Hello everyone. I am Amy Combs, Director of the McCreary County Museum located in Stearns, KY.  I arrived in Indy late last night with an early morning and a day full of exciting sessions.  As one of the small museum scholarship recipients’ I agreed to make posts of what I expected as a small museum professional.  Upon arrival last night I was exhausted and hoped to make this post prior to my first experience but numerous incidents prevented it.

However tonight after a mind blowing day of sessions and networking I come to you to share that the conference was more for the small museum professional than I expected but I also realize that although we have all tried very hard to define the small museum it seems as though some are smaller than small.

Although I feel very fortunate to have been able to attend I feel even more grateful to AASLH staff for making the conference so inviting and making it easy to go from one session to the next with the program guide and hospitality counter.  I have really enjoyed the opportunity to network in the exhibit hall with vendors and companies that I may have never made contact with otherwise. 

On the way myself and my two volunteers that came with me talked about what we may learn and I cannot say that we have been disappointed.  We are excited about the sessions being offered tomorrow on funding and technology.  I know in one session today one question that was posed to the small museum group was how do you train staff and volunteers and I could only think about how I will be taking this experience back as a training tool and opportunity for my staff and volunteers that were left behind to manage the museum in my absence.

Hopefully I will be able to offer more tomorrow to those following these posts for I will be more rested.   – I can say one thing although it may seem good to some to make conferences long most small museums ran by one staff member cannot afford the travel expenses or to be away from the site for preconference tours.  I was very pleased that I made the decision to come later in the week for the sessions.  I honestly feel this is an important comment for other small museums that may think if they are going to attend they should or have to come for the entire week.  I do not feel as though I have missed anything I could not have picked up on through the networking with others or just by asking.  It would have been impossible for our organization to pay the extra travel expenses especially after arriving and discovering a $30.00 parking fee per night (remember small museum).  I was very surprised by this after being invoiced by the hotel, having to get preapproval from accounting to bring a company check and am still wondering why they did not tell us of this charge during the reservation process (everything cannot be positive).  Always remember the unexpected, be prepared for the worst and hope for the best when traveling and as a small museum hope that when you are one of the smaller than small they realize that just because you are the director you could possibly be a volunteer or close to a volunteer because the salary would barely cover the parking.  Check all the details.  I just feel very fortunate that we were able to attend with the scholarship and remember if you come bring others so that you can divide and conquer to get the most out of your travel expenses.