Week 6 Blog

Starting Busy Season     


This week has seen an increase in the amount of guests that come in to the Sanford Museum. Last week there was also a good amount of people who showed up but this week we began to have official tours of the museum. There were multiple groups of guests that expressed interest in coming in and having the Curator or the Assistant Curator give them, a guided and detailed tour of the museum and the rich and complex history of Henry Sanford and the city he funded. 

The first tour was one for Seminole County Public Schools. They brought a few kids from different age groups that came in and learned about what the Sanford Museum has to offer. Brigitte, the curator, did the first tour and explained things in great detail. I joined her and shadowed her throughout the tour to see how she explained the museum to the guests and what information she included that was not explicitly shown. Her style was fun as well as informative. She also did a great job at simplifying the vernacular without losing the historical meaning for the kids. I took note of this because it is something that I have struggled with in the past. Knowing how to cater to your audience while not losing the meaning of the content presented is a key part of being a good tour guide.

The second and third tours were today. The second tour was for the Lutheran haven non-profit. At first i was surprised because I have seen the name near the UCF main campus. It was mainly elders and their caretakers who came to the museum but they seemed quite interested. Savannah, the assistant curator. administered this tour. Although I was not shadowing her for this tour (doing my directory work), I still listened and glanced over to see how they were liking the tour. Savannah kept the tour shorter than Brigitte but still kept a lot of the important points in her tour. Again, Savannah is being aware of her audience and packing in the key points instead of dragging out the tour and risking a loss of interest. Lutheran haven enjoyed the tour and even stayed after to chat about some of the things they found interesting. 

The third tour was with kids in a martial arts club. They came to enjoy the museum and learn in a way that isn't the traditional classroom style. Savannah was able to explain things well and kept things light hearted while still touching on the African American communities, Sanford's lineage, Sanford sports, and the cities agricultural history. The kids were well behaved and very inquisitive. 

This week has been very good and a great change of pace from the constant data entry that I have been doing. Analyzing the way the tours are done and seeing people come out of it having a deeper understanding is very nice to see. Week after week, my decision of working with the Sanford museum keeps on being validated as the right one. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introductory blog

About Me Hello everyone, my name is Diego and I will be working with the Sanford Museum this summer. I will be doing a more concentrated internship. The length of the internship will be from early June until mid to late July. Although it will be shorter than the average internship, I will be working very hard to get as much experience and learn as many skills as possible. I am a Cuban immigrant who has always been interested in general culture and how history has shaped it throughout different societies. I arrived to the United States in 2008 when I was 6 years old. Since then I have always been driven to better educate myself about society and its cultural makeup. This drive took me to history and ever since then I have been invested in learning it and using it for good.  Research Interests  When discussing the topic of research interests, I tend to lean more into studying industries that seem to not be influencing society as much as they lead on. Some examples of this can be...
Read more

Week 5 Blog

 Maintaining the pace  This second week of my time at the Sanford Museum has been relatively similar to last week. Maintaining the pace has been the most important thing for me as I sometimes tend to either go too fast on something and miss details, or go too slow because I am worried about covering every detail. I have done a pretty good job at maintaining a consistent pace when digitizing the Sanford directories as well as helping with some other projects when called on. I have around 7 pages to digitize and I have gotten through 2. Although I am going slower than I would like, my curator and other employees have reassured me that it takes time and their main concern is that it gets done with accuracy and in a clear manner.   Customer Service Since I am at the front desk I deal with plenty of guests who have questions or are interested in buying some Sanford Museum merchandise. On Friday we had a few people who were interested in buying some T-Shirts and other muse...
Read more

Week 12

Takeaways  After a week away from the museum I have a few takeaways to share.  The first thing I would like to share is that it is important to always go into things with an open mind. Before this opportunity I was a little hesitant on putting myself out there. I then realized that if I did not go into it with an open mind, I would waste my time at the museum. Going to the museum and sticking to the open mind game plan really helped me absorb as much information as possible and help the guests as best as I could.  The second takeaway from my time at the museum was that listening to all the elders of the community. I was not who was quick to judge and assume someone’s intentions but this opportunity really changed my perspective on my judgement. One time I was expecting someone to come in and enjoy the museum but they had become overwhelmed by the death of one of their friends and a bird diving in the water was what triggered it. That little thing helped me learn to receiv...
Read more