[NHCOLL-L:4727] Museum Volunteer course begins online Monday

[helen at collectioncare.org]

MS108: Fundamentals of Museum Volunteer Programs
Dates: Mar 8 to Apr 2, 2010
Price: $475     
Instructor: Karin Hostetter
Location: Online at http://www.museumclasses.org

Description:
Volunteers are essential for most non-profit institutions.
But good volunteers aren't born - they are made. Even
though they don't get paychecks, it takes time and money to
have effective volunteers. Fundamentals of Museum Volunteer
Programs teaches the basics of a strong volunteer program.
Topics include recruiting, training and rewarding
volunteers, as well as preparing staff. Instruction
continues through firing and liabilities. Participants will
end up with custom forms tailored to their institutions, an
understanding of liability issues and a nine-step process
to troubleshoot an existing volunteer program or create the
best one for a particular institution.

Course Outline
Week One
1. Introduction
2. Laying the Foundation: preparing staff, job descriptions
3. Determining Program Structure: who's in charge
Week Two
4. Recruiting Volunteers
5. Selecting Volunteers
Week Three
6. Training Volunteers
7. Evaluating Volunteers
8. Saying "Thank You"
Week Four
9. Keeping Records
10. Communicating Information: including handling change
11. Liability
12. Conclusion

Logistics:
Participants in Fundamentals of Museum Volunteer Programs
work at their own pace through sections and interact
through online chats. Instructor Karin Hostetter is
available at scheduled times during the course for email
support. Fundamentals of Museum Volunteer Programs includes
online literature and student-teacher/group-teacher dialog.
The course is limited to 20 participants.

Fundamentals of Museum Volunteer Programs runs four weeks.
To reserve a spot in the course, please pay at
http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html If you have
trouble please contact Helen Alten at
helen at collectioncare.org

Student Comments for MS108: Fundamentals of Museum
Volunteer Programs:

I feel that this course was an excellent experience that
will help start my volunteer program in the right
direction, thanks.

Articles were useful. Chats were useful times where you
could talk out ideas.

I definitely liked taking the class online and being able
to schedule my time around it. The assignments were a good
foundation for putting what I learned into action. The
resources were terrific. And I really enjoyed
"Hostetter-Outlaw" Commentaries as a "getting to the point"
outline. I am happy that you have filled a special niche
for museum personnel who are interested in learning to be
the best they can be.

It made me realize that there is more to volunteer policy
than just asking them to participate. The chat time was
really helpful as to the direction our policy should
follow. (I liked) The availability of the instructor and
the prompt feedback she gave.

Everything I read and did was helpful and only hope the
"people who do not like change" can be convinced sometime
down the road that we need to implement some if not all
these procedures. I liked the forums and quick problem
solving ideas best.

The Instructor:
Karin Hostetter has over thirty years experience with
museum education. With a career that includes natural
history museums, cultural history museums (including first
person interpretation), nature centers, and zoos, Ms.
Hostetter is experienced in interpretive writing, program
and curriculum development, and staff and volunteer
training. As a museum educator, she was Curator of
Education for the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife
Sanctuary (McKinney, TX). Among her award-winning education
curricula are several programs she developed for the
education departments during her five years at the Heard
Museum and her twelve years on staff at the Denver Zoo. As
an interpretive writer, Ms. Hostetter has written text for
exhibits, wayside exhibits, visitor brochures, and
professional magazines. Her skill is in making technical
information understandable and meaningful to visitors.

Karin has worked with volunteers throughout her career,
becoming the first paid volunteer coordinator at the Denver
Zoo. Ms. Hostetter taught the National Association for
Interpretation's two-day volunteer management course for
volunteer coordinators and served on their panel about
volunteer programs. She authored a series of articles for
the National Association for Interpretation's Legacy
magazine, providing guidelines for developing and
maintaining a volunteer organization. Ms. Hostetter now
consults with organizations on structuring and improving
volunteer programs.

Over the years, Ms. Hostetter has been responsible for
small animal exhibits and animal care at both the Heard
Museum and the Denver Zoo. She worked with wild animal
rehabilitation and public education animals, work that
included training volunteer animal handlers. Karin
co-founded the Zoos, Wildlife Parks, and Aquaria special
interest section of the National Association for
Interpretation.

Karin Hostetter is owner of Interpret This, a consulting
company specializing in interpretive writing, program and
curriculum development, and volunteer program management.
When she is not consulting with other museums, she likes to
volunteer and contract teach at them with a special love
for preschool and family programs.