People contact and it “being more than a Museum” is what excites front of house volunteer Christine Ferguson.
Role: Front of House/Shop
Christine Ferguson has been volunteering in the Museum shop front of house since the Museum’s inception in October 2016. A resident of Pinner Green, a 15 minute walk away, Christine’s role on a Thursday morning when she works at the Museum from 10.45 to 1.30 is to sell entry tickets, serve customers in the shop, ensure the display of products and goods and keep things orderly and generally provide a welcome to the visitors.
Christine enjoys this combination of providing practical and aesthetic help and loves the people contact – maybe because it is not a million miles away from her previous role as a Careers Consultant helping senior executives who were looking for new jobs, if without the hassle of the commuting and the commercial stress. As she says: “I don’t do gallery work but love dealing with customers and the contact with the people making them feel comfortable and welcome”.
What Christine values about the role, apart from chatting to and helping the visitors themselves, is getting to know others in the neighbourhood: “I like coming to work in a team and I’ve made good friends. I particularly like the mixed age groups there are amongst the volunteers, some who are students and still at College, others who are still working or who are retired”.
Christine especially enjoys this mixed element “We’re getting busier, more visitors to the Museum. There are more workshops during school holidays which is brilliant – mums coming in with their children to use the Activities Room. They may spend an hour or more there so it’s becoming more than a Museum”. Christine hopes that the Museum shop will gradually become more and more part of the retail community in Pinner (she also volunteers at the Mary Portas’ Save the Children shop on the High St.) and that we can start offering some rather less expensive items, in particular for mums and children. She like many others, provides useful feedback to those running the Museum and keeps us on our toes.
