Forgot that we were relating volunteer horror stories.  Here's one:

An older male volunteer was serving as a docent in our main exhibit when a
group of high school students were visiting.  When a smaller group of those
students who were black entered the exhibit, he turned to another docent
and said "keep yours eyes open to make sure they don't steal anything."
 One of the students heard him and reported it to her teacher who, in turn
contacted me.  She was somewhat irate to say the least, as was I.

Rather than conduct a lengthy investigation to confirm who said it, I sent
a message to all volunteers relating the incident and reminding them that
such comments were unacceptable.

A bunch of the other volunteers then came to me to protest that my message
suggested they made the statement and that they were offended.  I assured
them that this was not the case and that I had taken a short-cut in the
hope that the offending party would find that the shoe fit.

I then went to the high school and apologized to the whole class,
explaining to them that the comment was totally inappropriate.

What surprised me was the reaction I got from a Board member who pitched a
fit over my having apologized to the students.  He asked if I  would have
done the same if the students toward home the comment was targeted had been
white.  I of course, said that I would.  He expressed his doubts, then went
on to rant about how tired he was of playing up to "these minorities:, etc.
etc.

Needless to say, I found out real quickly, who the red-neck on  my board
was.  The incident passed.  We did not invite the particular volunteer back
and the incident was  soon forgotten.  Things were pretty touchy for
awhile, though.


------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas  77515
(409) 864-1208
museum_bob
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http://www.bchm.org

----------
From:   Heleanor Feltham[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, February 02, 1999 8:39 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Volunteer horror story

The key thing about my volunteer horror story, I think, is that if you
read it carefully, you will probably realise that we had all the usual
things in place, training that included multicultural awareness, visitor
sensitivity, presentation skills, working with children, dealing with
difficult visitors (I would recommend the John Cleese training films on
difficult customers); assessment, counselling procedures, alternative
employment options, warnings, even firing procedures but in the case of
our little old dragon lady, NONE of it worked!

We interview potential volunteers just as we do potential staff, and our
volunteer coordinator has developed an excellent and very detailed policy
document which covers practically everything (except dragons).  We have
over 170 volunteers of very varied age and interests; some work behind
the scenes, some with visitors (taking tours, running touch trolleys,
helping schools etc) and 99% of them are a joy to work with.

Heleanor Feltham
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