‘Tis the season to wish everyone a very happy holidays! May your house be filled with good cheer! Enjoy your festivities with dear ones, and may the times you share together be ones to remember fondly as the new year begins. Thank you for volunteering with us in 2015, and we look forward to seeing you in or around The Ripley Center in the months ahead!
Concessions Update
This fall we tried a new experiment: offering light snacks and beverages for purchase by Ripley audiences on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. 14 volunteers helped us get this effort off the ground, and we’re happy to say it has been a huge success! Our program participants have told us how wonderful it is to get a bite to eat and something to drink at a time when there really are no restaurants or cafes open nearby. In a sense, we are in a “food desert!” So, this new concessions service is meeting a true need and enhancing our patrons’ experience when they come to weeknight programs.
Our goal is to offer a reliable snack and beverage option three nights a week. In order to sustain a consistent schedule, we need new volunteers to keep this going in 2016, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening in our office lobby. The shifts are from 5:30 pm to 8:15 pm, from January 6 to March 31st. So it is a weekly or bi-weekly time commitment for 3 months. (short term volunteer opportunity.)
BONUS – Concessions Volunteers who complete 6 volunteer shifts (2 per month) will receive a $30 credit to attend any of our programs. This is the Concessions version of the “Bonus Card” which you may have heard about from last summer’s Sleepover season.
So, contact Jenna at jonesjel@si.edu if you would like to add this type of Associates volunteering to your schedule. It’s an easy way to add more volunteer hours to your year, interact with interesting people, and earn a $30 credit to come to programs of special interest to you!
The Associates Volunteer Program Partners with the Smithsonian’s Project SEARCH: Thank you for your assistance, Jessica Grey!
This fall the Volunteer Department partnered with the Smithsonian’s Project SEARCH and placed one of their interns with our customer service/membership department. Her name is Jessica Grey, and perhaps you have seen her in our office. She has been learning job skills and getting job coaching from the SEARCH staff, as well as from our own Customer Service Staff. She’s been a WIZ at getting out our membership mailings, for which we are very grateful! Come January we will have a new SEARCH intern who will serve as an office volunteer for a 3 month semester.
Smithsonian Associates Membership Talking Points:
PART 2 of 2
By Kiren Jahangeer, Ambassador Volunteer
This fall we included some basic tips and talking points for promoting Smithsonian Associates membership in your daily lives.
Here are some additional ones:
- Mention the benefits of membership (it’s helpful to have a membership benefits pamphlet on hand), and point out that even the basic membership of just $45 will pay for itself after buying two programs at the member discounted price.
- Suggest that they try the basic membership for a year, as they will start receiving the Smithsonian Associates program guide with a listing of programs for every taste. Reveal the little known fact that Smithsonian Associates receives no federal support and relies on member donations and ticket sales – this might surprise more people than you know and make them eager to contribute.
- Smithsonian Associates membership makes a great gift for someone who has everything or for a
newcomer to the metropolitan DC area. With the holiday season upon us, this should be an easy sell as a unique gift idea!
Special thanks to Vesna Gjaja, pictured at right, for her assistance with the content of this article. Vesna is the Associates' Director of Marketing and Membership.
