Wednesday - A LOOOONNNNGGGG DAY!

I’m pooped and rather overloaded right now. I had a preconference on Emerging Museums which was really good (even drew some attendees from India, Egypt, and Australia), but went from 8am to 6pm (even had a working lunch). I had to take walk through Denver afterwards just to decompress a little (of course, when I ran into about 100 cross-dressers I wasn't sure if I was just seeing things - I wasn't, it was a tour of women in mens clothing and men in womens clothing)! And, BTW - everyone was really impressed by our project - they thought a library/museum was a great idea! OK – so this might be all over the place, but here is the lowdown (broken up by topics versus speakers)…

Ideas

Several emerging museums, who still don’t have buildings, start “museums without walls.” They are mobile museums essentially, where they bring the exhibit to you (classrooms, birthdays, etc.) This is interesting because while they fundraise and raise awareness (and build) their museums they are out in the community with exhibits.

Use college classes for free work – some museums have made arrangements with architecture classes to design their museums (the entire class works on it), some work with a class to market their museums, some work with fundraising classes to raise money… All of these ideas sound interesting because they are structured, have a defined start and finish and gain buy in from the local schools.

Grant writing – several museums are bringing on grant writers without a salary. Instead, they get a cut of whatever grants they bring in.

Large donations – Miami children’s museum seemed to negotiate large one time donations (like a million+) and then also negotiate with those same donors to donate another 10% annually for the following 5 years. I thought it would be interesting if we got a major naming donor to then encourage them to continually donate.


Programming

Field trips – must meet state educational standards or teachers won’t want to come just to “play.” Many museums do facilitated field trips which include a tour of the museum and then a 30-minute educational component with one of the exhibits.

“Germs” – put glitter on one child’s hand, then have him shake hands with the next child and then that child shake with the next one, and so on. That will show them how easily germs travel from one to the other and the importance of washing hands.

Family Parade – have families create small floats for a local parade. They showed a couple pictures of cute little floats that families created.


Going Green

More and more libraries are going green with construction, paint, materials, lighting, exhibit materials, carpet, etc. Some of the best examples are at www.greenexhibits.org.

Try and start a partnership with a large corporation that includes “green” as part of their mission

Use environmentally friendly cleaning products. (BTW – most libraries clean exhibits every day and then do a “deep” cleaning once a week.)


Potential Partners

School districts

Social service agencies (one museum actually hosts a regular “adoption day” for kids and parents to meet, interact in a safe, fun environment. Then, when the adoption goes through, the family gets a membership to the museum.)

Local cable channel (one museum is doing a cooking class in one of their spaces and the local cable channel films it for the local channel).

Developers

Local cities


Misc.

Logistics to make children’s museums successful – good location, lots of parking, nearby open space, nearby restaurants, bus turnarounds and parking – hmmm… I think we have those things.

Feasibility studies – most museums are still in the fundraising stages. They don’t have buildings yet, so they are starting enormous capital campaigns. A lot of what was discussed was exactly what the PAL Campaign did, plus the importance of having a Foundation Board. It sounded like we have a lot of the infrastructure in place, from the building shell to the Foundation Boards.

Staffing – staffing in these museums seems at a minimum – maybe one or two full time people (perhaps an executive director for $$ and then a programming/exhibits person) and a whole bunch of part time staff. I spoke to someone from Reno who is starting a 55,000 sq ft museum in the next year and will open with maybe 11 FTE (only two of those full time – no benefits). The smaller museums (5,000-20,000 sq ft) only have one full time person, a few part timers and then a ton of volunteers. Whereas we tend of make sure everything is staffed, in children’s museums, the idea is for the parent to interact with the child.

Several speakers mentioned that children's museums are going into downtown areas because they are a great way to revitalize an area! That's good news - not that VG needs to be revitalized.

That's about it (kind of).


TOMORROW - (might be another long day)

Opening Session - Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

Getting the Bulding You Want

Federal Funding Opportunities - representatives from the IMLS and NEA will be talking about federal funds!

Current Play Research (the connection between play and the development of social, emotional, cognitive, and intellectual skills)

Painless Solutions to Painful Problems - the Idea Swap

What is a Children's Museum? Emerging models in the field (Exhibits and Environments) - there will be a speaker from Imaginon!


Michelle