• Contractor title: Communications Coordinator
• Organisation: Beltane Fire Society
• Location: Edinburgh
• Hours: Approx 270 hours across Sept 2017- May 2018
• Fee: £2,216 – £2,675 dependent on experience
• Deadline: 5pm Friday 25 August 2017

We’re looking for a communications contractor to help spread the word about our next two events – Samhuinn Fire Festival 2017 and Beltane Fire Festival 2018. If you can wrangle journalists, secure top-class press coverage and use web and social media to tell stories about creative happenings, this is a contract for you.

Who we are

The Beltane Fire Society is a community of volunteers, and we stage huge fire festivals in central Edinburgh on the last days of April and October each year. We use them to mark the turning seasons and keep ancient Celtic traditions alive. They’re incredible visual spectacles with audiences of thousands, and we get lots of press and social media attention from around the world.

Focus of the role 

We want to make sure our events are well attended, but also to share our story and the traditions we love with everyone who is interested, on and offline. Our comms coordinator will lead this work, through two areas of responsibility: engaging with news media to maximise our press coverage, and running our online presence.

The news media element will involve planning, writing and pitching feature articles to increase interest in our event, getting event details on listings sites, writing and sending press releases and setting up interviews, as well as coordinating all the journalists who want to film, write about or photograph our event – responding to their enquiries and guiding those we give special access to on the night of the events themselves.

The online component will involve telling our stories and increasing interest in our events through our website and social media platforms. This will include planning, writing and posting content, responding to queries and comments left for us online, coordinating with our volunteer photographers and videographers to store and share their work, and finding creative ways to engage our audiences and community.

Who we’re looking for

We’ve been lucky to have had some fantastic volunteers and contractors working on the separate elements of this role in the past. Now we’re looking for someone to continue all their great work and build on it. That’ll take someone:

• Who really gets how news media outlets work and has demonstrable experience of engaging with press to get great coverage;
• Who really understands social media and web CMS, and has demonstrable experience of using them to communicate effectively (ideally in an events context);
• Interested in or willing to learn about Beltane Fire Society, our principles, events and style – and who will work well with our volunteers;
• With great writing skills and ability to devise, pitch and write great web and social content, as well as press releases and feature articles;
• Able to build strategy to meet press coverage and social media targets, and to report regularly on both;
• Willing and able to commit to working with us flexibly from September 2017 through to mid May 2018, often including evenings and Sunday afternoons. Must be available on 22, 29 and 31 October 2017, and 22, 29 and 30 April 2018;
• With great people skills and initiative, who can work well in a small team with members of our board of trustees and our Event Coordinator;
• Based in Edinburgh or within easy travelling distance, and able to work from home.

To apply or find out more, email your CV and a cover letter setting out your suitability to chair [at] Beltane [dot] org by 5pm on Friday Monday 25 August.

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Featured image by James Armandary for Beltane Fire Society