Docent, latin for "they teach," standard (I thought - maybe other folks use
other terms??) term for greeters or tour guides in museums.  I think that it
has been in use for most of this century... I had a board member suggest
that we call them something else. They are not strictly tour guides at our
facilities, since they do not give formal tours. What do other folks call
them?

Erica

Erica S. Maniez
Museum Director, Issaquah Historical Society
425/392-3500
[log in to unmask]
www.issaquahhistory.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Lauraine Armstrong
> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 3:52 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: docent recruitment
>
>
> docent?
> please explain for the jargon-challenged
>
> Issaquah Historical Society Info wrote:
>
> > Hi, all,
> >
> > We are in need of new docents (not a unique challenge, I'm sure) and I'm
> > soliciting suggestions.
> >
> > Here's what we do to recruit:
> > We regularly ask for docents at our membership meetings and run
> ads in the
> > newspaper. We also did a mailing to retirement communities
> letting them know
> > about our various services and encouraging folks to docent.
> When we can, we
> > participate in community volunteer fairs, etc. We have docent training
> > sessions and docent appreciation lunches and teas, to which we encourage
> > folks to bring friends or relatives (I don't think anyone has done this
> > yet). But we only seem to recruit about 8 new docents a year,
> which is not
> > enough to keep up with our increase in open hours.
> >
> > What are we doing wrong? What could we be doing that we are
> not? And - for
> > bonus points - how can we keep all our retired docents from taking long
> > vacations at the same time???
> >
> > Looking forward to your wisdom,
> > Erica
> >
> > Erica S. Maniez
> > Museum Director, Issaquah Historical Society
> > 425/392-3500
> > [log in to unmask]
> > www.issaquahhistory.org
> >
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> --
> Lauraine Armstrong
> Curator of Collections
>
> tel: 867-872-2859     Northern Life Museum
> fax: 867-872-5808    PO Box 420 Fort Smith NT X0E 0P0
>
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