10-02-2023, 05:59 PM
(10-02-2023, 03:52 PM)bravado Wrote:(10-02-2023, 03:12 PM)JoeKW Wrote: I went to the Waterloo Region Museum on Huron Road this weekend and they're severely short staffed. They only seemed to have 3 employees in the whole building. The snack bar was closed and no one was around to run the gift store, I supposed the person at the front desk can walk over but she was busy dealing with some patrons when I was there.
One of the childrens activities was cancelled because of a lack of staffing, the kids were to construct simple bird feeders.
The area near the windows on the upper floor were littered with a number of live and dead flies so it appears they cut back on cleaning staff as well.
Doon village was mostly closed off to visitors: we were able to see the train and surrounding buildings and one house, but we couldn't see anything across the bridge which is a majority of the structures.
I used to go here every once in awhile but I don't think I'll be back unless I hear that they've turned things around or if they get an interesting temporary exhibit.
Makes you wonder that maybe they’d get more visitors if it was in a place near where people actually lived, instead of a place you just drove by and immediately forgot?
Given that they have the pioneer village, I don't think it's realistic to relocate anywhere closer to the city. But the location may make it harder yet to attract staff. I expect they'll have better staffing in the summer using student labour (they certainly did when I worked there as a student, many moons ago) but by September they'd be back to regular staff and maybe some part-timers (if they can attract those).
And I think it's the lack of staff that causes the issues JoeKW pointed out.