from IFCPP pre-conference partner Majestic Collaborations, Co-Founder Matthew Kowal 

Build Your Cadre. Then Come to New Orleans.

All events are events. Whether it’s a museum gala, a campus incident, a protest, or a street festival, the same operational systems come online. Someone is watching the entrances and exits. Someone is managing communications, guest flow, and accessibility. Someone is thinking about power, contingencies, and what happens if the plan changes mid‑stream.

IFCPP members live in that reality every day. You care for people in places. You understand duty of care not just as a legal phrase, but as a daily practice that balances safety, service, collections, and community expectations all at once.

Learning From People Who Do This at Scale

I was reminded of that when I presented our Train for Strain program with Christopher Singh, Senior Security Manager at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Met Gala, Christopher’s team is responsible for A‑list Hollywood stars, museum guests, demonstrations, and film shoots, all happening at the same time in the same building. It’s a vivid example of what many of you know well: multiple systems — security, hospitality, public image, collections care — all running under strain, with no room for error.

Across IFCPP and ASIS, I’ve met many professionals doing this kind of work quietly and consistently. You are often the bridge between cultural institutions, city partners, and the public when things are ordinary — and when they are not.

The ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate, taking place in New Orleans on April 18–19, 2026, was built with this reality in mind.

What ReadyWhen Offers

ReadyWhen combines three elements that matter for IFCPP members:

• A field practicum, where we study a large public event as a live classroom.
• A structured curriculum, built from hundreds of hours of Art of Mass Gatherings convenings and the combined experience of Performing Arts Readiness and Majestic Collaborations.
• A set of online micro‑credentials in topics like crowd safety, emergency power, food systems, accessibility, and incident command, so the learning is visible and cumulative.

On day one, participants move through rotating learning stations at French Quarter Festival, looking at the event through different lenses: access and egress, communications, power, food and water, crowd movement, partnerships, and more. On day two, we shift into the National WWII Museum, using classrooms and site visits to zoom out to the whole cultural district and zoom back in to specific operational and emergency management questions.

The aim is not another plan that sits on a shelf. It’s a way to make operational knowledge and emergency thinking live in the same conversation.

Who You Might Send

Every organization is structured differently, but almost all of them have a small group of people who “run the place” on the most complex days. Those might include:

• Security or public safety leadership
• Operations and production leads
• Facilities or engineering
• Accessibility and guest services
• Communications or external relations
• Front‑of‑house management

You can come on your own or send a small cross‑functional team of three to five people. The benefit of sending a team is that they get to see the same environment from different angles and return with a shared language. The benefit of coming on your own is that you can embed yourself deeply, then start building that shared language back home.

If possible, consider inviting a senior leader as well. ReadyWhen includes content for executive leadership on how preparedness frameworks can expand institutional capacity, attract funders, and align safety with mission delivery. Having decision‑makers see the work alongside you makes it easier to justify future investments and policy changes.

A Delegation Model You Can Adapt

In Denver, Youth on Record is sending a four‑person delegation: their Executive Director, Senior Events Coordinator, and two emerging young leaders who are already involved in venue and festival work. They used a simple internal application process, made a shared investment in travel and tuition, and set a clear expectation: bring what you learn back to the organization and the broader community.

That model is easy to adapt:

1. Identify the roles in your organization or district that are critical on high‑complexity days.
2. Invite interest from those people (or nominate them) and ask how they would bring the learning back.
3. Decide whether to send one person or a small group this year.
4. Frame it as both professional development and civic infrastructure training.

Why Now

New Orleans is a city that understands the connection between cultural life and emergency readiness. French Quarter Festival and the National WWII Museum are not abstract case studies; they are real operations with real stakes and long histories of collaboration with city partners.

This first ReadyWhen cohort is capped at about 60 participants and is already more than half full. IFCPP members are exactly the kind of practitioners this was designed for: people who already think in terms of systems, risk, and the safety of people and places.

If you see your work in this description — or if you can immediately think of three or four colleagues who do — this might be the year to step into a new kind of learning environment.

by Matthew Kowal, Majestic Collaborations

Bring Your Team, Build Your System

How sending a small, cross-functional team to ReadyWhen in New Orleans can become a practicum for how your institution shows up when it matters.

All events are events. The logistics don’t care whether it’s a museum gala, a campus emergency, or a neighborhood street festival — the same systems come online. Someone handles communications, someone monitors safety, someone manages accessibility, someone decides what happens if plans change.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of those people. The one everyone turns to when a decision has to be made in real time. Maybe you run the building, maybe you lead operations, or maybe you’re the person who quietly keeps the whole thing standing. Either way, you’re closer to sparking lasting institutional change than you might think.

