Do you usually know when a group is arriving - or do 60 students and the
professor just show up at your door?

If you are notified in advance, you might require payment in advance.
Let the professor collect the $5 per student and present you with the
money and the roster (with all required membership information) when
they arrive.  Instruct the group to go on into the museum, and then your
front line staff can take their time creating the membership cards, to
be picked up as they exit ---- or mailed to the college after the tour,
even less pressure to get them done in a hurry.

If they are just showing up, I would not accept a credit card payment
for $5. Whatever minimum you want to set would encourage cash or for
students to put their charges together. 

I took a peek at your website and I see that the college student $5 fee
is listed under group tour information. You might consider moving that
to the regular admission section and indicate next to it that if you are
attending as a group you must make advance arrangements. 

Cindy Boyer
Director of Museums and Education
The Landmark Society of Western New York
Rochester, NY
(585) 546-7029 x12
[log in to unmask]
 
www.landmarksociety.org
 
Our mission is to discover, protect, and revitalize the architectural 
and related cultural heritage of the Rochester region, and to 
educate and inform our community about that heritage.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Hassan Najjar
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 11:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Student Memberships

We have several colleges and universities in our area. As a result we
offer a low $5.00 yearly membership to students that offer unlimited
visits to the Museum. We give them cards, with their name on them and an
expiration date that they can present to the front desk every time they
come in. 

This procedure works best every once in a while when a student comes in
to purchase such a card. However, I have been getting an increased
number of professors who want to bring their students to the Museum. The
problems arise when I have 60 students all paying individually for these
membership cards while our front desk staff fills them all out with an
expiration date and their names. Needless to say that this takes forever
(especially when half of them pay with credit cards) and even having the
professor forward me names ahead of time turns out to be a mess when
half the students show up for the trip and I have wasted cards. 

I am pretty sure someone has thought of a better way to handle this and
I would be eager to learn how. 

Thanks, 

Hassan Najjar
[log in to unmask]

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