On April 24th MENC posted an announcement regarding changes in future national conferences. Here’s a copy of the announcement:
MENC Leadership Sets New National Conference Schedule
In April, the MENC National Executive Board (NEB) voted to replace the association’s long-standing national biennial conference with an annual national event or series of events.
According to MENC President-Elect Barbara Geer, who becomes president July 1, the new format, still in development, aims to give members experiences that are even more focused and more in-depth than previous conferences. MENC leadership, she said, will develop an annual national conference “to meet the needs of our diverse membership.”
“After all, we serve members from general music to higher education and research and everything in between, so we will work with leaders from each segment of that community to provide the best possible structure with the best possible content,” Geer said.
An annual national conference, she adds, will also include major performance events that focus attention on the role that music education plays in the society as a whole and offer additional advocacy opportunities for members.
Plans call for a summer 2009 event in Washington DC and a full-scale event in 2010. The NEB meets in June to solidify planning for the future.
What do you think constitutes meeting the needs of our diverse membership?
Jay Rosenblum alluded to this question in a comment on a previous blog post when he asked:
“Is there something that MENC should be doing to serve its members that it’s clearly not doing now?”
According to the announcement the MENC National Executive Board (NEB) will be meeting in June to “solidify planning for the future.”
It might be beneficial to MENC and our field if we begin speaking with our colleagues about what might meet the needs of our diverse membership and what MENC is not currently doing to serve its members. This is a potential opening for your input if you have ideas about the direction in which you think MENC should move. After having these conversations it might also be helpful to share highlights of the dialogue with our representatives on the National Executive Board.
While you are at it you might want to take a look at MENC’s Strategic Plan to get a better idea of what issues might influence decisions about what future conferences might look like.
If you don’t know who your regional representative is you can take a look at the MENC Leadership structure site.
Your state music educators association should be able to point you in the right direction for providing feedback to your regional rep.