Volunteer Team Member Spotlight: Lori Reger August 5, 2022 MIM’s museum guides are trained and ready to create fun, educational experiences for any group, whether that is an energetic class of 4th graders or an inquisitive Girl Scout troop. As a new guide, Lori Reger sees each tour as an opportunity to implement more of what she has learned, and she finds it extremely rewarding to see students’ eyes light up when they visit the exhibits. Lori joined the volunteer team in January 2022 and quickly decided to become a museum guide, inspired to “lead tours for kids to show them the wonders of the museum as well as open their worlds to the beauty, history, and joy of musical instruments.” Museum guides do not need to have a musical background—trainees take a deep dive into the galleries with MIM curators and learn how to engage guests of all ages from museum guide mentors and MIM’s education team. Their training explores ethnomusicology, storytelling, MIM’s approach to STEM, music making, and other concepts. Lori completed 44 hours of training over five and a half weeks in the spring—and loved every minute of it. Museum guide Lori Reger “Training was a blast,” Lori says. “The instruments easily lend themselves to education, but learning how to impart that information during a tour in a relatively short time frame to antsy 3rd graders isn’t really intuitive to most of us! But we were given the tools and the practice opportunities to make it happen.” Apply today for the opportunity to become a museum guide at MIM! Applications are due by September 22 and can be found at MIM.org. Fall training sessions will meet every Monday and Thursday between October 13 and November 17.
