Would appreciate some feedback on using volunteers to open the museum.
Our current policy states that the building will be open only when at
least one professional staff person is on site.  The only exception is
Sunday afternoons, when two volunteers are at the reception desk from
1:00 to 4:00.  We are a secured facility, so the County's Security guard
opens the doors and sets the alarm.  The volunteers do not have the code
and even the guard does not have the secondary code (if he opens at the
wrong time he will receive a phone call and if he can't give the
secondary code, the police are called).

It has been suggested that we could keep the building open evenings if
we could select some reliable, trustworthy volunteers to open, close,
and monitor activities inside.  Currently we do not open for evening
activities unless a staff person volunteers to be here (can't pay
overtime).

In this mornings discussion about using volunteers, I could not come up
with a rational reason reliable volunteers should be trusted any less
than a staff person.  In the absence of good arguments I am inclined to
take another look at the policy.

Any comments?
--
Bob Handy, Director
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas 77515
(409) 864-1208
(409) 864-1217 (Fax)
http://www.bchm.org