Exilian Call for Volunteers 2026

[Jubal]

Volunteers Needed: 2026

Once again, we're looking for a number of additional volunteers to join the Exilian team! Our small core team, currently comprising five members, is in need of additional support to help keep Exilian running.

We're advertising for four committee-level posts as of now: Tech, Membership Development, Social Media, and Content Editing - and four other minor positions with lower commitment and/or more fixed tasks. The holders of committee-level roles aren't necessarily expected to cover every part of the brief, but they would take overall responsibility for these areas of Exilian's activity as part of our admin committee. Exilian is a democratically run organisation and in-post committee members will need to be ratified by the voting members and annually thereafter. For smaller tasks, you'd report to another member of the committee relevant to the task you're doing.

If you'd like to do some part of one of these posts but not the whole thing or exactly as advertised, please get in touch anyway - we're keen to get support and help at every level.

All of the available roles will come with the best support we can give: we're happy to train people in their roles and do not expect people to come in with prior experience. We have a strong ethos of supporting our volunteer officers and ensuring help is at hand: for all roles, there will be volunteers around with experience in the role who can help with any problems or queries. If you have any questions about any of the posts and what they entail, please leave a comment below. To apply, comment below, direct message me (Jubal) on the forum system, or email us at exilian@exilian.co.uk.

The roles are as follows: click the role descriptions for more details.

Committee Roles

Technical Officer

We're looking for support to help maintain and improve the technical backbone of Exilian's work, hosting and supporting this website, maintaining the forum, and other tech requirements.

Role Description

Key roles
The Technikos has responsibility for the front-end site and the technical aspects of keeping Exilian running - server issues, hosting, the site's programming and software, and so on are all within their remit.

Important powers/functions
- Control over the technical aspects of the forum and website
- Responsibility for look & layout
- Responsibility for the integrated functionality of site applications and content
- Along with the Basileus, responsibility for contact with site hosts

Regular tasks
- Website tech updates and edits
- Helping other staff and mod teams use the site
- Adding updates and mods to the forum to increase user utility
- Ensuring backups are up to date and available

Social Media Officer

We need someone who wants to communicate the brilliant things Exilian creators and community have done across different platforms with an engaging, ethically driven approach.

Role Description

Key roles
The Social Media officer will help promote Exilian and our members' creative projects across our social media accounts (Currently Facebook, Twitter, and Mastodon, but this may change and the Officer will have a lot of leeway to help our strategy evolve).

Important powers/functions
- Managing & building up Exilian's social media accounts
- Recruiting new members for the site
- Promoting Exilian's content
- Feeding back to the rest of staff on public perception of our activities

Regular tasks
- Schedule regular social media posts
- Engage & chat with interested parties on social media
- Find optimal audiences for specific pieces of content
- Directly message and invite creators to the website

Content Editor

We're seeking someone excited about finding, editing and commissioning content to help take our newsletter and articles areas to the next level.

Role Description

Key roles
The Content Editor will be responsible for two significant areas: the Exilian Articles section, and the monthly newsletter Updates from the Forge. This is a wide role that involves commissioning and editing/formatting articles, as well as keeping an eye on news from across Exilian's activities.

Important powers/functions
- Editorial control of Exilian's main front-end "voice" via our newsletters
- Commissioning & engaging with article writers
- Representing the needs of the content section in staff meetings

Regular tasks
- Editing & helping write "Updates from the Forge", our monthly newsletter, and getting it released on schedule
- Finding news items from across Exilian's activities that can go into the newsletter
- Finding volunteers to write regular articles for the articles section, and deciding on bursary applications
- Editing and formatting the articles and posting them on time

Membership Development Officer/Forum Admin

We're seeking someone interested in working directly with creators and fans to help build our community on the Exilian.co.uk forums.

Role Description

Key roles
The Membership Development officer is a more classical "forum admin" role. The holder of this post will be there to engage with and support creative project managers across the site.

Important powers/functions
- Works with Exilian's creators and users to support their use of our website and other systems
- Wide-ranging remit to improve forum structures & functionality to help users
- Feeds back to other staff on how regular members & creative team leads are finding the website
- Responsible for keeping & updating our email list and getting monthly emails out to members

Regular tasks
- Greet new members, discuss projects with game developers and writers and be willing to engage with their work
- Get project developers settled into the site, creating new subforums for them where necessary
- Let developers and new members know about Exilian's democratic features/system and help enable them to take part
- Running creative competitions and/or game jams for the site
- Putting a brief email out once a month with links to our recent newsletter and announcements of other important upcoming events or similar

Volunteer Roles

Social Media Accessibility / Image Descriptions

We're seeking 1-2 people to help provide plain text descriptions of nature and museum images to help share those accessibly with people around the world.

Role Description

We have a big photo archive from museums and art galleries and nature sites around the world, and there's so much of that we could be sharing with people. However, we've also got a strong commitment to accessibility, and building up a data-bank of image descriptions to go with our posts is a lot of work. We're committed to not just machine-generating descriptions - we believe a human set of thoughts is key - but that means we need help from you. The task will be simple, take collections of the coolest artifacts, creatures and pictures we can find and describe what you see for us!

News Writer

We're seeking 1-2 people to write one or two short news articles every few months to help support the Exilian newsletter.

Role Description

Our Updates from the Forge newsletters come out every three months, with articles (2 to at most 3 paragraphs) giving upbeat summaries of what's going on with different indie creative projects and encouraging readers to check them out. If you think you could help write one or two of those, or you'd be interested in learning how to do so, then we'd love to hear from you.

Social Media Supporter

We're looking for people who are willing to support our work by helping us find relevant groups and communities on social media sites who might not have found our posts and content, and helping signal boost and share it.

Role Description

A big part of what makes social media work is getting our content in front of people: but we can't do that alone. There are so many little communities out there, and being embedded in them is often necessary to be heard. If you're part of or willing to look for other communities that might want to hear bout the creative work people are doing on Exilian, or might want to share their own here, please get in touch and we'd love to have a chat.

Article Proofreader

We're looking for someone with attention to detail who's interested in learning how to be a stronger prose editor.

Role Description

Our articles section needs someone who can help look over occasional articles and check them for sense, grammar, and other basics. This role will involve occasional ad-hoc pieces of proofreading, with support provided if needed to improve your skills both at the direct work and at providing the feedback and author interactions you need to become a great editor.