As we are looking forward to next year and operation some questions came up:
1. Should a volunteer be a member of the organization?
2. Should it be mandatory?
3. Should it be optional?

At the moment we do make it mandatory for a volunteer to be a member.

I would like to get a feel of what other operating rail organizations do in order to give our board some feedback as to how others operate. Hopefully you might help?

Thank you
Robert Ashton
FVHRS
http://www.fvhrs.com

The museum I volunteer at does not (to my knowledge) require one to be a member in order to be a volunteer. I (personally) see this as beneficial.

As a young guy (21), I'm still in college, I don't have my own place yet, I have to pay more expensive car insurance, etc. I don't have much extra money to spend on becoming a museum member. I don't get to volunteer as much as I'd like to at the museum because I live an hour away. The gas money I spend on making two trips to the museum adds up to the cost of a basic membership.

I can see in some instances where requiring a volunteer to be a member can be beneficial, but I think it could also end up chasing away younger volunteers. "Yeah, I'd love to volunteer, but I have to pay them to be allowed to volunteer, plus I have to spend gas money to get there, take a day off from work...".

Yes, I plan to become a member when I've got the means to do so (which may be sooner rather than later), but for now, I'm more than happy to donate my time.

I am interested to "see the other side of the coin", as I understand that other museums do operate on the "pay to play" basis.

There are valid arguments both ways for this.

I assisted one railroad group (by riding along with a member who was also a teacher in my high school) for so long as a teenager and young man that when I finally handed in an application and cash, several of the officers said "what is this? Haven't you BEEN a member all these years?"

Certainly if you're going to be doing certain things such as working in the machine shop, being a docent or cashier, or handling operating trains, you should be a member in good standing (or an employee). However, I never recall having to sign a wavier or take a training class before shelving books, operating the copier, etc. in the one library....

I have had several such organizations not in the rail field tie themselves in knots to accept my help. I've been given "honorary" memberships and all-access passes to festivals and the like in exchange for advance PR work, set-up and rip-down, writing and/or photographing for their website or program books, wrangling donations of parts or services, and/or major logistics administration. I was supposedly the only staffer in one national convention for nearly a decade that never actually paid membership dues, because I was one of two technicians entrusted with about $400,000 worth of radio and telecommunications gear and its set-up and take-down. (Before we showed up, they were trying to handle a 20,000-person convention with family-channel walkie-talkies....) In some cases, if they had paid commercially for these services, they would have been out hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars--is that worth quibbling over a $25 or $50 membership fee?

The extremes of this mentality, however, show up in bizarre places. I remember one time offering to provide writing and photographs (historic and modern) for the programs and on-board trip handouts for one group's convention, gratis or maybe for a ticket for one trip. They refused to even consider my offers for one second unless I became a member of their organization--it smacked of a "country club" mindset. In another instance, I heard about a group planning an excursion to an area where a group I was in was active, and I suggested to my group that we offer at least some token assistance to the manpower-short group running the excursion--say, car hosts, hospitality during layover, "history of the station" handout, etc. (Both groups were ostensibly rail history groups.) The response I received from the board of directors of my group was literally hostile, angry, and acrimonious. There was no way that they were willing to expose the group in ANY WAY whatsoever to the excursion group--because of liability concerns. The way these guys were talking, we could all be sued for every penny we had if we loaned them a photo for their onboard handout and some passenger twisted their ankle getting on or off the train. The way they hid behind every fathomable "could," "might," "risk," "liability," etc. led me to finally explode at them, "So, tell me, with all this risk you keep talking about, how in hell do you ever summon up the courage to even leave your house, let alone get into a car to come here?" They still haven't answered me.

I've seen this latter mentality, apparently prompted by the fact that litigation has seemingly replaced baseball as the national pastime, more and more these days, not just in railroading but in all other similar walks of life. I quite seriously predict that, in a few years' time, I shall run into a group that will refuse a cash donation of mine unless I enroll as a member first. And if that group is a railroad history group, I'll then trash all my railroad stuff and take up llama herding, goat milking, or something else more productive and rewarding.

