ABSTRACT
David Floyd covers the basics of creating and growing a volunteer program that greatly enhanced Louisiana State University’s Rural Life Museum’s interpretation. He emphasizes the practical, legal, and operational steps necessary to run a successful volunteer program that enhances the ability of a site to serve its visitors and also is satisfying to the volunteers. In general, forms should have consistent headers and always have the day and year of creation or revision noted at the bottom. Copies of these forms developed and used at the Rural Life Museum (RLM) are available upon request. A large docent program requires a management staff. The RLM specifies the names of individuals responsible for scheduling docents to give tours and attend to other duties. This includes a team of three to schedule adult tours, a team of three to schedule student tours, a team of two to schedule special event coverage, and one person each to schedule foreign-language tours, special class tours.