This April, during the ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate in New Orleans, you can bring that system — your system — into the same room. You can come on your own, or with a small internal team of three to five people that spans your core functions, and spend two days using a massive live event as a practicum. First, you study “the event” itself in rotating learning stations throughout French Quarter Festival. Then, you step back the next day to unpack specific elements at The National WWII Museum, zooming out to the whole cultural district and zooming back in to concrete topics like communications, power, access, and crowd movement.

This is not a generic workshop. It’s a deliberately designed practicum built from hundreds of hours of Art of Mass Gatheringsconvenings and the combined experience of people who have collectively logged more than a century in cultural resilience, emergency management, and live event operations — including the teams at Performing Arts Readiness and Majestic Collaborations. A structured set of online micro‑credentials in crowd safety, emergency power, food systems, accessibility, and incident command wraps around the fieldwork, so you leave with both lived experience and a targeted course of study that shows you’ve done serious work at the intersection of culture, safety, and emergency practice.

When Every System Runs at Once

I got to know Christopher Singh when we presented our Train for Strain program together, and it crystallized something I’d already felt working with IFCPP members for years. That series drew more than 120 registrants who were hungry for practical, real-world examples of how cultural institutions manage strain. ASIS was an essential partner in that work, helping gather professionals who sit at the intersection of security, operations, and public trust.

Christopher is Senior Security Manager at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, overseeing emergency preparedness for one of the world’s most complex cultural institutions. At the Met Gala, his team manages A-list Hollywood stars, museum guests, demonstrations, and film shoots — all happening at the same time, in the same building. That’s not just “a big night.” That’s what it looks like when multiple systems — safety, hospitality, security, public image, collections care — are all running at once under heavy strain.

People like Christopher, and many of the professionals I’ve met through IFCPP and ASIS, care for people in places. They understand duty of care not as a legal phrase, but as a daily practice: protecting staff, visitors, and collections while multiple levels of activity, needs, threats, and delight are unfolding simultaneously. This is why the IFCPP conference and organization is beloved and it’s worth staying the whole week if this is also your function.

ReadyWhen was built with that reality in mind. The goal isn’t to add one more plan to your shelf, but to offer strategies and operational integration that work for your everyday events as well as your worst‑day emergencies, and to package that learning in a way that reads as serious, intentional work to peers, partners, and funders. The content draws from some of the most active practitioners at this intersection in the U.S. right now, and it’s designed less as a one‑off training and more as a way to make learning stick inside your institution.

A Template You Can Steal

In Denver, Youth on Record is sending a four-person delegation to ReadyWhen — their Executive Director, Programming Director, and two emerging young leaders. Together, they’re building long-term capacity for safety and operations leadership across their city’s cultural venues.

Youth on Record is doing something bigger than a single training trip. They’re treating this as part of a workforce development strategy — preparing young professionals who will carry operational, safety, and resilience roles into venues, festivals, museums, and sports facilities for years to come. The delegation they’re sending now is a seed for a future bench of people who understand both culture and crisis, and can move between those worlds.

Their approach is straightforward and portable: an internal application process, shared travel and tuition investment, and a clear promise to bring what they learn back home. It’s a clean way to align professional development with civic readiness — and a glimpse of how a single program can ripple through an entire local ecosystem of venues and institutions.

If you lead a cultural institution, university arts program, venue, or city cultural office, you can borrow this model. Start by asking a simple question: On our most complicated days, who really runs this place? Then write down the names you think of from:

• Operations and production
• Safety and security
• Accessibility and guest services
• Facilities and engineering
• Communications and external affairs
• Front-of-house

That list is the beginning of your cadre — the people who already make things work when it’s busy, messy, or uncertain. ReadyWhen gives them a shared set of reference points and a common training language.

Invite Your Executive Leadership

And if you’re not the top decision-maker, bring your big boss along for this one.

The ReadyWhen program includes dedicated content for senior leaders — how preparedness-based frameworks can expand institutional capacity, attract funders, and align safety with mission delivery. For executives, it’s not just a training trip; it’s a chance to see how their organization fits into the broader resilience picture of their city and to hear, in real time, how their own staff see the system.

When leadership and frontline operators go through the same experience, it becomes much easier to make the case for resources, policy changes, and long‑term investments afterward.

What Might Be Different After

We’re capping this first ReadyWhen cohort at about 60 participants, and we’re already more than halfway there. Some people will come alone; others will be part of a small internal team. The throughline is the same: a commitment to bring the learning back into the way your institution actually works.

What happens back home will look different for every organization. But you can reasonably expect a few things:

• Conversations about safety and operations are grounded in shared examples from the field and the museum classrooms.
• People who didn’t normally sit together now have at least one structured experience and a common curriculum to point back to.
• When a plan or incident action outline is on the table, more of your team can see how their piece fits into the whole — and how it connects to the micro‑credential content they completed.

