Museums Australia Front-of-House National Network Inaugural Meeting

17 May 2007, Australian War Memorial, Canberra 3.45 – 5.00pm

Overview of the Meeting
· There were 15 -20 people at the meeting.
· We were welcomed by the Chair: Carol Cartwright, Head, Education and Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial.
· Tristan Hoffmeister, Host Supervisor, National Museum of Australia, gave a presentation about the face to face interpretation undertaken by Hosts.
· Peter Haggarty, Security Manager, Australian National Maritime Museum, talked about the need for Security and Front-of-House to work together.
· Rose Bollen gave an overview about the Customer Services Managers Special Interest Group.
· Other than myself, there were two others who had attended our 2006 conference in Melbourne present: Jenny Morley, Old Parliament House and Susan Pfanner, Australian War Memorial.
· Jenny, Susan and myself all in favour of the two networks existing as they seem to differ in scope and purpose. Jenny described the existing Managers’ forum as “intimate” and that all members share similar issues and needs. She felt this would be lost in a broader network.
· As outlined in the Overview, I finished up by saying we would be interested in keeping informed about the progress of the MA SIG, and we will have further discussion about this by our Special Interest Group at our Perth conference in November 2007.
· Discussion about the paper: Proposed Front-of-House National Network (SIG) with Museums Australia, written and circulated by Carol Cartwright.
· First of all, definition of “front-of-house”, and terms of reference for this network need to be decided.
· Issue: paying Museums Australia membership fee is an issue for staff on the floor.
· SIGs are now supported by a central, National, Museums Australia resource – SIG membership may include an additional fee of $15 - $20 eg for a web-based newsletter.
· One model would be for the committee to be the SIG, and to hold workshops and invite non-members (ie floor staff) to attend – there was support for this model from the group present.
· Need 10 current MA members to form the SIG.
· Carol asked people to introduce themselves and explain what they would like to get from such a Special Interest Group. Responses covered: information sharing, continuous improvement, staff issues: retention, training and recognition
· Carol had a Sign up sheet, a number of people agreed to get involved in the Committee. Carol offered to be President.

Rose Bollen
Manager, Customer Services
Museum Victoria

Update from Antonia Lamanna

Ella Mary Roach was born on 12th Dec, 2006. She came into the world with a bit of drama - we had a car accident on the way to the hospital but thankfully all was well with exception to the car. Ella is now 7 months old and keeping mum/dad busy. She is incredibly active and unfortunately not a baby that yet sleeps through the night (despite EVERY OTHER BABY we know being able to do so). However, she's beautiful and I'm enjoying being at home with her. I hope that the next customer service event planning is going well and maybe I'll be able to come along...will have to see how I go. Hope you are all doing well and talk in the near future. Antonia

Monday, October 23, 2006

Confirmed Agenda for Conference 19th/20th Oct 06

AGENDA
DAY 1: Melbourne Museum
11 Nicholson Street, Carlton

9:00am-10:00am
BREAKFAST
Welcome and meet and greet
Overview of agenda, purpose of 2 days, introduction to Museum Victoria

Customer Service at Museum Victoria
Soo Nazih Laouami - Manager, Customer Services (Immigration Museum)
Evolution of Customer Service at Museum Victoria

Leading Staff Through Major Change
Margaret Devlin
Tired of seeing Change Management as hard, problematic? This session will introduce you to a positive, more natural and easy way to deal with workplace change. Time allowed for questions/answers and discussion

Tour – Museum and Royal Exhibition Building
Customer Service Officer

Generational Diversity in the Workplace
Mike Allen
Looking at mix and match of contemporary managers and the people they’re managing. Challenge ideas of Baby Boomers, X’s and Y’s.People’s expectations in the workplace

Identifying audiences and developing strategies to meet their needs
Carolyn Meehan (Manager, Market Research and Evaluation, Museum Victoria)

De-brief

DAY 2: National Gallery of Victoria (International)
180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne

BREAKFAST & Welcome to NGV
Annaliese Forde & Carolyn Long

Staff Training Strategies – Case Study
Marketa Dresler – Visitor Services Manager, Western Australia Museum – Staff Training Strategy

Professional and Career development and motiviation of staff - Case Study
Susan Pfanner – Title, Aust. War Memorial, ACT
Development strategy for frontline staff.

Performance Management principles
Laura Venus Head of Human Resources NGV

Role of Volunteers and how they integrate/work with paid staff
Allison Parsons (Volunteer Program Manager ACMI)
Volunteer Policy, Recruitment, Training, Supervision & Recognition

3:30pm-4:30pm Tour of NGV

De-brief
Everyone
What worked well, what could we do differently next time? Is it worth continuing? Terms of Reference – comments. Communication via BLOG?

Terms of Reference

Description of Membership
Membership will be available to Customer or Visitor Services managers (or equivalents) in Cultural Organisations who are accountable for ensuring excellent customer care through leadership in the development of systems, people and a customer-oriented culture. Typically these people are responsible for areas including, but not limited to, staff recruitment and retention, staff training, team structures and operations, performance management and developing and implementing organisational customer service strategies. From time to time we may invite relevant staff from the Corporate or Private Sector to help contribute alternative perspectives, ideas and strategies in the area of customer service.

Terms of Reference

• To enable networking with people who share similar roles in cultural organisations
• To enhance the profile of ‘customer service’ in cultural organisations
• To discuss and share ‘best practice’ models in areas of common interest
• To develop a collaborative working relationship with people in similar roles within the Cultural sector

Description of Operations

• Look at development and maintenance of a website which could be used to communicate and share ideas, practices, models etcE-mail for one on one communication
• Annual forums – hosted by different organisations each year. Forums include ‘best practice’ models for discussion, formal and informal presentations and opportunities for networking.

Customer Service in Cultural Organisations Special Interest Group

The Customer Service Managers at Museum Victoria have initiated the formation of an Australia-wide ''Customer/Visitor Services Manager'' special interest group. This is an opportunity for us to develop some networks with people in customer and visitor service management roles, as well as raise the profile of customer services in the museum/cultural/arts sectors.Together with the Customer Service Manager at the National Gallery of Victoria, we are making contact with people who have similar roles (in similar government-funded organisations) to determine the level of interest in the Special Interest Group. We have proposed an opportunity to get together in Melbourne to discuss some common areas of interest and challenges. This would be a 2-day event, with a mix of formal presentations and plenty of opportunities for informal discussion.To date there has been a high level of interest from Customer and Visitor Services managers around Australia. The first Special Interest Group meeting will be organised for October 2006. MV and NGV will host this, and we hope it develops into an annual event.If you would like more information about this Special Interest Group, please contact Antonia Lamanna.