Regular readers will know that I’m volunteering with the MCN marketing committee in the lead up to the 2011 conference. The conference is on in Atlanta, GA 16-19 November – and I am mad keen to get along for a couple of reasons. The main one is because Koven Smith has asked me to be a panellist on his panel asking “What’s the point of a museum website?“, which will pick up where his Ignite Smithsonian speech left off. This is an awesome discussion, and I can’t believe I’ve been asked to be part of it. Having said that, being a poor PhD student whose already been to the States once this year, my ability to attend is going to rely on more than just wishing.

To that end, I’ve put in an application for one of the MCN2011 scholarships, of which there are 15 (plus a further 4 scholarship funded by Kress Foundation and THATCamp). The closing date is next Monday, 1 August and full details are available on the website. I must confess I’m a little bit torn between wanting to promote them as is my role as vollie, and wanting to minimise competition so I actually get one. Ha.

I’m also applying for an ArtsNSW quick response grant, which is funding “available for professional individuals, groups and small- to medium-sized organisations who have received an unexpected invitation to participate in a recognised national or international arts and cultural event/activity.” I’ve never applied for a grant before, so I’m not sure how I’ll go with that… but hopefully they will recognise that this is a pretty awesome and unexpected opportunity and will give me enough to cover the flights over. My fingers are firmly crossed.

It’s all a bit exciting even at this stage… but it will be much more so if I can actually secure funding in order to make it over to the conference. I’ve had a sneak peak at the program, and it looks great. I’ll post more about it once the program goes live (which shouldn’t be too far away now).