A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EDUCATION & PUBLIC PROGRAMMING

What’s happening?

• The AGO currently has two Gallery Guide programs available to serve visitors:
  • Gallery Guides: School Program
  • Gallery Guides: Daytime, Evenings, Weekends
• We are changing the structure of our School Program beginning this fall.
• Currently school groups are team led by staff Education Officers and volunteer School Program Gallery Guides, and moving forward all school groups will be led exclusively by staff.
• This means that our School Gallery Guide volunteer program is ending, effective today.
• This summer, a steering committee will review the Gallery Guide program (Daytime, Evenings, Weekends) to ensure we are meeting the needs of our visitors and providing our volunteers with meaningful and rewarding interactions with our visitors.

Why are we changing the School Gallery Guide program?

• As we implement the AGO’s Strategic Plan, we are constantly looking at ways to grow our audiences and improve our visitor experience.
• For audience growth, we have chosen to focus on five key audience segments – including teachers and students.
• Teachers have so many choices and limited funds for school field trips, so we must offer a unique experience that can compete and entice teachers to choose the AGO.
• We believe that with this new model, we will be better able to meet the changing needs of our teachers and students.

What is the model now?

• School Program Gallery Guides have been valuable partners in helping us conduct our program and we deeply value their contribution to the Gallery.  The model has worked for many years, but our audience needs are changing.
• Feedback from teachers and research has told us that this model doesn’t provide enough flexibility to serve our teachers and students as well as we have in the past.

What is changing?

• We need to involve the teacher as a partner and co-educator in the program, which means that each experience will be different.  A staff-led program will be better able to work with the teachers and our Group Sales department to create these experiences.
• We will also be revamping art making visits and will focus on support for self-guided groups.
• School groups will now be led by an Education Officer for our guided gallery visits.
• With these changes, we will be able to offer a significantly more flexible and customized program to meet the many different teacher and audience needs, as well as the many different types of schools we serve (public, catholic, independent)
• Other comparable institutions are using staff-led models for their school programs as well.

What will happen to our School Program Gallery Guides?

• School Program Gallery Guides will keep their badges and volunteer status for one year (until June 24, 2014). They will continue to be able to participate in training and take the time to decide how they would like to stay involved at the AGO.
• There will be new volunteer positions available to meet the needs of our audience in more direct and efficient ways.  These will be finalized soon and announced on July 29. Our School Program volunteers will be the first to hear about these opportunities.
• There are other volunteer positions available as well, and my team has asked our School Program Gallery Guides to make them aware of their interest as soon as possible.

What is changing with the Gallery Guide Program (Daytime, Evening, Weekends)?

• As with the School Program Gallery Guide Program, we want to be sure that our Gallery Guide Program(Daytime, Evening, Weekends) is also aligned with the priorities that we’ve outlined in our Strategic Plan –  growing our audiences and improving our visitor experience.
• To do this, this summer Keri Ryan, Manager, Interpretation and Visitor Research, will be leading a steering committee made up of a small group of current Gallery Guides to review the program and make recommendations.
• The recommendations will guide the team as they develop a revised program for the fall that responds to the needs of the institution and the skills of the guides.
• This Gallery Guide program will continue – but will be more responsive to the changing needs of our audience, their visiting patterns and motivations.

What will the Gallery Guide Program review look at?

In order to respond to the details about what we know about our visitor patterns and the work we need to do to deliver on the goals of the Strategic Plan, the committee will look at the following:

• Looking at our distribution of guides across the days of the week to ensure everyone – visitors and volunteers feel valued and are having a meaningful engagements
• Examining the types of offering and shifting/focusing them to match an invitation to our target audiences and their motivations in order to grow our audience
• Develop strategies to drive people into other parts of our galleries
• Partnership with membership and marketing to better communicate about what we offer and to work with them to offer experiences that align with their needs
• Look at developing a new Gallery Guide position that is more event based and requires a lower time commitment but receives the same training (e.g Special Member nights/days)

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our wonderful AGO Gallery Guide volunteers who share their time, their knowledge and passion for art with our visitors of all ages and help to make the AGO such a friendly and welcoming place to visit.

We look forward to continuing our work with them to make the visitor experience even more meaningful in the months and years ahead.

Sincerely,

Kelly