The California State Railroad Museum and The Old Sacramento State Historic Park just published a detailed call in the Sacramento Press. I think you will find it an interesting example.

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline ... Volunteers

Just listening to some commentary on the television this morning from analysts, several are predicting gasoline prices of $5 a gallon by this summer. Several local museums saw considerable drops in volunteer participation when it went by $3.50 a gallon last year.

PC

I have cut my own trips of about 150 miles each way to volunteer at the Shore Line Trolley museum in Branford, Conn., so I will still have some money left over after buying gasoline, to donate to their flood avoidance effort (car barns on higher ground).

I suspect that museums, whether they operate equipment or not, will be influenced significantly by the cost of fuel this summer. Even if the museum does not have the cost of operating equipment, it is going to have an effect on the travel for volunteers getting to the museum. The price of gasoline locally, in mid-January, is now approaching the prices in the tourist season last year. So the predictions of $5 a gallon don't seem all that far off now. Amazingly the media is taking relatively little notice of it, seems as if it is last months news, mid-$3s are now the norm as well as having the cost of driving up around the cost of an airline ticket for 1K mile trips.

I was at the local "general merchandise" store the other evening, which had very few customers in the store, and the staff was all busy marking up the supplies in the automotive section. You could still see the old prices from the shelf edge labels, and the typical price increase being applied to oil and filters was 25% to 30%. You probably saw the separate discussion string about locomotive batteries, the price of automotive batteries locally is also up about 30% from less than a year ago. An East Penn (Deka) 24 group that went for around $79 last year is now around $109. The US consumer price index, now showing about 4% annual increase, probably does not include many of the products you need to maintain automotive equipment and machinery.

PC

Interesting time and interview requirements. At first I thought this might deter volunteers but on the other hand you do "weed out" those who are not serious. Eighty-four hours works out to about to around 1.5 hours per week. Does the forum-at-large feel this is a better system, preventing members who only wish to "dangle their toes" and giving a perception of exclusitivity?