Once you’ve walked a complex event as a learning environment, and tied that to a focused curriculum, it’s hard to unsee the systems. That shift in perspective is where better decisions and better coordination start.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably the one who can make it happen. Look at your org chart. Notice who already finds each other when things get complicated. Maybe that’s a small group you can bring. Maybe, this year, it’s you. Either way, get yourself into the room in New Orleans while there’s still space, and let’s study what’s really going on when an entire cultural district comes to life.

ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate April 18–19, 2026 – New Orleans Learn more & register → About the New Orleans program with IFCPP

Reposted from Abigail G Manning

Autopilot Leadership Audit

January was about choosing the road less traveled.

February is about noticing when you’ve stopped making choices and end up on autopilot.

Sometimes, autopilot is great. There are contexts where it keeps you and your team safe. Operational autopilot can allow you to rely on training, repetition, and disciplined safety protocols. Allowing muscle memory to take over when there is no room for hesitation or second-guessing. Just like the trust I was able to have in the jumpmaster who kept me safe on my tandem skydive back in 2022.

However, there is a difference between operational autopilot and leadership on autopilot. The nuance is important to understand.

Autopilot leadership is insidious. It settles in quietly, when routines replace reflection, when decisions are delayed instead of made, and when “this is how it’s always been done” feels easier than questioning what no longer fits. If left unchecked, the effects are lasting. Most leaders I work with aren’t stuck because they lack capability. They’re stuck because habits that once served them are still running the show. The most successful and exceptional leaders are the ones who continually develop their skills and remain open to growth. Keep reading below for a short insight guide to increase your awareness of autopilot leadership, how to combat it using my ThinkSayDo skills, and download my free worksheet, The Autopilot Audit.

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Reposted from Museumsclasses.org

Still time to enroll

Collection Protection - Are you Prepared?

Does your museum have an Emergency Operation (Disaster) Plan? This course will get you started making a plan for your museum. Disaster planning is overwhelming. Where do you start? Talk to Amanda about how to get going. Use the checklist to determine your level of preparedness. What do you already have in place? Are you somewhat prepared? What can you do next? Help clarify your current state of readiness and develop future steps to improve it.

Join Amanda Benson for MS002 Collection Protection - Are you Prepared? 

Date: March 9, 2026 - to learn more and begin writing your Emergency Operation Plan.

Early Bird Discounts Available for Full Length Courses

An Early Bird Discount is available for anyone who signs up for a full-length course from museumclasses.org 30 days prior to the start of that course. Sign up for a full-length course up to 30 days prior to its start and save 20%!

For our course list or to sign up: http://www.collectioncare.org/course-list
To take advantage of this discount, you must enter coupon code EARLYBIRD at checkout at collectioncare.org

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Reposted from AAM

SAVE THE DATE
2026 AAM Annual meeting and MuseumExpo
Where: Philadelphia May 20-23, 2026

Early Bird Ends March 6^th!

Save over 20% on your registration to the 2026 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo. There are only 2 weeks left to save on registration during Early Bird and secure your experiential workshops and event tickets selling out fast.

Get Your Free Ticket to MuseumFest

How do you make the largest gathering of museum professionals even better? MuseumFest: Historic District Philly. Closing out the Annual Meeting, this brand-new event brings four iconic historic sites to life with pop-up performances, living history, and surprises. AAM 2026 attendees receive a free ticket during registration thanks to the generous support of the William Penn Foundation.

Volunteer Opportunities Now Open

If you need a little help getting to AAM 2026, consider volunteering.
AAM 2026 volunteers receive a complimentary day pass for 4 hours of volunteer time or a full conference registration for 8 hours of time.

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ARSL 2026 Conference

ROOTED IN COMMUNITY
9.16-9.19.26 Montgomery, AL

#ARSL2026 is the conference built for rural and small libraries—where planners and presenters truly understand shoestring budgets,

small spaces, and limited staffing, along with the unique opportunities for innovation and collaboration that come with the territory. Every session is packed with practical takeaways you can bring straight back to your library, no scaling down required.
This year's theme, ROOTED IN COMMUNITY, captures the strength, connection, and resilience that define small and rural libraries. We celebrate the creativity and determination that grow from shared roots and empower our libraries and communities to thrive together

Important Upcoming Dates:

Feb. 18 ... Conference Scholarships Open
Mar. 6 .... Conference Session Proposal Applications Close
Mar. 10 .. Conference Scholarships Close
May 5 ..... Early Bird Registration opens
Jul. 8 ....... Early Bird Registration closes
Sep. 1 ..... Advance In-Person Registration closes

Stay tuned for more important dates & deadlines!

Reposted from Tim Richardson

Excuses age. Excellence Evolves

Excuses roll off the tongue easily.

“I don’t have a degree.”
“Our competitor has better prices.”
“We don’t have updated technology.”
“I didn’t have enough time to prepare.”
“We don’t have enough staff.”
“I’m too old.”

