We Want You....to be a Tour Guide!
With our upcoming exhibit we anticipate a great response from the public. The public generally like to come to museums to see "stuff" and well, having about 200 artifacts in the next exhibit, there will be lots of it to see! Following "Treasures & Curiosities" is summer-time, our peak visiting time AND a Blackfoot Shirt exhibit being done in conjunction with the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, with the shirts coming from Oxford England!
As the Volunteer Coordinator I get many requests for support from the staff. I very much enjoy recruiting people for the right spot - the spot where they can use their skills, develop new skills, and generally enjoy their chosen way to spend their free time with us. Sometimes though, we build a program from the bare bones and that is what we are going through right now with this brand new volunteer position.
When we created our new Community Programmer position, the opportunity arose to build a program where Tour Guides would be available at all (or most) visiting hours to spend time with the visitors and ensure that they experience the whole building, not just the Discovery Hall and Special Exhibit space. Over the last almost-year, she has been creating the training and support pieces for this position. We are now at the point where we believe we are ready to work with a few (or hopefully many!) good men and women, and boys and girls, to spend time with the visitor and enhance their experience. These volunteers are very special because they will enhance the face of the Galt Museum & Archives to the visitors so they need to be people passionate about the Galt, passionate about the history of our area, and passionate about people!
Slowly I am spreading word that this volunteer position will be rolling out over the next few months. Already six of our current volunteers have stepped up and are interested in taking the training. Once they have done the different levels of training, they and the Community Programmer can decide if this position is right for them or not (the nice thing about a volunteer job is if it doesn't end up being what you thought, you can step down or change to something else - much more easily, usually, than in a paid position). After some careful supervision and evaluation, these tour guides will be ready to go!
It will be fantastic to have volunteers available to play such an important role. We currently have a few, like Silvio, who dedicate a few hours each week to us, but sadly we cannot ask Silvio to be here 10 am - 4:30 pm most days of the week! We appreciate him and his skills and hope he will be able to demonstrate to our new volunteers the friendliness, the kindness, and the ability to be a wealth of local information (not just historical, but also "where do we go to buy...." and "how far is it to ......") that so many visitors have come to love and appreciate in Silvio.
Are you interested in this opportunity? If so, make sure you put your name on the wait list for training and we will contact you as we bring more and more people into this position. Give Lori a shout at 403-320-4219 or email lori.harasem@galtmuseum.com. What a great way to meet people from around the world, and if you are a student, to build your resume!