Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 92-93.(Budapest, 2000)

VADÁSZ, LINDA: Friends of the Museum Celebrate Fifth Anniversary

FRIENDS OF THE MUSEUM CELEBRATE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY The Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts is a public benefit organization set up to support the Museum in the development and expansion of services to the public. The idea for the organization arose in 1994, when two former members of the museum's public relations department, Margit Valkó and Gabriella Markgráf, made a presentation about the museum to a group of members of the International Women's Club. The women were so impressed by the presentation in which the financial needs of the museum were enumerated, that they offered to organize a Friends circle as a way to raise funds for projects, to increase awareness of the museum in both the international and Hungarian communities, and to generate volunteers. It took one year to incorporate, so the Friends are celebrating our fifth anniversary in the year 2000. The Friends organization has one paid employee; thus it is primarily a volunteer organization. Most of our programs, including all of our fundraising activities, are conducted by our Board of Directors, whose work on behalf of the Museum is donated. Our Board of Directors now and in the past has included some of the leading members of the Hungarian and international community. It is strictly stated in our charter that no Board member may receive any form of payment for his or her services. When first forming the Friends organization, Mr. Miklós Mojzer, Director General of the Museum, specified that we should not be involved in the maintenance or operation of the museum. This directive was incorporated into our organization's charter and by-laws. This means that, in general, we do not raise funds for building construction or to purchase artwork, but we focus on ways to improve services to the public. For example, we raised funds, through a grant from the International Women's Club Foundation, to pay for bilingual labels for part of the Old Masters galleries. In addition, we support a group of volunteer docents who give tours four days a week in English, and in other languages upon request. We also support several educational projects. These include a monthly program on Saturdays for children, initiated by Hedvig Győry from the Egyptian Department. In addition, we recently published two quiz booklets for children, in Hungarian and English, to be used primarily for families who visit the museum. The booklets are meant to give the children a better understanding of the Spanish and Netherlandish galleries in an enjoyable format. We are now working on a project with the László Németh Primary School, in which seventh graders have learned about what kind of work people do in a museum. Eighteen employees, including the Director, curators, a restorer, a librarian, the electrician, and the lunch room attendant responded to letters written by the children about their jobs. The children then visited the museum galleries, the li-