Open Forum

Hi All,

I'm hoping to get some insight on how your organizations handle meetings and what type of meetings you hold for all staff/department heads, etc.

We are a larger Museum with many departments and getting information across has been tricky. 
For example, we have daily meetings, a weekly operations meeting and a monthly All Staff meeting.

Would love to hear what meeting's you have and how you get information across multiple departments.

Thanks!

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Elizabeth West

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We are a three-tier institution (museum/theater/public art school) with around 50-60 staff members. Email works for us to disseminate general info, but we also use Monday.com, a team management cloud-based program. 

For the museum...
Bi-weekly museum staff meetings,
Bi-weekly curatorial meetings,
As needed exhibition team meetings,
Quarterly museum acquisitions meeting,

Institution-wide staff meetings are quarterly, leadership meets weekly too, and certain staff members are present for daily morning briefings. For example, our admin assistant attends these and mentions to other departments if lights in the galleries will be off, exhibition changeovers, etc.

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Michael Lorusso
Assistant Registrar
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College
Colorado Springs CO
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-21-2019 09:50 AM
From: Elizabeth West
Subject: Museum Meeting Structure - What does your Museum do?

Hi All,

I'm hoping to get some insight on how your organizations handle meetings and what type of meetings you hold for all staff/department heads, etc.

We are a larger Museum with many departments and getting information across has been tricky.
For example, we have daily meetings, a weekly operations meeting and a monthly All Staff meeting.

Would love to hear what meeting's you have and how you get information across multiple departments.

Thanks!

------------------------------
Elizabeth West

------------------------------
​

We are an interactive Museum with a lot of educational tours adn daytime events for schools. Aside from that we also host multiple events throughout the week in the evening hours after the museum closed to the public. 
Our meetings are 
Daily Pre-shift with our visitor services, security, facilities, education, and volunteer staff. 
Department meetings are scheduled, depending on needs adn left to the department managers. 
Weekly meeting for upcoming events, hosted in the museum (includes Events managers, Housekeeping, Security, Facilities, Visitor services)
Senior leadership meets every week
All staff meetings are monthly
Department managers have an operations meeting monthly (plus occasional impromptu meeting as needed). 
I am sure that isn't all, but it gives you an idea how we operate. 

It is difficult to say what is right or wrong or what is too much or too little. It really depends on your operations. if exhibits turn over frequently you will have more meetings about that. If your museum is focused on community outreach and education, you will have a lot of meetings around education. It's a gamble you take. :)

Hope this helps.

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Michael Cole
Facilities Operations Manager
Museum of Pop Culture
Seattle WA
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-21-2019 09:50 AM
From: Elizabeth West
Subject: Museum Meeting Structure - What does your Museum do?

Hi All,

I'm hoping to get some insight on how your organizations handle meetings and what type of meetings you hold for all staff/department heads, etc.

We are a larger Museum with many departments and getting information across has been tricky.
For example, we have daily meetings, a weekly operations meeting and a monthly All Staff meeting.

Would love to hear what meeting's you have and how you get information across multiple departments.

Thanks!

------------------------------
Elizabeth West

------------------------------
​

In our case, in addition to the all-staff monthly meeting, we started doing a weekly report via email to staff and board members to handle short-term items, such as information about upcoming events, photos and info about recent events (e.g. attendance numbers, feedback from visitors), updates on the current state legislature session (there are bills relating to us, such as one that would appropriate funds for a capital improvement project for the building), and links to media pieces (such as newspaper articles about our exhibits). It can take a few hours for me to assemble and edit every week. It's been worth it for us because it is also useful for creating our social media posts, email newsletters, annual report, etc. The board has also appreciated smaller, more frequent chunks of information instead of the hefty quarterly report they were previously getting from the Executive Director.

There is, of course, no guarantee that people will read it, and I have had staff members tell me they only look at the photos and don't read the text.

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Mamiko Carroll
Public Information Officer
Hawaii State Art Museum
Honolulu HI
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-21-2019 09:50 AM
From: Elizabeth West
Subject: Museum Meeting Structure - What does your Museum do?

Hi All,

I'm hoping to get some insight on how your organizations handle meetings and what type of meetings you hold for all staff/department heads, etc.

We are a larger Museum with many departments and getting information across has been tricky.
For example, we have daily meetings, a weekly operations meeting and a monthly All Staff meeting.

Would love to hear what meeting's you have and how you get information across multiple departments.

Thanks!

------------------------------
Elizabeth West

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​