Join us October 21 - 23, 2009 in Hamilton for three days of networking,
thought-provoking sessions, stimulating roundtable discussions and
an informative tradeshow! This year's theme is "Museums - Impacting
the future of our Communities".
The OMA Conference provides an excellent opportunity for professional
development and networking with heritage professionals.
Thursday and Friday sessions will be held at the Hamilton
Convention Centre.
Featured Speakers
Keynote Speaker - Thursday, October 22
Dr. Candace Matelic, Thriving on the Edge of Chaos: Engaging
Community and Transforming Our Organizations
Our field is teetering on the edge of chaos. With a challenging
world economy, many museums, historic sites, and cultural organizations
are facing brute survival, or at best, severely curtailing their
staff, operations, and services. Yet, other organizations are experiencing
growth and new support from their communities. What is the difference
and what are the secrets to thriving in these challenging and exciting
times? This keynote presentation will explore how to engage community
and fundamentally transform your organization to create a vision
that addresses what people care about, rethink policies and work
patterns, harness creativity, develop innovative programs and services,
and build long term organizational sustainability. The transformation
starts with our own beliefs, and evolves as a shared journey of
organizational learning and development, leading to new rules of
engagement and operation.
Keynote Address - Friday, October 23
Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Poet Laureate of The City of Toronto
Pier Giorgio Di Cicco has authored 17 collections of poetry since
1976. He was born in Arezzo, Italy, raised in Montreal, Baltimore
and Toronto, and did post-graduate work at the University of Toronto.
In 2004 he was appointed by the City of Toronto as its second Poet
Laureate.
Di Cicco has extended the role of Poet Laureate beyond the area
of arts advocacy and into the realm of "civic aesthetic",
a term coined to define the building of a city by citizenship, civic
ethic and urban psychology. He has championed the abolitian of art
as "destination point" and the notion of culture as civic
ambience and engine of urban prosperity. Di Cicco's urban philosophy
has influenced municipal policy in Canada, the U.S. and United Kingdom
and has moved the role of the poet laureate into the forum of global
engagement in issues that address the urban aesthetic and its relationship
to livable and sustainable cities.
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