Open Forum

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

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Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
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I've used Volgistics, both as a volunteer and as a staff person. It seems fairly intuitive and user friendly. It will track hours, has a calendar with shifts, a place to sign up for new shifts, etc. Here's a link with more info: https://www.volgistics.com

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Amber Parham
Museum Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Denver CO

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

At Vizcaya Museum and Gardens we also use Volgistics and it works quite well. Guides are able to sign up for tours. You can limit when Guides can remove themselves from tours. For example, Guides cannot remove themselves from an assigned tour 2 weeks or less out from the scheduled program. In such cases they must contact the museum and this avoids most last minute cancellations. As stated by Amber the software also tracks hours and keeps other data. The software is cloud based and very user friendly. It is fee based though.

Mark

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Mark Osterman, Ed.D.
Guiding Programs Manager
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
Miami, FL 33141

Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2016 07:48 AM
From: Amber Parham
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I've used Volgistics, both as a volunteer and as a staff person. It seems fairly intuitive and user friendly. It will track hours, has a calendar with shifts, a place to sign up for new shifts, etc. Here's a link with more info: https://www.volgistics.com

------------------------------
Amber Parham
Museum Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Denver CO

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

We use Volgistics. It certainly has its pros and cons, but most of the cons are on my end. Volunteers love the convenience of seeing what is available and signing up to volunteer from their phones and ipads. They can keep their timesheets up to date as well as read news from the volunteer program on the Home Page, which I update constantly. We have about 145 volunteers of which about 60 are docents. Only one person does not use the system, all others are on board and love the ease of use. 

It is not perfect and can be a bit clunky, but their help line is very responsive and on-line tutorials are good. Pricing is scaled by number of volunteers and number of administrators. If you have any specific questions, I will be happy to help you. 

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Nancy Schomburg
Manager, Volunteer Services
Grounds for Sculpture
Hamilton NJ

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

Have you asked your docents? Not everyone (i.e., an older volunteer) is comfortable with the intricacies  21st century technology.

We use multiple methods of getting our volunteers to come when we need them - a newsletter, email, and old-fashioned phone calls. Our park manager has discussed moving everything to an on-line platform, including a way for volunteers to log their hours, because some of our infrequent volunteers have difficulty remembering to log them. I'm not sure all of our long-time volunteers will do that. Newer ones, it shouldn't be a problem.

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Alan Goldstein
Interpretive Naturalist
Falls of The Ohio State Park Interpretive Center
Clarksville IN

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

Have you asked your docents? Not everyone (i.e., an older volunteer) is comfortable with the intricacies  21st century technology.

We use multiple methods of getting our volunteers to come when we need them - a newsletter, email, and old-fashioned phone calls. Our park manager has discussed moving everything to an on-line platform, including a way for volunteers to log their hours, because some of our infrequent volunteers have difficulty remembering to log them. I'm not sure all of our long-time volunteers will do that. Newer ones, it shouldn't be a problem.

------------------------------
Alan Goldstein
Interpretive Naturalist
Falls of The Ohio State Park Interpretive Center
Clarksville IN
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At the Rosenbach we use SignUp.com for about 40 volunteers (our volunteers give tours of the Rosenbach brothers' home and growing collections). SignUp is free and works nicely, giving me the opportunity to write a monthly collections-highlight and welcome message, and allowing our guides to add, change, and swap shifts. I've had one guide refuse to use it on the grounds that our society is moving too much in the direction of impersonal robo-interactions, but aside from this solitary act of principled defiance, our volunteers have taken to it with enthusiasm.

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Andrew White
Volunteer Coordinator
Rosenbach Museum & Library
Philadelphia PA

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

We use Volgistics for our everyday volunteers.  However, for a few special events we use VolunteerSignup - Online volunteer signup sheets.  There was a hard learning curve for Volgistics and I'm still working with some of our volunteers on it a year later.  If you have volunteers who are not tech savvy, I highly recommend something like Signup or VolunteerSignup.  You a free service with the flexibility to tailor your information and your volunteers have a simple process to sign up for shifts.  

.  

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Tamra Birchfield
Manager, Volunteer and Internship Program
Carnegie Science Center
Pittsburgh PA

Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2016 05:06 PM
From: Andrew White
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

At the Rosenbach we use SignUp.com for about 40 volunteers (our volunteers give tours of the Rosenbach brothers' home and growing collections). SignUp is free and works nicely, giving me the opportunity to write a monthly collections-highlight and welcome message, and allowing our guides to add, change, and swap shifts. I've had one guide refuse to use it on the grounds that our society is moving too much in the direction of impersonal robo-interactions, but aside from this solitary act of principled defiance, our volunteers have taken to it with enthusiasm.

------------------------------
Andrew White
Volunteer Coordinator
Rosenbach Museum & Library
Philadelphia PA

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
------------------------------

I've found that volunteers of all ages and experience adapt well to online system that log their hours and show their schedules.  Signing up for tours can be a little more challenging for some people.

Another fee-based program that works well is Volunteer Impact.  This is a full-fledged volunteer management software package, so it might be more than you're looking for.  The data is stored in the cloud; therefore, volunteers may log into the system from anywhere (it works with mobile devices as well as computers).  As with most software, there's a bit of a learning curve (more on the back-end than for the volunteer).  The fees are based on the number of volunteers in your organization.

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Rebecca Martin
Director of Education and Guest Experiences
Gunston Hall
Mason Neck VA

Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2016 05:06 PM
From: Andrew White
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

At the Rosenbach we use SignUp.com for about 40 volunteers (our volunteers give tours of the Rosenbach brothers' home and growing collections). SignUp is free and works nicely, giving me the opportunity to write a monthly collections-highlight and welcome message, and allowing our guides to add, change, and swap shifts. I've had one guide refuse to use it on the grounds that our society is moving too much in the direction of impersonal robo-interactions, but aside from this solitary act of principled defiance, our volunteers have taken to it with enthusiasm.

------------------------------
Andrew White
Volunteer Coordinator
Rosenbach Museum & Library
Philadelphia PA

Original Message:
Sent: 11-28-2016 09:37 AM
From: Mary Morris
Subject: Online Sign up for docent led tours

I manage a docent corps of about 30 - 40 docents and was thinking about utilizing an online sign up forum such as signupgenius, etc. for docents to use to sign themselves up for weekly tours. Have any of you used this kind of sign up before, what service have you used and what have been the pros and cons?

Thank you!

Mary  Morris 

------------------------------
Mary Morris
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL
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