ASA travels to St. Louis for AAM’s Annual Meeting & Museum Expo.

Over 4,000 museum professionals from 40 different countries attended this year’s American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo on May 7-10, 2017, in St. Louis, Missouri. Filled with hundreds of learning opportunities, this year’s conference focused on the importance of diversity, equality, accessibility, and inclusion in museums. ASA was represented by Connecticut-based personal property appraiser John A. Woods, ASA and ASA’s Accreditation and Reaccreditation Services Specialist, Jennifer Schleining.

Our volunteers spent most of their time speaking to attendees about topics such as the need for qualified appraisers to assist museums with important tasks such as developing and maintaining an accurate inventory of artifacts housed in their collections, working with insurance agencies to prepare comprehensive plans for insuring their collections against loss, and helping donors meet IRS requirements for non-cash contributions. Besides asking questions about museums’ appraisal needs, many museum curators inquired about ASA procedures for membership and how they can become ASA accredited appraisers.

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Left to Right: John A. Woods, ASA and Jennifer Schleining

New to this year’s booth, ASA held a raffle offering a grand prize of a Vinotemp wine cooler and a runner-up prize of a one-year subscription to Artforum. Jennifer Teter, Executive Director of the Quincy Art Center (Quincy, IL), was our grand prize winner and Cathy Callaway, Museum Educator at the Museum of Art and Archaeology (University of Missouri, Columbia), was our runner-up winner. These prizes proved to be an exceptional draw, based on the number of business cards placed in the raffle bowl. Many attendees were impressed by the prize and spread the word, which sent a lot of traffic to ASA’s booth and gave ASA a greater ability to engage with conference attendees.

Many of the museum staff members attending this event happily shared with our volunteers that their museum’s website already includes a link to ASA’s website and our “Find an Appraiser” tool.  It’s worth noting that while the “freebies” were what attracted attention, a considerable amount of official ASA literature was snatched up by attendees as well!

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