At Sacramento's California State RR Museum you volunteer to the the State Museum and the supporting CSRM Foundation gives you a membership -- thus you get the newsletter, other mailings, entrance privileges, etc. And you may make additional contributions.

One thing to consider is that if the organization involved has matured to the point of having liability insurance for its members and you're on the property and volunteering and NOT a member, you could be in fuzzy legal territory should something unpleasant happen.

The B&O Railroad Museum does not require volunteers to be members. In fact I suspect that most are not members.

The CSRM solution that Brian explained sounds very reasonable. Provide membership to the volunteer.

Imagine if a museum had a strictly enforced rule that to "volunteer" you must be a member. Then they have a critical piece of equipment fail a couple days before a major event, and need help to make repairs in time. Is it going to assist them in finding help if they have to inform everybody they call in their search that they must become a member in order to provide information or show up to assist them with repairing the equipment? If you ask non-members to help, why not just hand them membership as thanks for responding, and maybe they will continue to be members or financial supporters in the future.

PC

Considering that most memberships fall into the $20-30 range, and that volunteer labor (for grant funding purposes) is rated from $7 to $20 and hour (dependent on skill set); the CSRM model looks to be the most sensible and practical means of making volunteers inclusive to the membership.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

I'm no lawyer. But I am our Museum's insurance coordinator. I have to agree with this statement. Our Museum is all-volunteer. We require all regular volunteers to join our Museum.

We have general liability insurance as do most (all?) Museums that carry visitors as passengers or have facilities where the general public can visit. We also have the volunteer accident insurance policy through a well-known agency located in Long Beach, California. Volunteers must be a Museum member in order to qualify for coverage under this accident policy is my understanding.

Our dues are so low that you have to be almost destitute to not afford to join. But I'm sure that several have not joined because they couldn't afford $30 per annum.

Thanks!

As for RMNE, pretty much what Jim V. said. We have the volunteer insurance, and one has to be a member to be covered by it. Those volunteers who work in train operations really do need to be members. Our annual dues are $35.00---- That's less than $3.00 per month. I think anyone can afford that amount, let's be realistic.

Howard P.

During the time I was managing the NNYCRRM in Elkhart, IN this issue came up. The the museum is owned by the City of Elkhart, IN and the first reply to this question was yes they must be members of the museum to volunteer. At that time we had some paid staff and also were getting court ordered community service workers, none of whom had to buy a membership. I am sure you can guess what the volunteers many who were bringing in their own tools and donation supplies had to say.

The City Attorney looked into this issue for us. What he found out in our situation was that the fee was not the issue it was simply the agreement that needed to be signed to for a formal relationship with the volunteers and the city/museum. It was handled the same way that Volunteer Police program worked where the museum volunteers were unpaid employees and were covered under the standard workman's comp policy. We did have the misfortune to have one of our volunteers seriously injured. When he was taken to the hospital it was handled as if he was a regular city employee.

So by letter of the law yes he was a member but there did not need to be a cost to the volunteer. I am sure that some would argue the cost should be defrayed by the member but sometimes too much can be ask of them.

Mark A. Frazier

+1 for what Alexander D. Mitchell IV said. But to put it another way, if you must have volunteers be members for liability reasons, then just enroll them as members. It makes little sense to me that they should have to pay money for the great privilege of donating their time and effort, and sometimes money in the form of tools and materials they might bring to the site themselves.
Just sign them up as members. You don't need their 25 bucks as much as you need their talent.
And usually, when they can, the volunteers will be the first to donate money to the organization. That, and their word of mouth can help add members to the roster. So treat them well, not as second class citizens.
Mark D.

Here is an example of how a non-railroad museum addresses the issue. The Autry National Center, a major western history museum in Los Angeles, says "membership is required to volunteer."

It has a variety of uses for volunteers: Greet Visitors, Become a Docent, Assist Children and Families, Help With Programs, Work in the Library, Help in the Autry Store, Work With the Autry Collection, and Perform Administrative Duties. It even has a summer student program. It appears that everyone volunteering is handled through its Human Resource Department.

See: http://theautry.org/get-involved/volunteer

Makes me think of what I heard some years ago about the Minnesota Historical Society. It had job descriptions and would have volunteers apply and get interviewed just like a paid employee.