Hug a Museum Worker day. OK...

So I have just heard that June 29th was the first ever Annual International Hug A Museum Worker Day:  http://hugamuseumworker.org/about/

Feeling nervous? The idea of the annual day is "to educate the public about various professions in the museum world"  with a website "to provide museum professionals with a platform to inform the general art and museum-loving public about the myriad responsibilities and challenges that they face at work on a day-to-day basis."

Why hugging? "The event is fun, well, because it is, as are museums. And, most of us can do with a hug on a regular basis – especially all over-worked, under-paid with little job-security museum staff." (more here)

They admit themselves that the day's name is "a somewhat flippant title", and it led to some entertaining responses online, (my favourite of which is this article "Many museum workers are introverts who went into museums specifically because they did not want to be near, much less touch, regular people. In fact, they often don’t want to be around their own colleagues either.") followed by a swift explanation on the Hug A Museum Worker blog.

There doesn't seem to be a huge following for the idea yet, with their social media numbers low, and most discussion about the day being jokes made by self-confessed introverted museum workers. What solid interaction there has been seems to have taken to the concept with a good sense of humour.  

It's also given a small platform to raise awareness of what benefits museums bring to the community and the broader stage.

It's a good ambition, to make people aware of the full crew that go into making museums happen, and encouraging appreciation of their work. Will it catch on as a thing? Not sure, so let's brace for June 29th 2016.