Dear MVMers,
Congratulations to all our graduates of 2010, and welcome to the guiding programme. The MVM Committee is already gearing up for our new intake of trainees in September. Weekday training will begin on Tuesday 14th September and weekend training will commence on Saturday 18th September. A recruitment Coffee Morning will be hosted by the MVM in our new offices at the National Museums Department on Thursday June 16th at 10.00am. Please encourage your friends and colleagues to attend there will be plenty of volunteers on hand to explain what the MVM does, as well as giving details about the training programme and answering any questions or concerns.
As you know, in February we expanded our weekday tours to 4 days a week in English and 2 days a week in French, and one weekday in Japanese. We continue to provide weekend tours. In addition, there are Malay and Mandarin tours during the school holidays and one Saturday a month a Japanese guided tour is conducted. From September we plan to expand the English guided tours to 6 days a week, which means Monday through Saturday, as our great new graduates have provided the numbers to boost the programme.
In May the MVM moved its office and library from Muzium Negara to the National Museums Department, which is the parent body for the museum. The actual location is up the glass elevator that you see as you walk towards our old office in Muzium Negara. Our new offices are very spacious, light, air conditioned and there is plenty of room for the books and all our schools programme equipment. There is adequate seating and a good size table for meetings. The new room is next door to the Secretariat which has been set up by the Department of Museums. It is run by Jamil with the help of Fiza, Visa, and Maisaraf to help the MVM with its administrative needs. Please do drop by, take a look and introduce yourselves to the folks at the Secretariat. We are still in the process of sorting out various projects such as new ID Cards, guide vests, publicity material and events but we will keep you up-to-date through the newsletter and the Yahoo site.
On Monday 24th May we have arranged a meeting at the Dataran at 10.00am so that the volunteers can meet and talk to Datuk Ibrahim bin Ismail, the Director General of the National Museums Department. I know he is looking forward to the event and hope to see as many of you as possible.
This time of year is always a little sad as we have to say goodbye to our volunteers who will be leaving Malaysia over the next few months. We are planning a ‘Farewell Lunch’ to which everyone is invited on Thursday 24th June. I will send out further details nearer the time, but please put the date in your diaries.
I look forward to seeing you all very soon at the events we have planned. As always if you have any comments or ideas please email us.
Chrissy Lioe
MVM President
Museum Volunteers, JMM 