[BCMA] Family diversity, membership and beyond

Thu Jun 20 17:28:21 PDT 2013

Hi E Wright from Port Hardy.  You are on the right track.  Maybe consider
going further with your thinking.  

The Britannia Mine Museum spent considerable time on examining our values,
fears, and assumptions about memberships and how they are used and their
benefit to the Museum.  We used the work done by the Royal BC Museum on
their membership program as a source of ideas of new ways of thinking about
membership.  

We are proud of how our family membership category has developed.  We sell
it as a "Flexible Family Pass".  We kept the word family - as it is
understood - but we are not worried nor care in the least how people choose
to apply their definition of family when using the membership.  

Flexible Family Membership offers unlimited use for two adults (19+ years)
and up to 3 youth (6 - 18).  Children under 5 are free.  Additional child
pays a reduced rate.  

The flexibility allows for two primary adult members (who list themselves on
the membership form and who are recorded in our system).  One of the primary
adult members must be in attendance (show id) when the membership is used.
In other words, the membership is not transferable.  If the two primary
adult members are not both in attendance, we do not care who the second
adult guest is.  We do not care who the children belong to.  

We see two neighbor moms who bring their 'collective kids'.  We have two
adult sisters who bring their joint kids (cousins).  We have two dads who
bring their sons for a 'boys outing'.  We have a grandma who brings her
daughter and the grandkids.  Childless couples who have nieces/nephews they
want to bring.  As long as one of the adults in attendance is listed as one
of the primary adults for the membership, any combination families/friends
can dream up is good with us.  

We wanted to encourage our members to bring their friends and family to the
Museum and to do so on their terms as much as possible.  That is how
families/neighbor/friends do things today.  And, since members are our
greatest ambassadors we want them to come repeatedly and help us expose our
museum to their network of friends and family.  The membership pass is seen
as a great deal, and often the 'guest' of a member purchases their own
membership because they have their whole own network they want to share the
museum experience with.

So far we are having good success with the strategy. Our front of house find
it very easy to sell the membership and renewals and retention is tracking
positively - not where we want it but better than before.  Only in rare
exception do we find anyone 'abusing' their unlimited access.  Our family
membership is different than family day admission - in that it is unlimited
visits.  

Kirstin Clausen
Britannia Mine Museum.

-----Original Message-----
From: bcma-bounces at lists.vvv.com [mailto:bcma-bounces at lists.vvv.com] On
Behalf Of Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 2:17 PM
To: bcma at lists.vvv.com
Subject: Re: [BCMA] Family diversity, membership and beyond

Our family memberships include up to two adults + children in one household.

Seems to me that a simple change from "Mom and Dad" to "adults", "parents" 
or "caregivers"  is the easy and smart thing to do and would include 
families of all types.

E Wright
Quatse Salmon Stewardship Centre
Port Hardy, BC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv." <bcma at lists.vvv.com>
To: <bcma at lists.vvv.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2013 3:17 PM
Subject: [BCMA] Family diversity, membership and beyond

> This posting from a Childrens Museum list-serve should prove interesting 
> to
> many other museums.
>
> Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2013 4:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [CHILDMUS] Family diversity, membership and beyond
>
>>> Hi colleagues,
>>> I'm sure you're all following the story out of Jacksonville this week in
>>> which a lesbian family was denied a family museum membership:
>>>
>>> http://www.inquisitr.com/696424/same-sex-museum-membership-denied/
>>>
>>> and the sketchy way the museum handled the situation:
>>>
>>> http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/22457-museum-with
>>> -anti-gay-family-policy-responds-to-protest-by-raising-all-membership-fe
>>> es.html
>>>
>>> I'd like to think this is an isolated incident in our field, so I'm
>>> seeking inspiration. Please share what your membership departments are
>>> doing to make sure something like this never happens at your museums.
>>> Beyond membership policies, what steps have you taken to make your
>>> museum a welcoming place for all kinds of families?
> ------------------------------
>
>
>> Colleagues,
>> We, too, were shocked to read this story, and hopeful that it does not
>> reflect badly on children's museums in general, most of which I think
>> have very welcoming policies for all kinds of families.
>>
>> In this case, it sounded like a front desk person was enforcing a
>> reasonable rule to prevent multiple families from 'sharing' a
>> membership. We all know that there are some families that take advantage
>> in this way.
>>
>> What I was surprised about was that the ED did not override the front
>> desk person when it was made clear that the women in question were *in
>> the same household *(which is the criteria we use for memberships)*.*
>> The museum's solution to raise the price of membership for everyone was
>> a very clumsy one.
>>
>> At Habitot, we try to meet the needs of all of our potential audience
>> including LGBTQ parents. We have a "Best of the Gay Bay" designation
>> from the Our Family organization. We have gay staff members and board
>> members. We have a free, monthly "Mamas and Papas" program for LGBTQ
>> parents. They meet for facilitated parent support while their
>> (supervised) children have the run of the museum.  A couple of times a
>> year, we have a free Open House for the LGBTQ community. We just had our
>> Family Pride Day event fro 91 families this month. These efforts have
>> repaid themselves many times over in community connection and support.
>>
>
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