Heather Marie Wells

So much has been going on with me lately that I haven't had time to blog. I spent most of March getting three presentations ready for the Arkansas Museum Association Annual Meeting. Then at the end of the month I traveled to Jonesboro and gave my presentations. Based on the feedback they went really well. I was also elected to the AMA board as the representative for District 3. April was spent in research mode for the music exhibit that I'm in charge of, as well as catching up on reading AMA information and attending my first board meeting. May went in a flash. I narrowed down photos and audio excerpts from oral history interviews for the music exhibit and worked on a big project securing release forms for older interviews that the museum has. I also tallied the votes for the music exhibit. . .did I mention that we let the public vote on what artifacts we will use in the exhibit. And I attended my second AMA board meeting where we made a lot of progress on the profes

So at New Year's I made the resolution to read all the books in my house that I've bought and just haven't got around to reading yet. I thought the number was 31, but then I went around my house and gathered them all up. The final count was 55! By January 18 I was down to 47. Mostly I was catching up on souvenir books I had bought on recent trips, but also finishing the multiple books I was trying to read at once. Then I started hitting some mysteries. Is there anything better than a good mystery? My love of mysteries started with the late, great Rex Stout, author of the beloved Nero Wolfe mysteries. Then my mother-in-law got me hooked on Janet Evanovich. I love her Stephanie Plum books the best. Then there were the Bed & Breakfast Mysteries of Mary Deheim. Then a friend got me hooked on the Heather Wells mysteries by Meg Cabot. Most recently my mother-in-law introduced me to the Callie Parrish mysteries by Fran Rizer. I'm not sure what I would do without a r

Obviously, I did not blog every day I was on Jekyll Island. But I don't think I can be blamed. I was immersed for a week with 14 other fabulous museum professionals. Every day was filled with intense, but fun, brainstorming and learning. There were 16 sessions total. Covering everything from working with boards, strategic planning, fundraising, working with volunteers, exhibits, interpretation, disaster planning, collections planning, collections management, ethics, leadership styles, time management, PR and more. Frankly, after a day of classes I was too tired to blog about it once I got back to the hotel. So I'll just use this post to share the highlights. My favorite class was Public Relations and Marketing because I've never had much experience with it. The instructor was Lisa Littlefield from Oglethorpe University. If you ever have the chance to see her present, do it. She is so funny and personable. She really impressed me because she shared her success st

This week I'm attending an 8 day museum management institute on Jekyll Island. Today was just the first day and although it was mainly welcome speeches and getting to know each other there was one session that was presented and I think it was a very interesting one. The session was on management and leadership. I think the thing the presenter hit on the most for me was the difference in what it means to be a manager and what it means to be a leader. It was very interesting to quickly learn the differences in the two types of work that both positions fill. He'll be continuing the discussion in a second session tomorrow, so I'll speak more on it later. Jekyll Island is beautiful and we were able to tour the historic district today. I highly encourage anyone to come out here if you ever get the chance. Georgia has laws that the island must remain 65% un-developed making it such a beautiful natural setting. Also every dollar spent on the island stays on the island and