Patricia, I meant to respond to your question about volunteers several days ago but since then I've been snowed, iced, and flooded into my house/away from the office. I worked for a small historic house/county historical society museum where recruiting, training, and supervising volunteers was a big part of my responsibilites for almost 20 years. In that time we went through many ups and downs including at least one total change of volunteers. Have you talked with former volunteers to find out why they quite? Its often because they've become too busy or more involved with something else in their lives or just because they want to do something "different". But sometimes its a problem with the institution. You need to find out. Recruiting new volunteers won't help if you don't "fix" the things that may have driven voluteers away in the past. Some of the things that worked with our volunteers... Prepare a discription of a variety of projects that someone could volunteer to do. Offer as wide a variety of projects as possible --some for people who like to work with the public, some for people who would rather be behind the scenes, some for people who want to work Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and some for people who don't want to be so rigid or committed. Keep the projects short and well defined. You might consider indicating a couple of projects that are special priorities. Then let the volunteer chose what they want to do. I found that by giving volunteers short term projects with very definite ends they had a greater sense of accomplishment. This helped to keep them coming back. It also gave them more opportunity to sample different types of projects. This kept them from getting bored and let them try something "different" without having to go somewhere else to find it. I also used the completiton of the short projects as a chance to show the museums appreciation. Sometimes we would serve staff and volunteers punch and cookies (and all staff was expected to put in an appearence) or give the volunteer a single cut flower or a small museum related gift. It didn't cost much but the rewards were great. These were also acknowledged in the museum's newsletter and when volunteers worked on exhibits or special programs they were always mentioned. I found, however, that the most important thing was just to be friendly and to let them know on a regular basis that we were glad they were there. Little things like greeting them when they came in or stopping by their work station to say hello, ask how the work was going or about their family, to be there when they left for the day to say thank-you. And it was important that all the staff be involved, not just the volunteer coordinator. We lost several volunteers once when we got a new director who didn't bother to say hello when he passed someone in the hallway. On the other hand, we had a janitor who made a big impression on volunteers because he showed an interest in what they were doing and a willingness to assist when necessary. I hope this helps. Laura Lynne Scharer Jefferson County (NY) Hiustorian [log in to unmask]