My question to the assembled experts on these listservs is:  How do you
staff holidays at your center/museum?  To give you a little background,
here is our current dilemma.

The Dakota Science Center is a young science center (less than 6 years
old), and we are about to move into our first facility that will be open
regular hours for the public.  Even without a primary physical location,
we have operated numerous outreach programs, including developing and
travelling exhibits on a small scale.  Our staff at this time is
completely program related, funded through grant funds from a variety of
sources.  Many of the staff and many board members have volunteered in
the past at our public festivals of exhibits, which have usually been
unrelated to programs.  Many of these past events have been on holidays.

We now have about 20 full and part time staff people, who work regular
work days - 9-5 so to speak - with variations of evenings, week-ends,
etc based on their specific program requirements.  All of our outreach
activities are program related at the moment, except the exhibit
festivals, so all the camps, workshops, classes, etc are covered by our
excellent staff.

When we move into our new building and begin to have open hours on
week-ends, holidays, etc., we won't have any staff particularly assigned
to working the exhibit hall, or staffing the New Year's Eve community
activities (i.e. the local community First Night Celebrations), Memorial
Day, Thanksgiving Day, Labor Day, July 4, etc..  I am expecting to have
a rotating schedule of staff for each holiday time period we are open or
have a public event at our facility.  An added note is that all the new
exhibits to be developed are related to particular programs, so tending
to these exhibits, evaluating them, assisting the public in interacting
with them is a reasonable expectation of staff funded through these
grants. However, there aren't enough hours or people to have JUST those
individuals do everything in the exhibit hall, even if we include
volunteers.

I would ideally like to have an all-staff requirement to work the
exhibit hall for a certain amount of time each week, each month,
whatever, supplemented by volunteers.  Additionally, I'd like to require
all staff to be available for holiday open hours, on a rotating basis,
with some peak times needing to use everyone.  For this time spent in
the exhibit hall, I would expect to allow some time off to the staff
person; however not a one to one hourly compensation of time.

How do each of you manage this? Without a dedicated visitor services
staff (yet), with a small staff with too much to do already, I am
struggling for the best policy to implement.


--

Vera L.Y. Uyehara               [log in to unmask]
Executive Director              (701) 795-8500 (Voice)
Dakota Science Center   (701) 739-3150 (cell)
P.O. Box 5023                   (701) 777-2339 (FAX)
Grand Forks, ND  58206

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