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All-Russian Professional Forum

Within the framework of the 3^rd Festival of Museum Programmes for Children

 “Children’s days in St.Petersburg”

November 14-18, 2007

The Committee for Culture of St.Petersburg
The Centre for Museum Development
State Literary and Memorial Museum of Anna Akhmatova

“Children’s days in St.Petersburg” is a festival of special programs for children and their parents in St.Petersburg museums and at the same time is the only event for professionals promoting new methods of museum work with family and children.

Festival’s motto is: «CHILD AND MUSEUM: GROWING TOGETHER».

Festival’s history: The Festival was established in 2005 by the Committee for Culture of St.Petersburg, the Federal Agency of Culture and Cinematography and the Association of Museums of Russia. It was initiated by the Centre for Museum Development – an independent St Petersburg non-profit organisation that strives to develop and support successful and sustainable museums which are valued by their communities and attract ever-wider audiences. Now the Festival has two fields of activities, mutually connected with each other. On one hand “Children’s Days in St.Petersburg” are All-Russian Professional Forum, on the other hand it is a large-scale city programme open for the public. The Festival got a special prize on “Intermuseum-2005”.

Festival’s main partners: The Association of Museums of Russia, Creative Union of Museum Employees of St.Petersburg and Leningrad region, the Committee for Education of St.Petersburg, The State Hermitage, The State Russian Museum, the State Museum of St.Petersburg History, The State Museum of Political History of Russia, The State Museum of History of Religion, The Russian Museum of Ethnography, The Central Museum of Communication, Informational and educational center “The St.Petersburg Water World” SUI “Vodokanal”, Interregional public movement “Community of museum workers of Volga region”, Laboratory of museum projects of Russian institute of Cultural Studies, “The Institute of Tolerance”.

All-Russian Professional Forum within the framework of the Festival is devoted to educational, social and cultural museum programs for children, teenagers and families.

The Forum is held once in two years. It became a background for communication and professional dialogue where museum community can discuss modern standards of professional activities, competencies of museum employees working with children and tendencies of development.

A number of participants is 120 people.

Forum’s objectives:

• To contribute to preventing professional isolation of museum program’s authors, to encourage discussion, enthusiasm, creative approach and desire to exchange experience and ideas, to learn further and to expand the horizons.
• To increase level of professional standards by giving an opportunity of creative and inspiring teaching and learning.
• To contribute to development of educational, social and cultural programs in Russian museums for individual visitors (a child with parents, a teenager), that support an idea of creative family communication or communication with peers.
• To support development of programmes and projects involving local community, relevant to modern problems and promoting museum as an active social and cultural institution.
• To promote advantages of partnership in framework of educational, social and cultural problems, to develop effective mechanisms of cooperation coordination;
• To support prestige of professionals working with children inside museum and in society, to promote their «right to vote» when making decisions about crucial issues of museum life.

Forum’s priorities for 2007:

• Affiliate projects of museums;
• Social and cultural programs, so called outreach
  programmes, that help to increase prestige
  of the museum in local community;
• Programs for individual visitors.

Issues and problems for discussion:

What are the key conditions of successful cooperation between different museums, as well as between museums and there potential partners?

How to find the ways of productive cooperation between museum educational structures and “external” experts (psychologists, sociologists, doctors) as well as teachers and parents (including development of programmes for people with special needs)?

What can museums do for individual visitors with children or individual visitors-teenagers? How can museums support creative family communication?

How can museum compete with show business for a free time of children and teenagers? How can it attract children who are, more or less, not interested in culture and self-education?

How can museums use successful and effective methods of other cultural and educational institutions, mass media, pop culture, advertising, cinema, street and club subcultures, in order to promote values of culture and learning for children and teenagers?

How to attract children and teenagers to active cooperation with museum and development of their own exhibitions, projects, cultural programmes?

Programme of the Forum includes workshops and lectures of Russian and international experts, demonstrative sites – interactive show program of Russian museums, project proposals competition and workshop “Project Laboratory”

The program includes presentation of unique experience of museum cooperation – journey-game «I start my search!», a program of 20 museums of St.Petersburg, developed during two first Festivals of Children’s Museum Programs. This program attracted a great attention of professionals and can become a model for cooperation of museums in other cities.

The main program of the Forum lasts 4 days (14.11, Wednesday – 17.11, Saturday). The fifth day of the Forum (18.11, Sunday) includes optional events that can be visited by participants on their own.

Project proposals competion
and practical workshop “project laboratory”

Unlike the program of the 1^st All-Russian Festival of Children’s Museum Programs, when in the competition took part already implemented programs, this year the program of Professional Forum includes competition of project proposals.

This competition is a preliminary stage of workshop “Project laboratory” that will take place during the Forum. In competition can participate ideas of museum projects and programs for children, youth and families. Project proposals should address one of the questions or problems defined in the Forum conception (see as above).

Project proposals participating in the competition will be evaluated by Expert Council of the Festival and should satisfy the following criteria:

• Originality and elegance of idea.
• Actuality.
• Proposed solutions should correspond to declared problem.
• Relevance to the needs of target group.
• An ability to become a model that can have wider implication.
• A high level of marketing and PR.
• Potential for further development.

Experts will choose 10 projects that will be used as model cases during the workshop “Project Laboratory”.

Authors of the 10 best project ideas will become winners of the first round of the competition, they will be excused from paying organizational fee. Their accommodation in St.Petersburg during the Forum will be covered from the Festival’s budget.

Selected projects will be analyzed and developed in framework of the workshop by Forum participants, who will work in project groups guided by experts.  The best ideas proposed by museum community will become model cases for experimental work in “Project Laboratory” of the Forum. This practical work will help to develop project culture of Forum’s participants, to show professional solidarity, to work out principals of intellectual cooperation and to feel advantages of collective brain-storming. On the last day of the Forum project groups will present their revised projects to Forum’s participants and the Jury. Presentations will be made in form of dialogue with Jury members. Those presentations and project defenses should become one of the most important teaching and learning components of the Forum.

The Jury will include psychologist, school teacher, representatives of potential donor organizations and sponsors of museum projects, representatives of tourist agencies, mass media and parents.    

10 winners of the first round of the competition as well as participants of workshop project group that will develop their case idea to the project in the most interesting and effective way will get certificates and prizes of All-Russian Professional Forum.

Forum Program