Thread by @MariaMGillespie

Steps to get a Masked Monday event to happen at a local museum for your covid cautious community:

1. Reach out and ask! As a bonus, if you can, add a little social pressure by mentioning other museums that you've heard of doing this recently.

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2. If they're receptive, set up a video call to talk logistics. Get a planning buddy to help you if you can, or just talk to them directly.

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3. Set a date and time. We picked a day a lot of people would have a flexible schedule due to a holiday, and set the hours to be 2-5 PM. This museum isn't usually open on Mondays, so they offered to open extra hours just for us.

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4. Decide on advertising goals. The museum didn't want to advertise in a major public way for the first attempt. So we just advertised to our local covid cautious community, which is fortunately rather robust at this point! The word spread fast.

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5. Offer to bring masks, hopefully through a local mask bloc. Thanks @covidsafeco !

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6. The museum set up a pre-registration link and gave us a group discount. It was nice in terms of getting people signed up in advance and planning for how many we might expect.

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7. Do multiple rounds of advertising. Ask people directly if they can come, and let them know they are helping by coming - the more people come, the more leverage for convincing more places to do this down the road.

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8. The day of the event: Set up respirator quality masks of various sizes at the front in a prominent location. Have the museum put a little sign out front if possible letting people know that it's Masked Monday. Plug in air filters if the ventilation is poor in spots.

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9. People will start to show up! Have fun. Greet people and let them know you're glad they could make it. Make it memorable. Many of the parents from higher-risk families were in tears that there was finally something safe and accessible for their kids to enjoy.

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10. Non-coviders from the community might wander in, not realizing it's Masked Monday. Have a volunteer or two hanging around near the front to help them out, if possible. Direct them to the mask desk and help them pick a good fitting mask for themselves and their kids.

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11. There were 4-5 families that wandered in throughout the session without masks, and all were kind and receptive and understanding, and happily masked the entire time. ❤️

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12. At the end, help with cleanup and tear down. Say all the goodbyes and thank you's. Be the kind of cooperative group that they want to have back.

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It was such an incredible success and I'm so proud of what we accomplished. This museum already wants to run another such event in a few months. We have plans to ask more local museums now too, and it will just get easier from here.

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And maybe, some day, if it catches on... Masked Monday will just be a thing. One day a week that the immunocompromised, high risk, and otherwise cautious can safely go to the dentist, to the grocery store, to the movies, to everywhere we all deserve to be able to access.

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It wouldn't be enough, but it would be more than we have now. It would be forward progress, which is what today, in its small way, really was. So many doors have been closed, but today, we opened one again.

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