You also might want to consider using volunteers in the planning phases of the program to help ease that part of the burden. There was a six-month gap between the time my predecessor quit and I was hired, and in that time, my museum put together a committee to plan the fall lecture series. The committee was comprised of our director, two guides who are retired teachers, and another couple who are community descendants and have served on the board and in many other capacities here. I joined the committee when I started my job, and it has been an effective way of sharing the burden of the work. In this type of environment, it was also nice to have some other people to bounce ideas off of.

 

I am also hoping to institute some programming for children to run concurrently with our lecture series so that parents who want to attend can do so without worrying about finding a babysitter, or without compelling one parent to attend alone while the other stays home. Don't know yet if this will really be taken advantage of much, but in your case, it would help resolve the issue of unattended children, or children acting up at an event that is not age-appropriate.

 

Kate Mockler

Curator of Collections and Interpretation

Oneida Community Mansion House

170 Kenwood Ave.

Oneida, NY 13421

www.oneidacommunity.org