ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

Amen!  Two other items, one, why have a cash bar when you are already 
paying for an event, and two, at the garden (which was SPECTACULAR), 
serving only pork as the main dish given the number of Jews and 
Muslims attending is not such a good thing.  Perhaps a second main 
dish?

Aside from that, the sessions were great, the hosting was terrific. 
Here's a special kudo - I had a large Xerox bill at the Convention 
Center business center, and they couldn't take credit cards. 
Apparently the business center was run by City Hall, and didn't have 
a card machine.  They said that I could wait to pay by card on 
Tuesday down at City Hall (talk about trust!).  Tuesday morning, they 
had someone come and pick me up, take me down to City Hall, escort me 
around and take me back to the convention center.  I told them I 
could have walked, but they said, "no, you are a customer and we will 
treat you right".  Talk about Southern hostpitality!  Ok Louisville, 
can you beat that???
Beryl

>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
>*****************************************************************************
>
>Whew. Now that decompression following the ASTC conference has occurred, let
>me pass on a few things I saw/learned in Richmond. I hope others will also
>share their impressions and experiences, cause hey, one purpose for the
>listserve oughta be to pass on info from the conference to others who
>couldn't make it.
>
>For no discernable reason, I shall format my conference in a method
>pioneered by TV Guide.
>
>            2005 ASTC CONFERENCE CHEERS & JEERS
>
>CHEERS to the Science Museum of Virginia. Hosting this affair has got to be
>a pain in the butt, but they did it very well. All of the staffers I met
>were great, and many of them bent over backwards to help us out of towners.
>(A personal thanks to Summer, David and Bee.) Among the keenest stuff at
>their center was the "kugel" (a huge marble globe that hydroplaned), the
>aparatsaurus bone the staff were cleaning, the Newton in Space exhibit...
>and the painting pig.
>
>CHEERS to the SMV parking lot. Seriously, this is the best smelling parking
>lot ever. SMV is located right next to a cookie + cracker factory.
>
>JEERS to canceling stuff. The Friday pre-conference tours all got axed, and
>they looked interesting. Also deep sixed was a Tuesday session about one of
>the most intriguing partnerships we'd heard of: between SMV and the Richmond
>Ballet. The head of the Minds in Motion program, they're the ones who
>brought the really great dancing kids to Saturday morning's opening, was
>supposed to present on art + science, but it was scratched.
>
>CHEERS to a big international attendance. I met/talked with people from
>Canada, Trinidad, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Argentina, Israel, England,
>Ireland, New Zealand and Malaysia.
>
>JEERS to a blitz of meaningless buzzwords. If you want to get people
>together to brainstorm some ideas, just say so. Don't say you're going to
>"collaborate as a thinking partner with senior leaders across the globe to
>create innovative forums for constructive dialogue on critical business and
>societal issues". Vague jargon is the friend of no one, except the overpaid
>marketing consultant.
>
>CHEERS to getting real. At the TV partnership session, I was worried at
>first that the session might drown in the jargon blitz mentioned above. But
>both the television and science center attendees came right out and said
>what we wanted from the other side in a partnership - and why we often
>weren't getting it or couldn't provide what the other side wanted. I won't
>say this let us solve all potential problems, but airing our differences up
>front at least let us get a start on it by getting a handle on the true
>problems. Call me nuts, but I see an honest, contentious debate as
>preferable to a conciliatory blast of nothing. I needed to know what the TV
>folks were seeking/offering, not to hear vague promises of "potential
>partnership synergies".
>
>JEERS to Saturday morning speaker Andy Stefanovich. I'll try to not get too
>acidic, and just say I thought he was bad.
>
>CHEERS to Sunday morning speaker Mike Melvill, the first privately funded
>astronaut to make it into space. You could hear jaws dropping during his
>stories of taking Spaceship One into space. I especially loved his first
>action upon reaching space: whipping out a camera to snap some pictures.
>
>CHEERS to the second most macho presenter, after Melvill, William Katzman of
>the Catawba Science Center. At the Best in Show session, he performed a demo
>where he walked barefoot on glass shards. And now I want to rent "Die Hard".
>
>JEERS to the shuttle schedule. It was good to have hotel shuttles to the
>conference center, but often they seemed to be running on a schedule that
>had no correlation with when the session were running.
>
>CHEERS to long running sessions that still pack a punch. Eddie Goldstein's
>Live Demo Hour is always great. I've seen a lot of demonstrations, but this
>year I saw several that were new to me. Highlight: Nina Simon of the Spy
>Museum, who used an honest-to-Le Carre polygraphy on a volunteer.
>
>Similarly, Linda Organ + Cathy Fudurich continue to bring it with The Best
>Damn Things We've Ever Done. Presented at a pace that suggests someone was
>on the Tina, this far reaching session once again showed amazing ideas. From
>how to organize a huge engineering event to an innovative way to teach
>genetics to a program where students raised and released endangered turtles.
>
>
>JEERS to the coffee served at the convention center.
>
>CHEERS to SMV director Walter Witschey. I nearly died of surprise when I saw
>that he was actually >presenting< floor programming to museum guests with a
>Segway. And numerous Virginia staffers assured me "he does that all the
>time." Now that's cool.
>
>CHEERS to some of the best partnerships discussed at this
>partnership-centric conference. And wouldn't you know, outreach folks got to
>see 'em.
>
>At the NEON session, Chris Burda of the Science Museum of Minnesota told us
>about how SMM works with small community science groups, from rocketry
>clubs, to professional medical associations to the daffodil association.
>This was one swell idea.
>
>At outreach live, we got to see part of SMV's programming designed
>specifically to help schools with the Standards of Learning (SOL - ha!)
>tests. We in the science center field may bitch n moan about standardized
>testing (and it's all justified!) but SMV has moved on to the next step:
>adapting, and doing something about it. I wish everyone could have heard a
>Richmond school principal talk about the museum's SOL programming, how
>schools eagerly vie to get funding for it, and how much she thought it had
>helped her students. "Five years ago, we did very poorly on the state
>science tests," the principal said, "last year, 90% of our fifth graders
>passed."
>
>And if that doesn't inspire you with thoughts of what's possible for us to
>achieve, what will?
>
>Louisville is on the clock,
>Jonah Cohen
>Outreach & Public Programs Manager
>Science Center of Connecticut
>
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>More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
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-- 
Beryl Rosenthal, Ph.D.
Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs
MIT Museum
265 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139
Tel: 617-452-2111
Fax: 617-253-8994
[log in to unmask]
"A great place to explore ideas, invention, and innovation: 
http://web.mit.edu/museum"

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More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
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