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I am hoping to benefit from the experience of others here.

We are starting an in-state traveling exhibit program.  The exhibit are
small and will travel in their own retro-fitted trailers.  They will be
picked up by volunteers who will transport the exhibits to their
communities.

My questions are in regards to insurance and rental & transport policies.
If you have experience with something at all similar, I would appreciate
your comments, suggestions, sample forms, etc.

I do have experience renting traveling exhibits.  But, these have all been
transported by a hired carrier.

Thank you, Kristie Maher
SD Discovery Center, Pierre, SD
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----- Original Message -----
From: "martin weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 4:22 PM
Subject: Anti Evolutionism Bad for Business in Kansas as well as Education


> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
>
****************************************************************************
*
>
>  From the National Center for Science Education, October 13, 2005
>
> In the Kansas City Star (October 9, 2005), Jason Gertzen and Diane
> Stafford report that Kansas's reputation as a state officially
> hostile to evolution education is having discernible effects on
> recruitment efforts at universities and in the burgeoning
> biotechnology industry. "Some business leaders and economic
> development recruiters in the region say ... the region has acquired
> an 'anti-science' label in some key professions, fueled by the
> evolution debate in Kansas and efforts in Kansas and Missouri to
> impose restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research," they
> write. For example:
> * "We have become a bit of a punch line ... We just
> tend to get lumped in there as the stereotypical conservative,
> backward-thinking area," said Blake Schreck, the president of the
> Lenexa Chamber of Commerce.
> * When I go to national meetings, people start to buzz
> about Kansas and 'intelligent design.' When people begin to laugh at
> you, that is worse than if they disagree with you, and that is what
> is beginning to happen," said James L. Spigarelli, the president and
> chief executive officer of the Midwest Research Institute in Kansas
> City.
> * "People can't believe we'd go backward and lose our
> standing in the scientific world. ... scientists like to be around
> other scientists. If the feeling they get is that in this community
> they can't explore, they can't be curious, maybe they won't come
> here," said Thomas Giarla, the former president of JRH Biosciences
> (now SAFC Biosciences).
>
> Gertzen and Stafford acknowledge that the previous debacle over
> evolution in Kansas in 1999 appeared to have little economic effect,
> "perhaps because a slate of newly elected board members quickly
> reversed the previous board's action. As a result, many in the
> science community at the time wrote it off as a temporary blip."
> While it is difficult to compile economic data to prove that the
> region's economy would suffer from the state board of education's
> expected decision to adopt a set of science standards in which
> evolution is systematically impugned, they reported a Kansas City
> economist as characterizing the idea as not far-fetched.
>
>
> Martin
> --
> Martin Weiss, Ph.D
> Vice President, Science
> New York Hall of Science
> 47-01 111 th Street
> Corona, New York 11368
> 718 699 0005 x 356
>
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