Situation:
The Hub is running a training programme for museum volunteers across London, to better equip them with their daily tasks. They approached us with a view to add ‘Storytelling for Tour Creation’ to this series of ½ day workshops. It was to be suitable for volunteers with a wide breadth of ability and experience, and required the training materials to be made available as part of an online training bank. These would be displayed on the Museums, Libraries and Archives, London Website, as part of the Renaissance project.

Solution:
We created a workshop that took the participants through the process of identifying their own enthusiasm, for the museum where they volunteered, and channelling that enthusiasm into the championing of a particular object. They were helped to identify and structure the best content to serve the message or theme of their talk, before learning and practicing exercises that would enable them both to speak confidently and engagingly, as well as being able to handle interruptions, interaction and questions from future audiences.

Results:
Both workshops were very well attended, from a wide variety of museums, allowing for volunteers to share their very different knowledge, interests and enthusiasm during the course of the workshop. Frequently volunteers are the human face of a museum for visitors, therefore our participants were, as a result of the workshop, better equipped to represent their museums in a friendly, enthusiastic and informed manner while feeling more confident and self assured in their role as a volunteer.