Docents Needed for 2023-2024
Greetings Everyone!
I hope this email finds you all safe and warm. My name is Angela Ayala and I am the art educator/assistant director at the Blanden Memorial Art Museum. I have had the opportunity to meet many of you, but I wanted to introduce myself to those who might not know me yet.
I am getting the docent program back up and running and I wanted to invite each of you to a lunch and learn at the Blanden on January 26th at noon. The purpose of the docent program is to provide members, guests, and visitors of the museum with organized, interpretive tours of the museum exhibitions with trained volunteers as tour guides. The skillful touring Docent will be knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and able to communicate with positivity.
The Docent program provides ongoing education sessions about the Museum’s exhibitions and collections, tour techniques, and how to think like an educator. Docents can be characterized as “museum interpreters” because we go beyond just describing exhibit items and sharing facts. Docents seek to engage their group and conduct the most interactive, inquiry-based tours possible. Each docent develops his or her own interpretation for a tour staying within an exhibit’s overall theme and concepts. For these reasons, docents must complete the training program.
The docents are organized by lead docents, active docents, trainee, emeritus, Attending and inactive. The lead docents have conducted 6 or more tours each year, have participated in the program for at least two years, direct activities of the Docent Program in conjunction with the Art Educator, and assist in training incoming docents. Active Docents are expected to meet tour and training requirements, maintain enthusiasm for the program, and to continue broadening and updating their exhibit knowledge and tour techniques. To maintain active docent status, docents are expected to meet the tour and training requirements such as conducting scheduled tours within the calendar year, Jan. 1st to Dec. 31st, Attend training for changing exhibitions, attending at least 50% of the docent meetings as scheduled by the Art Educator and Lead Docents.
More information will be available at the lunch and learn! If this is something that you would be interested in for 2023, please join us on January 26th. We already have several tours scheduled for 2023 and we will need docents to help carry on Blanden’s legacy of proving enthusiastic educational opportunities for students and adults in North Central Iowa.
Please respond to me so I can get a food count for the lunch. Many thanks and cheers to a happy and healthy 2023.
Best,
Angela J. Ayala
She/Her
Art Educator/Assistant Director
Blanden Art Museum | 515-573-2316 | 920 3rd Ave S | Fort Dodge, IA 50501 |
“Don’t Dream it, Be it”- Dr. Frank-n-Furter
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