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With the American Association of Museums 2011 Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo drawing to an end, we just wanted to say thank you to all of the interesting, fun, and informative museum devotees we met this week! At Rienzi, in addition to attending many of the sessions and events at the George R. Brown Convention Center here in Houston, our staff was part of an On-Site Insight, titled This Old House: Engaging the 21st Century. On Monday, about 35 conference attendees from across the United States were shuttled to Rienzi so they could be part of this behind-the-scenes learning experience. While at Rienzi, the AAM attendees took a brief tour of the museum, learned about our programs and audiences, and participated in a discussion about house museums.
During the dialogue portion we heard lots of questions, including: Are you doing anything innovative to bring guests into the house?, How many visitors are on each docent-led tour?, How long is your docent training?, How do you recruit your docents?, What sorts of programs do you have to reach the 20 and 30 year olds?, and How many visitors do you have annually, and how many do you expect to have? Our hope is that our answers were constructive, informational, and offered something you can take back to your museum. For Rienzi’s staff, the On-Site Insight was a reflective experience that we hope to be able to utilize in the future when enhancing or developing new educational programming.
We learned a lot from you and hope that you learned a lot from us! If you have further questions or comments, feel free to contact us: rienzi@mfah.org
Click on the slideshow to view some of the photographs our staff took during the On-Site Insight.
