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I'm trying to formulate our approach to distributing free or reduced 
admission visits for groups next year and hope to get some wisdom on 
the subject.

Our site is small enough that we limit group visitors to no more than 
100 at a time. If we subsidized all of the groups that we would like 
to help we couldn't serve enough paying groups to meet our revenue 
goal. We're not fully booked for the year, so we could accommodate 
more subsidized visits, but we don't know which times will be 
available until it is too late for groups to reserve a bus.

All of our advertised scholarship slots are snapped up immediately by 
savvy teachers who already know our system (they're all booked the 
day we open registration). Then for the rest of the year we get 
requests for free visits from teachers who aren't so organized, but 
are often in exactly the communities we're trying to reach. I end up 
agonizing over each request--neither a fun nor efficient way to work.

So, I'd like to know, does anyone reserve scholarship funding for 
teachers who call later in the year? How do you distribute it?  And 
do the savvy teachers then figure out that they can just pester you 
until they get a scholarship?

Finally, do you have any groups that are automatically granted free 
or reduced admission just because of the audience they serve (for us, 
that might include Head Start classes)? Do you require them to visit 
during certain days of the week, or times of the year?

thanks in advance for any answers or suggestions,
-- 
  Katherine Ziff
  Manager of School and Community Programs
  Bay Area Discovery Museum
  557 McReynolds Road
  Sausalito, Ca 94965

(415) 339-3922

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