100th Annual NEMA Conference
Our centennial celebrations kicks off at this year’s conference in Stamford, CT. We have more than 100 sessions and events, the most ever for NEMA. New for the conference are rapid-fire TED Talk-style “Story Telling Sessions” in which presenters relate case studies in 20-minute time blocks. Also new is our “Collections Corps” service project, organized by the Registrar and Collections Care Specialists and Conservators PAGs, which will take place the day before the conference; volunteers will help the Shelton (CT) Historical Society with a collections project. The 100th Anniversary keynote session on Wednesday November 7 will feature short reflections from a “cross-section” of the museum profession including Nina Zannieri of the Paul Revere House speaking on “The Future of History,” Christina Turner of the New Bedford Whaling Museum on “Diversity, Youth, and Museums,” Brian Cofrancesco of the CT Old State House on “Museums & Civic Dialogue,” and Brooke DiGiovanni Evans of the MFA/Boston on “Art as Healing.” Then, we’re featuring a multimedia performance from artist, competitive weightlifter, and emerging museum professional Kledia Spiro as she shares her journey from war-torn Albania to the Fitchburg Art Museum.
NEMA Team Expands
A warm welcome to NEMA’s newest team member, Erin Wederbrook Yuskaitis, who joined the staff in September as part-time administrative assistant. Erin will be helping us with a variety of projects once a week. She comes to us with a wealth of museum-field experience, including five years at Boston’s Old North Church, where she currently serves part time as the Director of Education. Erin received her B.A. from the University of Virginia, a Master’s from the University of Alabama, and a Museum Studies certificate from Tufts.
PAG Updates
Are you interested in being a PAG Chair? We are currently looking for chairs for the Curators, College and University Museums, and Natural History\Science PAGs. Contact Meg Winikates at meg.winikates@nemanet.org for complete details.
Three PAGs now have Facebook groups! Join the Registrars & Collection Care Specialists (RACCS), Library & Archives, and the Development, Marketing, PR, Membership PAGs online. Don’t forget to follow the NEMA Young and Emerging Professionals page.
2018 Excellence Awards
Congratulations to the winners of NEMA’s Excellence Awards Competition!
- Jan Crocker, Senior Exhibit & Content Developer, Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate
- Ramin Ganeshram, Executive Director, Westport Historical Society
- Neil Gordon, CEO, Discovery Museum
- Robert Kiihne, Director of Exhibits, USS Constitution Museum
- Jeri Robinson, Vice President of Early Learning Initiatives, Boston Children’s Museum
You can read more about this year’s winners here.
Winners will be honored at the NEMA Annual Meeting on November 9. We received an impressively competitive set of nominations for acts of excellence large and small. This is a sign of an extraordinarily talented and empathetic museum community here in New England. Even though we could not award prizes to each nominee, we are proud to acknowledge each and every one of them as the best of NEMA’s membership. Their work makes us better as a community of museum professionals and as a field.
NEMA Stats: A Monthly Museum Attendance Report
We invite you to participate in NEMA Stats: A Monthly Museum Attendance Report, a new program in which museums share visitor data confidentially with one another. When you participate in NEMA Stats, you agree to share your museum’s visitor data with other program participants. NEMA collects the data and issues a monthly report, with which you can compare your statistics against those of your colleagues from around the region. Enrollment for 2019 ends February 27, 2019. Click here for complete details of the program.
2018 Slate of Nominations
The Nominating Committee of the NEMA Board of Directors has submitted the following slate for new officers and members of the NEMA board. The committee included in their deliberations names that had been submitted by the NEMA membership, considering attributes that included prior service to the association and the experience that the candidates would add to the current NEMA board.
There are two open board seats this year. Nominated for these are Elon Cook, Program Director and Coordinator, Center for Reconciliation and Loren Spears, Executive Director, Tomaquag Museum to the NEMA board. In addition, there are five board members nominated for re-election: Kristina Durocher (2nd term), Pilar Garro (3rd term), Sue Goganian (2nd term), Matt Kirchman (2nd term), and Cathy Saunders (3rd term).
You can vote on the slate at the Awards Luncheon and Annual Meeting, which will take place at 12:45 pm on November 9, 2018 at the Stamford Hilton, Stamford, CT.
Many thanks to the members of this year's nominating committee: Sue Goganian, Janie Cohen, Kristina Durocher, Margaret Middleton, and Matt Kirchman.
Call for Articles
Have a great idea for an article for New England Museums Now? Museums Now is the professional journal for the voices of museum professionals across the geography, genres, and job descriptions present in our field, and we want your voice to be represented! Submissions for articles are accepted on a rolling basis. Though Museums Now issues each focus on a particular theme relevant to our field, we welcome articles on all museum topics. Your submission is not required to fit a theme for an upcoming issue. For complete details about submitting an article, click here.
NEMA Executive Roundtables
Since 2016, NEMA has offered an executive roundtable program for museum leaders with annual budgets of between $800,000 and $1.4 million. The roundtable is a confidential peer-learning group that improves the institution’s long-term stability and the director’s life. If you’d like to explore participation, please contact Dan Yaeger, dan.yaeger@nemanet.org.