I'm going to print your rant to share with others on our board. Whenever the
Board suggests that we take add a new time-consuming project to our list and
we balk, they say, "can't you just find some volunteers?" as though there is
a volunteer tree somewhere that we can pluck a few skilled, motivated people
who have time they are willing to commit to our project.

We have one and a half employees and quite a few volunteers. And, yes, they
are only willing to do certain things because they are doing it as a hobby.
We can not ask them to take on difficult or time-consuming responsibilities.
They draw a line between the fun stuff and the really hard work - which
leaves my assistant and I to do a lot of support work for the volunteers! In
addition to the long-running volunteers, we also have the periodic
volunteers who show up for a couple months and then leave. The prime example
of this is the community service volunteer who needs to fill 20 hours.

Don't get me wrong, I love my volunteers. Many of them give 15-20 hours a
week and are worth their weight in gold. But volunteers are not a panacaea.

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 Exhibitions Department
  Sent: Friday, July 13, 2001 9:40 AM
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Subject: Re: volunteers at museums


  I am writing on list because I have a particular rant on this topic.

  The money is typically so short in museums and the number of services we
are expected to provide are increasing so exponentially, that we must rely
on volunteers to help us meet minimum service levels instead of hiring
additional staff.  The kind of thing we need done by people other than
ourselves is rarely exciting enough to hold the interest of skilled
volunteers (who are well aware of their worth anyway and are always looking
for paid opportunities), yet the volunteers who could be trained have
erratic schedules and are apt to up and leave anyway.  We find that to
continually invest our time in training volunteers takes away from our other
duties, and once trained their major motivation is hanging out and
socializing with us---hardly conducive to getting our own work done.

  Typically a job or program starts out being done by a motivated, skilled
volunteer, then it becomes so invaluable that we allot $ to it to make it a
part-time position once the volunteer threatens to quit.  It then gets
integrated into our operations to the extent that it becomes a full-time
position.  The total elapsed time to get this accomplished is about 5 years.
We have a staff of 22 full-time people and 6-8 part-time people--the
institution was all-volunteer from 1934 to 1976, when it got a total of one
full-time paid person.   Today our volunteers are used as docents,
supplementary office help in all departments and installation assistants--we
tried to have a volunteer coordinate our volunteer efforts but...you got
it...it got turned into a paid job once it started to entail some real work.

  End of rant.  But you see what I mean?

  Julia Moore
  Director of Exhibitions and Artist Services
  Indianapolis Art Center
  http://www.indplsartcenter.org