Chris Dill certainly popped my eyes wide open when he gave an example of
when a volunteer crosses the line of being a simple collector of pretty
old trinkets to being in competition with a museum when he said:

A volunteer goes to an auction sale or an antique dealer, finds a chair
which is documented as having been used around the dining table in the
former Governors' Mansion, and buys it.  We own the Former Governors'
Mansion State Historic Site and operate it as a museum.  The volunteer
has collected an object which the museum needs/desires to
complete its collections, and there is a conflict of interest.  We would
offer to buy the chair for what the volunteer paid - unless, of course,
they chose to donate it, which many do.

Good grief!  I'm still trying to cope with such a vivid scenerio!  OK, I
guess tarring and feathering is not in fashion any more--well, at least
not for museum volunteers!  I guess I'm trying to envision what was
going on in that volunteer's mind at the time of purchase of the very
precious and unique chair.  The first thing that came to mind was a
"Nyea, nyea, nyea" attitude--a childish "I got somethin you ain't got
and you can't have it."  Competition?  You betcha!

Maybe from my bucolic point of view in a small town where everyone knows
your name,
it's difficult for me to picture a museum volunteer being anyone other
than a Senior Citizen and certainly not someone who wants to add the
fact that "she" is a museum volunteer in order to puff up her "social
resume."  And maybe it's someone in the vicinity of the latter who
volunteered in the first place in order to impress somebody, who would
have that mindset of "one-upmanship."  It certainly wouldn’t be anyone
who would have any sort of true deeep feelings for local history.

At our simple little museum in the past we have tolerated a lot of good
intentions with little work input from volunteers but when problems crop
up, our bottom-line criteria has always been based on the question, "Is
the person doing more harm than good?"  And when the answer is yes--hey,
WHOOSH, out the door they go!  (Psst!  It’s never really happened yet,
but you can betcha we would!)

Chris, thanks for opening my eyes with such a horror story of a
competitive volunteer.
The awful thing of it is that I could picture it happening even in a
sleepy little village.  We DO have our social climbers even here, you
know.  And because of a more recent message I just received, I’ll also
add, and yes we also have a couple of “dealers.”

Vee Housman
Town of Porter Museum Volunteer
Youngstown, NY