I too have been following the discussions regarding volunteers with
interest. We are a small museum (32) employees, and rely upon volunteers (89
of them) for a lot of things. Here they do everything from helping with
cataloguing, tours, filing, mail outs, answering reference questions,
shelving books in the library, conducting oral history interviews, even
making storage mounts. All of them have a very clear "job" (it is actually
written up what they will do, and whom they report to and both the
supervisor and volunteer must sign). The "jobs" are geared to the
volunteer's abilities, and the needs of the supervisor. No volunteer should
be performing tasks that are central to a paid employee. Regarding the
concerns of paid staff worried about their jobs - we offer tours of our
museum galleries by either a paid "Host/Hostess" who also patrol the
galleries or you can request a tour by a "Volunteer Veteran Guide" (we are a
military museum after all) This allows our Hosting staff to meet with the
visitors one-on-one as they go throught the galleries and keep an eye on
security issues and the school groups (usually schools) get a tour with some
one who has "been there, done that"

I hope that some of the following extracts from our volunteer policy manual
will also be of assistance to museums with volunteers (we are a small museum
associated to a larger museum and are quite fortunate to have the services
of an excellent Volunteer Co-ordinator who looks after all the volunteers in
our museums - she coordinates something around 1000 volunteers in 4
museum!).

A volunteer is Any person who performs, without remuneration or obligation,
duties assigned by the Museum and related to its objectives.

Volunteers are a very valuable resource for the museum, its employees and
its visitors.  Volunteers shall be entitled to important assignments, to
colleague status, to effective supervision, to being involved, to
participate and to be recognized for their work.

Volunteers are responsible for performing quality work and complying with
current policies and procedures.  When a volunteer is recruited, a signed
agreement between the Museum and the volunteer shall define each party's
rights and responsibilities

At no time shall volunteer work replace that of the Museum's employees. As a
general rule, hours worked by a volunteer shall not exceed the equivalent of
three days or twenty-four hours per week. (of course this varies from museum
to museum - For us a volunteer who wished to work more then 3 days a week
needs special permission from our volunteer coordinator and human resources
to ensure that there is no trespassing on union agreements)

The assignment shall accommodate the individual's interests and skills and
his / her ability to perform the task.  The supervising employee shall
determine the volunteer's acceptability and evaluate their performance
during a probationary period (A volunteer also has the right to reject the
job or supervisor- we have had instances where the volunteer has requested a
new task)

Carol
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-----------------------------------
Date:    Wed, 25 Jul 2001 09:45:55 -0400
From:    Pat Whalen <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Giving Previously Paid Responsibilities to Volunteers

     I have been following the discussion about volunteers with great =
interest. We are considering expanding the role played by volunteers at =
our institution. They are currently utilized only in connection with =
special events or activities; they are not involved with its day-to-day =
operation. All services provided to the public, including basic information=
al services, are provided by compensated staff members. We're thinking of =
having volunteers staff our information desks both as a means of offering =
them a more interesting opportunity and of freeing up our paid staff to do =
more challenging and meaningful work. The paid staff, however, feels =
threatened by this idea. They suspect that it is a first step toward =
phasing them out entirely and staffing our institution exclusively with =
volunteers. I wonder if there are other institutions at this site who were =
ever faced with a similar situation. If so, how did you deal with it and =
what advice can you offer me?

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