[From nobody Mon Jan 14 08:18:03 2013 Message-ID: <md5:B213AEA20D0244011BECE7D3D21AA1D5> Return-Path: <> Delivered-To: fschnei@supernet.com Received: (qmail 13790 invoked for bounce); 11 Jul 2000 15:32:06 -0000 Date: 11 Jul 2000 15:32:06 -0000 From: MAILER-DAEMON@onemain.com To: fschnei@supernet.com X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 We're sorry, but OneMain.com's email system was unable to deliver your message to its intended recipient. Please check the email address and try again. This is an automated reply from OneMain.com's email management system. <pittsburgh-railways@dementia.com>: Sorry, I couldn't find any host by that name. (#4.1.2) I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. --- Below this line is a copy of the message. Return-Path: <fschnei@supernet.com> Received: (qmail 3967 invoked from network); 4 Jul 2000 14:32:03 -0000 Received: from 26-1.pm4-2.lancaster.supernet.com (HELO supernet.com) ([64.41.26.1]) (envelope-sender <fschnei@supernet.com>) by mail006.mail.onemain.com (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for <pittsburgh-railways@dementia.com>; 4 Jul 2000 14:32:03 -0000 Message-ID: <3961F47F.82CA9E8B@supernet.com> Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 10:28:16 -0400 From: "Fred W. Schneider III" <fschnei@supernet.com> Reply-To: fschnei@supernet.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: pittsburgh-railways@dementia.com Subject: The cold slap in the face... Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry I didn't mean a cold slap in the face but practicality is needed for museums to survive. Those museums which fail to understand what the public wants won't be there in the future. I truly think that PTM, more than many museums, has attempted to grasp what the public wants and serve them. We may not have everything we as students of the industry want, but we still have a chance to have fun with what we have and get an acceptable return from the public, the state treasury, and private corporations. We have some very imaginative people working as executives and managers. I've watched quite a few other museums ... I'm am a member at PTM, BSM and NTM (Crich, England) and a former member at Branford. I've seen quite a few rationalized excuses why things don't work. Think about these situations: 1. I remember a museum which, year after year, complained about falling business. They had every possible excuse why people didn't come. The economy, highway congestion, you can imagine how many excuses can be postulated. But they never looked at their own image. My wife really liked the portapotties in a marsh. 2. I took my wife to one five years ago ... very famous place. Holiday weekend. It was old home week for the members. It was clear the public represented an intrusion. They dragged out one of the worst looking, unpainted cars, with dry and cracked leather seats for a public trip ... and bored most people to death with a diatribe about all the attributes of this particular car. My wife did like the gift store because it had all sorts of wondrous items for children (get the theme ... the public, not books for railfans). 3. I know of one museum where I was told we cannot tell the volunteers to put outside trash cans for the public, because, after all, these people are volunteers and might not want to do it. "The public can come inside and use the trash cans there." Sanding leaf covered rails would also be a problem because someone might not like the assignment. 4. I was being given a promised a guided tour in one museum, which fell through. Why? Because they needed that particular man to serve the public. He apologized and went to work without a question. This particular museum operates almost exclusively for the public; while most people are railfans, any one would temporarily excuse himself from a friend to serve the common good of the museum. 5. Then there was one which knew its members didn't like cutting grass. They simply took that money out of revenue first, and gave jobs to local high school kids to make the place look great! Which ones will survive? It doesn't take too many brain cells, does it. While it has its problems, I wish I could take each and every one of you to Crich, England to let you see how it should be done. I know it sounds like a slap at PTM, but they've tried things that we haven't gotten too yet. Ed understands. Every spring the Middle Atlantic Region of the Association of Railway Museums holds a meeting to discuss some aspect of museum operation. In 2000 it was education of school kids. Those of us who were there walked away really thinking about how you reach a five year old. I still do when I work school groups at Baltimore ... What can I say that relates to a preschoolers understanding? I'm at least thinking about it. I've sat through museum financing, doing oral histories, ways to set up displays, sources of money for projects, payroll accounting ... all sorts of things. We've had some great speakers ... I particularly remember a woman from Maryland Public Television, one who sets up education programs in a Baltimore museum (non railfan), and the corporate historian for Hershey Foods. But the most important observation I made was the same people always come ... the people who already understand why and want to learn more. Those who need it the most never appear. ]