Graham Goes to Washington!

A blog post by Graham Humphrey, Visitor Services Coordinator. To read more posts by Graham click HERE.

Over the past few days, I (along with most of the staff at the JMM), attended the American Alliance of Museum’s (AAM) annual conference in DC. This is my third AAM conference and I am always amazed by the scale of the event. Roughly 6,000 museum professionals from around the world attended. Throughout my time at the conference, I sat in on sessions on volunteer management, accessibility, audience engagement, docent training and how to effectively supervise college interns. I also socialized with present and former colleagues and made lots of new contacts in the museum community.

As Ilene Cohen, our current volunteer coordinator will be leaving us shortly and I’ll be taking over some of her responsibilities, I thought it would be a good idea to get some tips about how to advocate for our fabulous volunteer corp. At the session, I learned techniques for training older adult volunteers on technology and got some suggestions of places to recruit for new volunteers.

I then went to the MuseumExpo exhibit hall where I browsed through exhibitors relating to audio tours, admissions, educational programs and regional museum associations. I met with a representative from Blackbaud to get some tips about the new Altru ticketing/donor management system which we will be implementing soon at the Museum.

I then went to a session called “Museums for All,” which was about an initiative developed by the Institute of Museum of Library Services. This program offers free or reduced admission to museums across the country to low-income families. I discovered that this is a great way to broaden our visitor base, reach out to under-served audiences, and perhaps most importantly, to be socially conscious and inclusive. In the coming weeks, I hope to implement it at the JMM.

On Friday, I went to a session called “60 Great Ideas for Historic Sites and Historic Homes” where I got lots of ideas ranging from improving the visitor experience to forming new partnerships and increasing attendance at special events.

I then went to the General Session where Robert Edsel, author of the Monuments Men, spoke about the legacy of the Monuments Men, the unsung heroes (both men and women), who saved the world’s greatest art and cultural treasures during World War II. He challenged all of us to become advocates for the return of artwork to their rightful owners and reminded us that modern day monuments men and women are still working to safeguard our cultural heritage in war torn-places like Iraq and Syria.

In the afternoon, I went to the Marketplace of Ideas “Small Museums Talk Volunteers and Sustainability,” where I got to brainstorm with other volunteer managers about issues that we have been facing at JMM.

On Saturday, I went to a session on “Training 21^st century Docents” where I learned the importance of encouraging more participation and discussion into tours and sharing best practices among the docents. I also got ideas such as field trip exchanges to other museums to see how they do their tours and ways to incorporate direct feedback at the end of each tour.

I then had lunch with an intern from a prior position, visited “Crosslines,” a two day exhibit featuring  artists and scholars at the newly restored Arts and Industries Building, and met up with a former boss and mentor.

To sum up, I had a jam-packed time at the conference and came away with many takeaways which I hope to implement at the JMM.