Museum Camp – museumcamp

What to Bring

IDEAS – DISCUSSIONS – TOPICS
Museumcamp is made up on the day. Seriously! The idea behind MuseumCamp is we want the people attending to talk about issues that are important to YOU – not what we feel is important, or topics we know are ‘most popular’. This is about ideas, brought on the day that the participants decide to talk about.

The list of topics from last year included Teens in Museums, Social media, Museums 20/20, Museums at Night, Wikipedia, how to embrace apprenticeship, curating and more. The smallest ideas to the biggest – all our listened to.

We’ll have 6-7 sessions running during one time slot and project having 4-5 time slots (depending on the day – see how nothing is planned before? ).

Open and Closing Times

We’ll open the doors at 9.30 with a planned start at 10am. As a very very very rough draft, the day could go something like:

9:30-10:00 Registration / Coffee & Cupcake decorating
10:00-10:45 Topic pitching and Session organizing
10:45-11:30 Session One
openingtime

11:30 – 11:45 Change over
11:45-12:30 Session Two
12:30-12:45 Change over
12:45-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:15 Session Three
2:15-2:30 Change over
2:30-3:15 Session Four
3:15-3:45 COFFEE/ Cakes
3:45 –4:30 Session Five
4:30-5:00 Plenary/Networking

Want to get MORE involved?

We’re still looking for sponsors so if you’d like to sponsor us or know someone who would, please get in touch!

Most importantly –

Get your thinking caps on & get those brilliant ideas flowing!

Thanks to Carl Durose for our lovely new logo! You can contact Carl via email address or twitter handle.

This is the question I put to Twitter today. Here are some of the responses I received:

@DartmouthMuseum No idea what it means. Needs explaining in 140 chars or less

@NeallM that it should be a good concept but actually makes me think it will be a disorganised mess. Is that good or bad? @NeallM Bad. It makes me think I won’t get much from it, and won’t be worth my time / money. I am aware that am basing this on a few bad experiences. But marketing / blurb would have to help me overcome that.

@JanMinihane an informal gathering of people with a common interest who want to throw ideas around/push boundaries 🙂 Have been to 1

And my favourite: RT @jenniwaugh: Cake!

But what *is* a Museum Camp or an Unconference?

It’s a forum for like-minded people (in this case anyone who visits, likes, works, wants to work, etc with museums, galleries, culture venues). While they might be new to some, these productive gatherings have been running successfully for a few years.

What do they do?

It starts by members pitching ideas of what to talk about. You might come with a discussion in mind or you might be there to listen. Or you might be there for networking. Or cake.

People share their ideas for a session and roughly 5 or 6 are chosen. Those not speaking can choose which talk they’d like to attend.

The talks are usually less than an hour.

As a speaker, this doesn’t mean you’re forced to talk for an hour though – it only means you get the conversation going with your thought/idea and others join in with their thoughts and ideas.

As a member, you’re not committed to stay for the hour should you feel it’s not for you.

Basically, it’s an organized chaos but in a worth while way!

Is there an agenda for the day?

No. Not really. There are a few people that will attend with ideas but it’s not a requirement. The goal of the day is to flush out thoughts and ideas that don’t fit conventionally in other conferences and meetings.

Why should I attend?