[PRCo] Re: museums (was Re: Re: M454)

[Fred Schneider]

YES, WE ARE NOT ONLY BETTER AT TRAINING THEM BUT WE ARE ONE OF THE  
BETTER MUSEUMS.

One Christmas eve I was invited after church to a friend's home.    
Boy was I set up.   His son was there with the son's girl friend.    
The girl friend was in management for Colonial Williamsburg  
Foundation.   I was asked all sorts of point opinion questions.

After our next visit to Williamsburg I sent a letter through channels  
(through her husband's parents) giving pages and pages of what I  
observed and how I was treated and what I thought of the  
experience.   Two months later a response came back by e-mail from  
the President of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.   Those people  
are really serious about trying to find ways of solving their  
problems.   They know what their problems are.   They listen well.    
I wasn't telling them anything that they didn't already know  
including an issue with one particular docent who needed to be  
disciplined.

Frankly, they are one of the better organizations out there.   We  
could do well to send some of our management people down to see how  
they do things.

On Dec 26, 2007, at 6:09 PM, Dennis F. Cramer wrote:

> So all of that means we need to do a better job in telling the story.
> Transit did not exist in a vacuum and a museum without quality  
> docents will
> wither and fall.  Interest in history is at an all time high, but  
> we have to
> be realistic and not go into overload.
>
> Education can be entertaining, but it takes talent and dedication.   
> We now
> live in an instant gratification world and maybe the museums that  
> do not
> require an extensive time period will be the ones who prosper.
>
> PTM is in a location to get runoff business from the new shopping  
> mecca
> coming to the Meadows area.  The gamblers will come and go, but those
> shopping often come by bus and we should be prepared to market to  
> them.
>
> It is not just the content but the context of how one presents the  
> material.
> We still have not identified a great source of docents.  Most of  
> the members
> come to operate the big toys.  Admittedly, we are better at  
> training them,
> but we still have to find a way to teach them to be teachers.
>
>
> Dennis Fred Cramer
>      Trombone
>
>
>