Hands On! Board Photo: Bibi Veth
Dear Hands On! member,
As you may know our new board was elected at this year’s General Assembly during the Hands On! Conference in Amsterdam. I am delighted to officially welcome our new board members: Susanne Gesser, Marianne Grymer Bargeman and Tereza Dobiosova. It is an honor to preside this board as new president of Hands On! Together we will continue to work on our vision to make all museums and science centers meaningful places for children, to professionalize the field and share expertise.
Sincere thanks to the former board for their many years of productive teamwork. In particular, many thanks to former president Annemies Broekgaarden for her dedication and determination. Thank you for placing your trust in me.
In recent years Hands On! has professionalized immensely. Highlights include the launch of our new website and the opening of new offices in Graz, Austria. Some of you may have met our competent and highly dedicated secretary Andrea Günther. We are very happy to have her on our team.
Thanks to all participants of the Hands On! Conference in Amsterdam. We had a wonderful time and greatly enjoyed the quality and variety of your presentations. We sincerely hope that the conference was all you expected it to be and that you took advantage of opportunities to make new friends, renew old acquaintances and to discuss and exchange ideas and experiences. Thanks to Annemies Broekgaarden (former president) and Petra Katzenstein (current board member) who did a wonderful job organizing this conference.
We are currently preparing for the first Hands On! pre-conference, which will take place in Graz, Austria on June 8th 2016 and will be part of the 27th Ecsite Annual Conference “Colours of Cooperation”. Hands On! and Ecsite are partnering up for the first time. There will be more than 1000 participants at the conference and we are delighted to announce that there will also be a special day dedicated to children. The Children in Museums Award will be awarded during the conference gala ball. Hands On! members will benefit from the same rate as Ecsite members. So, save the date and join us next year!
Preparations are also underway for the 2017 Hands On! Conference in Pilsen, Czech Republic which will be hosted by the West Bohemia Museum. Our colleague Denisa Brejchova and her team are eager to welcome you. We will keep you informed about developments as we approach yet another fantastic conference. We want to involve all our members, so I warmly invite you to suggest ideas here.
Finally, thank you for being a Hands On! member. You are the foundation of our association. We are working for you. For this reason, I want to involve you more closely in the association and its activities. I hope that many of our aspirations will soon become a reality and that we will continue to grow so that we can pursue our aims of offering diverse and interesting programmes for children in our institutions.
I am looking forward to working with you!
Hands On! President Jeorg Ehtreiber
Sincerely,
Joerg Ehtreiber
Hands On! President
Director of Frida &freD, the Children‘s Museum Graz, Austria