The Marlin and Hazard are only open when we have docents to give tours. It solves a lot of problems and just as importantly, it makes sure those who go through are educated about our boats and Navy. It also means that the people visiting come away with more of a feeling for what they have seen, which means they tell more people and that brings more visitors and more money to the boat. I took one middle school girl through the Marlin and with in three days, I had six new fans of the Freedom Park Facebook page. Since she presented her talk on subs at the district competition, I have had more sign up. I have also gained two volunteers.
It goes back to running things as a business and to finding ways to get more volunteers involved. I also know that isn't the easiest thing to do. Perhaps as we have done with the park, some of you could organize one day a month to have volunteers there to give guided tours, then you could have a conning tower open for that day and closed when a tour isn't being given. As more people are found to give tours then you can open more times a month. Freedom Park is going to be open for tours,two Saturdays a month, starting in April and tomorrow I meet with officers from Stratcom to get some of the active duty Navy people there involved and I'll have them take another Saturday or Saturday and Sunday to give tours.
As to how well the tour guides do, well, educate them. I am writing a curriculum, with lesson plans and evalutation instruments, for school groups who will be coming and I am going to use the same information to put together cards for each compartment in the ships that the docents can use so as to get out what is known in an accurate fashion. We already have a fact sheet put together by one of our volunteers for the Hazard and we'll soon have the same thing for the Marlin. For those who haven't taught school, here is a good online site that gives the basics of what I had to spend hundreds of hours in learing.
http://cfmmodules.mc.duke.edu/curriculum/intro/fullparts.html Setting something like this up about your boat is well worth it in that the school groups will learn more, and since it makes it easier for the teachers, they will bring more groups aboard. Also since all who come aboard will learn more, the interest will spread throughout the community.
The volunteers are also are encouraged to write down questions that are asked that they don't know, then we all learn and can do a better job. I have a couple of people from other museum boats sending me copies of what they use and while the info is different, it provides a format to make sure that types of info are covered.
HNSA has a collaberation project for their ships and while I haven't found much about it yet, would assume it is a matter of people helping others to show how to present and learn facts. I think that a lot of our museum boats are probably in the Balao and Tench classes so would think that some of the information about one boat might also be used for another of the same class and then the differences filled in. Perhaps what would help is if there were some lesson plans designed for visitors written for those two classes, then others could take them and adapt to their boat. This then could maybe go up on the HNSA site already written up for others to use.
This to me is also a good way to get subvets and other volunteers involved in the right way in working with our boats and in helping out with what they do know the most about. Having something in writing for all volunteers that says here is why you are here and this is the way we work together to make the boat, park, whatever, be shown in the best manner is a good way to ensure that all are on the same page and that things work smoothly. It also will make both managment and volunteers more comfortable with what is going on.
Each of us, as already mentioned, works under different conditions and different rules, but we can find ways to increase the use of volunteer help and certainly those who have served on subs can be good volunteer help. Think I mentioned elsewheres that I do have freedom park set up as a RSVP site now. This will bring in volunteers who are used to working in the volunteer atmosphere and they do a good job of learning what they are to talk about. Once again , more volunteers, means more hours that tours can be given and other jobs can be done and that ends up down the road with more money to keep the boat going.
Viejo
