ALLIANCE FOR RESPONSE
Informal Minutes and Progress Report
At our last meeting, some of the main points discussed, besides potential speakers, were:
* A combination of panel discussions and individual speakers could
work well.
* Some kind of concurrent break-out sessions in the afternoon seem
desirable. Some felt that even if they were large, say up to 50 people,
that might not be too unwieldy to have constructive discussions.
* The day should include one session, panel, or presentation on the MLCPFG disaster
planning effort
* It is important to formulate a final session, possibly a conclusion of the break-out
sessions, to pull the day together and unify the preceeding material.
* Panels may be most interesting if we assure that they have cross-disciplinary
representation, such as, curators and facility managers.
* We need to carefully consider what each attender can take away with them: a specific
piece of useful information or knowledge, and also something tangible, such as the Getty
flip-chart, the Salvage Wheel, other hand-outs.
At our last meeting Sheila Palmer and Maria Fredericks volunteered to make some initial
inquiries of some potential speakers and to research into others.
I attended the AMNH conference day on Emergency Planning, as I told some of
you at our last meeting, and heard a number of good speakers. I spoke afterwards with the
conference organizer, Lisa Kronthal, who had prepared one of the talks jointly with Paul
Schuchert and others of the AMNH staff.
Paul presented this paper, which was quite interesting on AMNH's internal efforts since 9/11 to
do cooperative planning including all depts., both operations and curatorial. Lisa is excited
about putting together somekind of report on how AMNH did this for our Forum, either as a
panel discussion or an independent presentation.
Wilbur Faulk, who authored the Getty disaster plan and flip-chart, spoke articulately and
passionately at AMNH about preventing collections theft, and Andy Wilson of the Smithsonian
gave a very interesting and lively talk on assessing fire risks and mitigation.
Lisa Kronthal also recommended as possible speakers: Barbara Roberts, of whom we already
know; Richard Gould, an anthroplogist at Brown who Lisa said is a "treasure" at getting
agreements and cooperation with first responder agencies; someone from the Canadian Natural
History Museum where they have done a lot of work on Risk Assessment.
Meanwhile, letters have gone out to Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Harris, and DCA
Commissioner Levin asking each of them to participate as keynote speakers. No responses yet,
but it is too soon to expect that.
Maria Frederick has reported to me that she has had recommended to her two potential speakers:
MJ Davis, who has done a lot of cooperative planning in Vermont, and Julie Stolz, the
collections manager at SPNEA (Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities), same
topic. Maria also says she is looking into a library consortium in the Bronx that has done some
cooperative planning.
An issue we must resolve is whether it is desirable for us to invite speakers who have already
spoken at the other three Alliance for Response Forums. On the one hand, our audience will be
quite a different group; on the other, Heritage Preservation might feel that we were not
contributing anything new to the overall body of information.
We also have to resolve the issue of funding travel costs. It is interesting to note that the AMNH
conference paid travel costs, but did NOT pay honoraria to their speakers.
If any of you have new thoughts or ideas at this time, don't hesitate to e-mail the entire group, or
myself. No need to wait to another meeting.
Once again: NEXT MEETING:
I regret that we must postpone our next meeting. The day selected, Wed. June 2, will be
impossible for me due to pressures at work that day. I would propose that we choose either Tue.
June 8 or Thur. June 10 - 9am at the Society of Illustrators as usual.
Please e-mail me as to what date would work best for you, and I'll let the whole group know the
best date.