive on our vessels by passing them on to others.
Besides these specialist skills, we also need plain ordinary jobs done; keeping things shipshape, for instance, keeping the ‘head’ clean and fresh, painting and scraping, ‘rustbusting’, general tender loving care of the vessels and artefacts entrusted to us. Then there is hosing down the bird poo, putting up flags, hosting groups including school groups, local visitor tours, charity days, even the odd pirate outing - its a wonderful mix.
Web page and computer skills are immediately placed at the head of the table, ie most welcome!
All this fervent activity is usually washed down with the odd cup or tea or coffee over morning smoko (no smoking onboard). As the day heads to dusk, or over a debrief after an outing, a more appropriate cold beverage appears. It all goes to make up a happy ship and a great group of people with a common cause, having fun - mind you the bilge cleaning stretches that narrative.....
We encourage all our volunteers to complete a Tafe supplied “Elements of Shipboard Safety” course. It is a three day event which includes elements as diverse as fire fighting, all elements of onboard safety, a swim with a life raft, a must for anyone wanting to make sure they never have to actually do it for real.
Please give President Ross Haldane a call on 0428 821 125
or e-mail tacoma.org@gmail.com
