First trainee to sign up for the National Certificate in Museum Practice

‘I love the museum sector and have been with the Museum of Wellington City & Sea since June 2004. I started as a Visitor Services & Retail Supervisor and moved into the Visitor Services & Retail Manager position about 10 months ago. I am responsible for employing and training all visitor services staff and managing the shop. I also help out the Operations and Functions Managers. The area I particularly like being involved in is the operations side and this is the direction I would like to develop further.

Before I started work at the museum I completed a small business and café management certificate and that has been very useful in my work at the museum so far. However to gain more credibility in the Museum sector and to aid my future in the museum I decided at the end of 2005 to start studying again. The qualification I chose as being most suitable is the National Certificate in Museum Practice. The qualification recognises the essential skills and knowledge required to work in all areas within a museum. I can complete it on the job and ATTTO is there to help me along the way.

Apart from the personal challenge I also see studying on the job as a trial to encourage other staff at the Museum to start training. Not everybody is suited to university and so far the feedback from the other staff has been very good. From March 2006 we also have a Gateway student at the museum. When contacted by a local High School I was happy to offer one of the kids the opportunity to find out what it is like to work in a museum and study towards unit standards at the same time’.