The Margaret Machell Study Grant gives AGO volunteers an opportunity to build upon their skills and knowledge base in the areas of: excellence in collections; leadership in interpretation; extraordinary visitor welcome. Additional consideration for this year’s proposals included: alignment to volunteer role, benefit to other volunteers in addition to individual, individual performance, and priority in terms of volunteer strategic plan.

This year, Committee Members Shelagh Barrington (Volunteer President), Barbara Engle (Chair, Prints and Drawings volunteers) and Chai Lam (Volunteer Recruiter) selected two successful candidates, who will split the $500 honorarium.

One winner was  Denise DeSouza, Information Guide, who will be pursuing Humber’s Volunteer Leadership and Management certificate.  She hopes to further her skills so she can better assist her fellow volunteers.

Our other winner was actually a group of Gallery Guides from the Friday shift, led by Catherine Morelli, who planned a group art gallery trip to New York City as a creative way to enhance the Gallery Guide art knowledge base. The innovative proposal also showed collaboration between a number of volunteers of diverse experience and length of service.  They’re now busy writing up what they learned on the trip – stay tuned for more details!

Past winners have been enthusiastic about their opportunity. One winner from 2015, Cara-Lynn Nisenbaum, a P&D volunteer, took a course this past fall at U of T  entitled “Social Media for the Enterprise”.  The course focused on community engagement, conversation and connecting with an audience. “Whether through our blog or on social platforms, maintaining ongoing communication between past, current and potential future volunteers is important,” she said.  Cara-Lynn is looking forward to using her recent training to contribute to the volunteer blog.

The Margaret Machell Study Grant is awarded annually. Find out more here.