Tour Guides Needed for Open House! 9/17/2016

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I’m going to try something new this year and ask that members willing to volunteer to give tours at our Annual Open House sign up for an hour long slot. If anyone wants to sign up for multiple slots you’re more than welcome to and will get an extra high five from me.

Hopefully this will combat me running around begging people to give a tour as we have a room full of visitors waiting.

At the top of the hour if you want to just come check in and let me know where you’ll be(I’ll have a clipboard and make a note) I’ll let you know when it’s time to give your tour. I can’t realistically give you an exact time because people coming in will ebb and flow. Tours will start no more than every 15 minutes but could be closer together.

These will not be regular tours that you’d give on Thursday night. They will be a much shorter, concise version I’ve written up. Every tour guide will get the short guide that you can take with you. No tour should be longer than 20 minutes.(I know! I know! But we have so much!) People will know that they’re free to roam around afterwards to ask those in depth questions and get more detail from the many members that’ll be around that day.

Logistically our normal long tours won’t work on this day. But the free range model we tried last year didn’t quite work either. So the hope is that this will be nice compromise between those things.

We’ll also need 1 person for each hour to act as a greeter. Basically stay in the lobby making sure visitors are signing the waiver, give out a schedule for the day, and just chat a bit.

Just add your name to the form if you’re able to commit. I went ahead and took the first Greeter spot because I plan on being here early that day getting things ready.

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I can give tours or be a greeter, and am planning on being available pretty much all day. However i’ll also be doing demos in the Vinyl cutter area so i’m going to hold off on signing up here until I can coordinate a little better. Do we have any guesses as to peak times for tours? It might be a good idea to have multiple tours happening at once so as to have smaller groups. Finally, can we maybe have a row of DMS laptops set up so that as we end the tour, we can put the sales face on and try to convert multiple people at once? I know we have a couple of computers that are set up, but having a few extras is bound to remove a barrier to getting new users set up.

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Yep. There will be multiple computers set up in either the common room or the conference room. The common room will be slightly rearranged for the day as well to accommodate a few activities.

Yeah, I’m sorry that wasn’t clear, there will absolutely be multiple tours going. Each tour should be no longer that 20 min so that we can double up on the tour guides as needed.

The last time we did tours on an Open House it was chaotic. I’m hoping with the time constraint (I’m printing up a short tour guide that will have the route and notes on each section), that will help. If you’ve given DMS tours before, the guide is going to feel very rushed but the idea is to give bare bones info and have guests walk around, ask questions, and go to all of the activities we have going on at the end of the tour.

Can we get a copy of the printed guide ahead of time?

It is looking more like I will be at the Open House. DARS has been planning to christen a new high power launch site this Saturday, but the weather forecast is getting worse.

Sure! I’m waiting on a couple of changes–I’ve asked for some input from a few committees on what’s really important to mention in their areas-- but as soon as I get it I’ll upload it and share it out. Should be no later than Wednesday.

Also, I’d be willing to walk through it with any members that are interested but have never given a tour, nervous about it, or just want to go through it so they can ask questions beforehand. I’m going to be here every night this week. :cry:… I mean… :grin:

Just messaged someone about the structure of tours for the day and thought I’d put most of it in this thread too for clarification.

The idea is that when visitors come to this Open House vs our normal Thursday tour nights, there’s a lot more activity for them to take part in. There will be hands on things happening throughout the day as well as lectures scheduled specifically to be interesting to someone who didn’t plan on attending.

So with the tours-- they aren’t going to be as detailed for a couple of reasons.

1.We have a larger volume of visitors and just can’t accommodate the often too large, 40+ minute tours to usually take place on Thursdays. But because we’re such a strange organization I think visitors still need a little guidance.

2.Because there will be a lot of activity that day for them to take part in, we’re encouraging visitors to stick around after the tour and do a lot of interacting with our members. Walk back over to an area that sparked their interest on the tour and ask more detailed questions then.

So my hope with the shorter, bare bones tour will be that at the end they have a feel for all we offer but end up probing further into the things they’re interested in.

As an example here’s what I have for 3d Fab:

*4 Polyprinter 3D printers that take ABS. Printerbot metal for experimental usage.
ABS filament is $0.10/gram or you can bring your own for no charge. 3D printer certification class is required to use the printers.

100% I want to hit on anything that requires training or a cost so our visitors have that expectation.

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Melissa,

I am not sure how long I can spend at DMS on Saturday as my company is moving into our new offices this weekend, but I’ve signed up for the 1-2PM slot. If I’m able I’ll be happy to help with other slots, too. Just let me know what you want highlighted in each committee.

The open house is always a good time for everyone.

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I just want to bump this again as we still need several spots filled. Please sign up if you can.

Thanks Alex, Is there going to be a handout of things you would like us to highlight? How long should we shoot for a tour to last?

I’m sorry I’m just now getting this out there. Here’s the tour guide sheet for this Open House. I’ll have plenty of copies printed and ready for you tour guides on Saturday!

There’s no need to read from it verbatim, but make sure you touch on the things I have listed. If the Greeters want to touch on the first paragraph to help the Tour Guides out, that would be appreciated.

This is the route I’d like tour guides to take so there’s no running into each other. We’re aiming for tours to not be longer than 20 minutes.

I tested this out with Alex and he got all of this in well under time. There’s built in cushion to bring you up to 20 minutes.

Please don’t hesitate to let your tour know that questions should be saved for the end of the tour and they’re encouraged to walk around and revisit the areas they’re really interested in later.

I’m just tagging all the folks that signed up for spots.

@merissa, @Ebony_Jackson, @Kluper, @themitch22, @frank_lima, @morganntho, @Adam_Oas, @coloneldan, @Eric_Brunner, @Melissa_L

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I’m going to also tag the poor souls that I might end up dragging in to giving tours when they’re free.(some of the usual tour guides on Thursdays.)

@Photomancer, @dallasmagna, @Kentamanos, @lukeiamyourfather, @ESmith, @Diplomat, @Lampy

I expected to pick up some slack on an informal basis anyway.

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I will be there. Whatever is needed.

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The guide looks great. Thanks for putting that together Mell!

Looks like there are still several time slots where we need more tour guides. Especially to close out the day from 4-5 pm. Surely we can get a few more folks to volunteer, right?

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I can help wherever/however needed. Start until 2. Then 5 until needed.

Bones

You are replying to a thread that is from last year’s tour.

ah.
I misread the 9/17 to mean Sept2017.
I thought this was an effort to “get a jump on” 2017’s OH… :rofl:

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