Tacoma Art Museum Docents Blog TAM Docents Blog: TAM: new docent touring schedule

As we discussed at last week's trainings, we would like to tweak the Docent Schedule a little to fulfill the following goals:

Ÿ To offer a daily public tour at 12 noon of Gee's Bend

Ÿ To have a docent available every day for approximately four hours surrounding the 12 noon public tour

Ÿ To schedule private tours (two weeks' advance notice required) during your regular docent shifts

Ÿ To have three docents per weekday.

This will allow Visitor Services to direct visitors to the 12 noon tour and/or the hours that a docent is available.

We would like to have this new docent schedule in place for the Gee's Bend opening on Saturday, September 22.

In order to meet these new goals, I would like to know:

1. Given at least two weeks' notice, are you flexible as to docent on the same weekday on which you currently docent, but on different, more irregular weeks?
For example, given two weeks' notice, can you be available on any Wednesday instead of every second Wednesday?

2. Would you like to switch to doing docent shifts on a different weekday? (see Docent Master Schedule attachment)

3. Does an 11 am – 3 pm (approximately) docent shift on your specified weekday work with your personal schedule? If not, please provide me with some details

4. Are you regularly available to docent on any other weekday (with two weeks notice)?

5. Are you ever available to docent on a Saturday or Sunday, even once a month?

The current docent schedule is attached and is listed below.

(The week of September 10-16 is Week A; The week of September 17-23 is Week B.)

· Tuesdays: Ellen Shigeno, Margaret Upshaw, Florence Reardon, Jim Reardon, Nancy Harris, Katrina Frank

· Wednesdays: Barbara Abegg, Barbara Beaver, Judi Keyser

· Thursdays: Karin Morris, Gaard Logan, Sharon Berens

· Fridays: Anne Seago, Sue Stibbe

· Saturdays: Penny Grellier, Sanjeev Narang, Roxanne Peterson (once-a-month), Deborah Kernan (once-a-month)

· Sundays: Debora Cornett (once-a-month)

The Third Thursdays docent schedule will remain the same (Gaard Logan 10-2, Barbara Abegg 12-4, Karin Morris 1-5, Margaret Upshaw 5-8). Tours are promised at 12, 1 pm and 6pm.

Please note that the total number of volunteer hours that you have agreed to commit to Tacoma Art Museum will remain the same.

In addition, Visitor Services will be recording all the inquiries that the front desk receives about docent availability, public tours, and Chihuly Walking Tours. This will allow us to re-consider in January, what the public wants.

About Winter Chihuly Walking Tours:

During the winter (from Labor Day to Memorial Day), Chihuly Walking Tours will be scheduled on demand only, for groups of approximately 4 or more people, with two weeks advance notice. We will be trying to schedule the Chihuly Walking Tours during your existing docent shifts as much as possible.

Please take a week to think this over, and send me a response by Monday, September 17.

If you have any questions, please call me!

Thanks for your time!

Heide Fernandez-Llamazares

Museum Educator and Docent Coordinator

hllamazares@TacomaArtMuseum.org

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, Washington 98402

T: 253.272.4258 x3018

F: 253.627.1898

www.TacomaArtMuseum.org