Newport Harbor Nautical Museum

Ahoy There, Mates — It’s Time to Come Aboard

There are fun and rewarding volunteer opportunities now at the NHNM. Please see below for information about our Shipmate and Docent Programs. And at the end of this page you will find a link to download the 2008 Volunteer Survey - it would be much appreciated if you could take a few minutes to fill this out.

Check out our Events page for upcoming volunteer meetings and opportunities.

For further information, please contact the Museum's Volunteer Coordinator:
Danielle Chapman
(949) 675-8915, ext. 110 or danielle@nhnm.org

To Our Volunteers

On behalf of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, I would like to thank you for your continued support of the Volunteer Program.

We are at the beginning a new year in our new location, and NHNM Trustee Martha Church and I are cleaning out the cobwebs on the Volunteers files. We need your help in updating our records.

We are requesting that you please help us through this process. We have enclosed both an application form and a volunteer survey. Please answer all questions on the form thoroughly. By completing these forms, it will allow us to re-organize and respond promptly to your request to volunteer. When you have completed the application, please mail it back to the NHNM office. We have included a pre-addressed envelope for your convenience.
We would like to announce that with the onset of the New Year, we are renaming the Shipmates volunteer group to the NHNM Volunteer Auxiliary. Now that we are no longer affiliated with the Riverboat, we feel that the new title is more appropriate. We are confident that you will feel the same.

Finally, we would like to invite you and a friend to attend the next NHNM Volunteer Auxiliary meeting scheduled on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008, at 9:00am. Please join us for a cup of coffee and meet new friends while supporting a worthwhile cause.

Thank you again for your interest in our volunteer program. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at anytime.

Sincerely,
Danielle Dutton Chapman
Volunteer Program Coordinator

Martha Church
Newport Harbor Nautical Museum Trustee

Museum Docent Opportunity

Great news! Our guest attendance figures are way up. We have had 25,000 guests in the last six months (July – December) as compared to the last annual count of 12,000 on the Riverboat. This change constitutes a significant need for regularly scheduled volunteers.

In an effort to improve our guest’s Museum experience, NHNM is looking to expand its existing floor coverage during routine gallery hours. The Museum has a considerable need for regularly scheduled docents, quality volunteers who will have a set time slot on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

As you know, Saturday and Sunday are the busiest days of the week at NHNM. They are also the days when the least number of staff members are on board. Presently, there is one Guest Relations person in each the East Wing Gallery and Steele Model Pavilion. The Guest Relations staff person essentially runs the Galleries by themselves on the weekends. This makes it hard to interact with guests especially when the Galleries are busy, as is the case on weekends.

NHNM has recognized the need for a more interactive museum experience for our visitors. This situation creates more opportunities for visitor-docent interaction and docent–lead tours; we are uniting the idea of a personal and educational experience. To achieve this reachable goal, we are dividing each of the weekend days into morning and afternoon shifts. Each shift lasting a minimum of two hours up to four hours in length. We are looking for volunteers who are willing to schedule themselves for these shifts on a regular basis.

NHNM is seeking a staff of regularly scheduled volunteers. In order to achieve the standard of excellence that we are seeking we need your help. Our view:

“Excellence is working as a team, anticipating what needs to be done, and then setting new standards in how you do it”.

Please contact me with any questions that you may have.

Warmest Regards,
Danielle Chapman
Newport Harbor Nautical Museum
Volunteer Program Coordinator
(949) 675-8915 ext. 110.
danielle@nhnm.org

Volunteer Survey

Volunteers, please download this year's survey. It is available as a Microsoft Word document, which you can fill out and email back to Danielle Chapman at danielle@nhnm.org, or as a PDF:

Volunteer Survey (Microsoft Word format)
Volunteer Survey (PDF format)

Thank you!!!