Museumwise - MANY progress update

January 27, 2012

Greetings!

Happy New Year!

Indulging in the season's energy and optimism, Museumwise and MANY dove straight in to pursuing our dual agendas of fostering each organization's ongoing slate of programs and services - advocacy update, 2012 Museums in Conversation preparations, spring Online Course offerings - and making consolidation a reality. You may recall that we have tasked a Steering Committee, made up of board representatives and staff of both organizations to develop a business plan, prepare related governing and procedural documents, and submit a petition for consolidation to the New York State Board of Regents.

We're happy to introduce our Consolidation Steering Committee -

John Haworth, MANY President

Director George Gustav Heye Center

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

Mark Mortenson, MANY Treasurer

President & CEO

Buffalo Museum of Science

Pamela E. Green, MANY

Executive Director

Weeksville Heritage Center

Steven Kern, MANY

Director

Everson Museum of Art

Beth E. Levinthal, MANY

Executive Director

Hofstra University Museum

Anne Ackerson, MANY Director

Michele Phillips, Museumwise Chair

Conservator of Paper Objects & Photographic Materials

Peebles Island

Lenora Henson, Museumwise Treasurer

Curator

Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural NHS

Rob Cassetti, Museumwise

Senior Director, Creative Services & Marketing

Corning Museum of Glass

Dana Krueger, Museumwise

Registrar

Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College

Sally Treanor, Museumwise

Museum Planning Consultant

Catherine Gilbert, Museumwise Executive Director

To ensure our ability to harmoniously provide quality services and programming throughout the course of this year's consolidation process, the Committee's first agenda item was to populate our consolidation timeline.

We remain committed to engaging you in this process in an open and responsive way, inviting input and taking inspiration from our members and stakeholders alike. To this end, we have posted a FAQ to our websites to begin addressing your queries and concerns throughout this process. We intend for this to be a fluid document, which will flex and grow in response to your feedback. Likewise, we look forward to our 2012 Museums in Conversation conference as our next opportunity to speak directly with you about our progress in crafting the best service model for the New York State museum community - we do hope to see you in April!

In the meantime, feel free to drop us a note, Catherine director@museumwise.org and Anne info@manyonline.org.

Many thanks for your support!

Best regards,

Catherine Gilbert,
Executive Director
Museumwise