Communications & Marketing Officer

**Ideal location**:This will be based at our head office in Stroud however the post holder will also be required to be flexible to attend onsite meetings between Inglesham and Saul Junction.

**About the Trust**:The Cotswold Canals Trust is a charity run by volunteers from the local community, giving time and energy to save our heritage and improve our local environment for the benefit of everyone.

Communication within the charity is essential for volunteers, members, the general public, stakeholders and supporters so they are informed of all significant work or events taking place.

**What we are looking for**:We are looking for a Communications & Marketing Officer to work closely with the Trust General Manager, Trustees, staff and volunteer Team Leaders to ensure effective, valued and robust communication processes are created and followed for both internal and external communications underpinning the CCT brand and key messaging.

The Communications & Marketing Officer will need to be approachable, resilient, good at building relationships and have a creative flair for writing that celebrates the charity’s volunteers, mission, vision and values.

This is an excellent opportunity to join our award-winning charity that is restoring our heritage and creating beautiful green spaces. As our Communications & Marketing Officer, you will have the freedom to make a difference and put your own ideas into practice.

**Duties and responsibilities**

**Content Writing**
- Building and maintaining relationships with Volunteer Team Leaders, liaising on a regular basis to ensure projects or significant dates are captured and dynamic communications plans are in place, creating & uploading copy where required.
- Collaborate with volunteers, staff and Trustees to produce and distribute regular e-news, volunteer information bulletins, member and supporter updates for internal and external audiences.
- Coordinate with staff and Trustees to create a monthly e-newsletter and distribute to all stakeholders.
- Ensure all content published on the CCT website and Blog is supportive of the charity’s mission, vision and values and upholds the organisation’s tone of voice, is inclusive and encourages diversity across all areas of the Charity, while aligning with organisational priorities and goals.
- Building relationships with partners, writing project specific press releases and working with partners to ensure shared projects are properly supported.

**Social Media**
- Use Hootsuite to schedule and post social media content across all our social media channels with call to actions, restoration updates and volunteer achievements.
- Create a social media plan to include significant annual dates and events.
- Respond to comments and interactions, engaging with the community of social media channels to maintain the charity’s reputation.
- Grow engagement with the focus to increase support, volunteers and membership.
- Monitoring and reporting on social media performance, visualising and presenting post campaign results in a meaningful and understandable way.
- Oversee the Charities Flickr site, categorising and tagging photographs and ensuring consent.
- Develop corporate communications on LinkedIn

**Website**
- Liaise with the Charity General Manager, Trading Company, staff and volunteers to ensure website content is up to date.
- Implement on-site and off-site SEO with some technical SEO when needed.
- Monitor and report on SEO performance.
- Manage website booking forms alongside volunteers and staff.
- Work with Webmasters to ensure CCT’s main website and volunteer database are working cohesively.

**Events**
- Supporting communication plans in the run up to events through press releases and social media.
- Ensure events are concluded with a written article and published to the relevant media channel.
- Arrange for all events to be diarised, attended and captured both written and photographed.

**Brand and Print**
- Update brand guidelines, keeping them up to date and relevant.
- Work with volunteers to develop print materials and assist in the printing process of ‘The Trow’ quarterly magazine.

Other support as required for the Trust’s communications including GDPR communications preference service.

**Skills & Attributes**
- Proven copy writing and marketing experience.
- Excellent working knowledge of all social media platforms used by the Trust including reporting performance through native tools (Meta Business Suite) and Hootsuite.
- Be self-motivated with a positive attitude and have the ability to organise self.
- Hold a qualification in Digital Marketing/Marketing/Communications.
- Desire to improve understanding of content marketing and learn on the job.
- Have excellent written and verbal communication skills and attention to detail, accuracy and quality.
- Demonstrate an understanding & interest in the Charity and it’s aims and objectives.
- Demonstrate abilities to use WordPress and related plugins, C