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North Atlantic Chapter Meeting Minutes
Monday, Aug. 17, 2009 — New York, NY
Chapter President Stacey Stachow of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. She introduced Dorothy M. Belshaw, senior vice president and director of the New York International Gift Fair, who welcomed the group. Attendees introduced themselves.
PRESENT
Twenty-five members were in attendance: Christine Brown, Lucie Chin, Sylvia Cruz, Annaline Dinkelman, Robert Dinkelman, David Duddy, Amy Gin, Gail Goldberg, Matt Greene, Alan Harley, Tracey Levy,
Gigi Loizzo, Claudia Majetich, Yury McKenna, Laura Murphy, Cynthia O'Malley,
Joe Panitch, Anthony Reyes, Mary Ellen Rigby, Ione Saroyan, Nobuko Sato, Kristen
Sniezek, Stacey Stachow, Sallie Stutz and Jon Weatherman.
OLD BUSINESS
Minutes of the previous meeting were accepted.
NEW BUSINESS
Stacey announced the chapter officers: Vickie Sandiford as Vice President and Joe Panitch as Secretary. She asked if anyone would be interested in volunteering or running as Secretary in the upcoming elections.
We opened the floor to a discussion about the chapter meetings and where and when to have them. Some suggestions were to have just one meeting a year instead of two and make it a really big meeting so we get more bang for our buck. It was also suggested that we could get together in small groups for lunches (for the people who are close together) to discuss issues in our local areas. Some people liked it with the NYIGF, some did not.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Several announcements from MSA headquarters were presented:
- Pre-orders are being taken for the 2009 MSA Retail Industry Report with financial, operations and salary data from museum stores around the country plus best practices benchmarking.
- Recently MSA’s board of directors updated the Code of Ethics.
- The 2009 Conference program in Phoenix, AZ, was the first program completely designed around the Knowledge Standards. Several new Knowledge Standards self-assessments tools can be found on the MSA Web site and can be used to evaluate the skills of your staff in the various subject areas.
- Details on the 2010 edition of The Cultural Traveler can be seen on MSA’s sister Web site, www.Museum-Store.travel.
- If you have not yet tried the new and improved online product search, Museum Store Marketplace, you may be missing a really good new tool for searching for specialized products.
- The 2010 MSA Retail Conference & Expo in Austin will feature our second educational program designed around MSA’s Knowledge Standards including, Financial Management, Operations and Communications.
- Exhibitors started buying booth space July 1 and we are excited to say we are nearly half sold already.
- MSA is continuing to develop our membership so new members are always welcome. MSA is starting a new member acquisition campaign in August 2009. Be sure to reach out to new members in your area and welcome them to MSA.
- MSA currently has two great programs that might help you and your institution save money. Receive discounts on shipping to and from your stores through Partnership and help reduce credit card processing costs with Renaissance.
- Don’t forget that once you are logged into MSA’s Web site there is a message board system for just for members – ShopTalk! This is a great outlet to talk with other members about anything and everything.
- MSA is stepping into the social networking world with a Facebook page.
Date and location of next chapter meeting will be forthcoming. The next annual MSA Conference will be in Austin, TX, April 17 – 19, 2010.
ADJOURNED
The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 p.m.
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