That last one?

Tell it to Elana Meyers Taylor, who at 41 captured her first Olympic gold medal in monobob at her fourth Winter Games. Tell it to Kaillie Humphries, 40, standing right beside her on the podium. Tell it to Nick Baumgartner, who won gold at 40 and competed in his fifth Olympics at 44 in Snowboard cross – a young person’s sport. Tell it to Lindsey Vonn, who came out of retirement and fought her way back to world-class competition after pausing competition for six years. Tell it to Rich Ruohonen, a first-time Olympian at 54.

What can we learn from these “old” athletes?

1. Intentional Self-Care Longevity requires recovery. Sleep. Nutrition. Training. Pausing. Even Simone Biles has reminded the world that mental health is performance health. You cannot perform at a high level if you never step off the gas.

1. Adaptability Elana Meyers Taylor once dreamed of playing Olympic softball. When that door closed, she changed lanes. Just because you’re an expert in one arena doesn’t mean you can’t evolve into another. Relevance requires reinvention.

1. Strategic Effort As we age, effort alone stops being the differentiator.
   The edge shifts from how hard you work to how intentionally you work. Manage your energy. Work in your peak performance windows. Say no to what drains you.
   Focus on the few activities that create disproportionate return. In other words, not all effort produces equal results. In business – and in life – a small number of actions typically drive the majority of outcomes. It’s the 80/20 principle in action. Strategic effort beats scattered hustle every time.

1. Deep Intrinsic Motivation You’ve got to want it. No one trains for the Olympics – or builds a business, or leads a team – without internal fire. And when someone tells you that you can’t? Be careful taking advice from people who’ve never done what you’re attempting.

1. Develop your humor muscle In 1984, Ronald Reagan addressed concerns about his age during a debate with Walter Mondale:

“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The room erupted and Reagan won 49 of 50 states and 525 electoral votes. But beneath the humor was truth:
Age, when paired with discipline and adaptability, becomes an advantage. Experience compounds. Wisdom sharpens. Perspective steadies. Age is not the liability. Excuses are. The Question Isn’t Your Age. The question is this: Are you evolving? Are you protecting your energy? Are you sharpening your edge? Or are you rehearsing reasons? Excellence doesn’t expire. It adapts. And so can you.

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Reposted from SafeHaven Security

SafeHaven Security-

February Security Briefing: Prevention, Protection, and Expertise

Workplace violence is rarely sudden. In most cases, the warning signs appear weeks or even months in advance—but only if teams know what to look for and how to respond. In this month’s featured article, Tim Keck explains why organizations must move beyond reactive active shooter training and implement Threat Assessment and Management to stop violence before it starts.

LEARN MORE

DOWNLOAD 12 WARNING SIGNS OF POTENTIAL VIOLENCE

Updates from longtime IFCPP partners, the International Foundation for Protection Officers…

Congratulations are in order for the IFPO UK and several IFPO contributors! The International Foundation for Protection Officers (IFPO) were finalists in two categories in the UK OSPAs (Outstanding Security Performance Awards).

IFPO takes vicarious pleasure in the successes of colleagues Farah B. F. ISRM, IFPO UK Advisory Council Member and ASIS International - UK Vice Chair for collecting her Global OSPA. Claire Humble (MlntlSy) (RISC), IFPO UK (International Foundation for Protection Officers) Management Board member was also an OSPA winner. Guy Mathias, a member of the IFPO Advisory Council, received a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award. Huge congratulations to those individuals for their outstanding work! IFPO Corporate Member, The Assist Services Group, won 4 OSPAs

IFCPP echoes the kudos, and looks forward to bringing you more news from IFPO and its colleagues around the globe!

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Reposted from ASIS

We are pleased to invite you to attend our upcoming joint ASIS/IAMFA meeting, hosted by Mr. Henry Galindo, Vice President of Building Operations at the Museum of the City of New York, A cultural institution dedicated to exploring the past, present, and future of New York City.

When: Thursday, February 19th at 1:30pm
Where: Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue New York, NY

Welcome & Host Remarks (1:30pm-1:45pm)
Mr. Henry Galindo
Vice President, Building Operations
Museum of the City of New York
Mr. Galindo will provide an overview of the museum, an institution dedicated to exploring the past, present, and future of New York City.

Museum Tour (1:45pm-2:15pm)

Following the introduction, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a guided tour of this historic and iconic museum.

Featured Presentation (2:15pm-3:00pm)
Mr. Vito Mileo
Area Sales Manager, Axis Communications

Axis Communications is a long-established manufacturer of security solutions, including CCTV cameras and access control systems, serving a wide range of cultural institutions worldwide.

Presentation Topic:
End-to-End Solutions for the Challenges Confronting Museums

This session will explore how integrated security technologies can help museums address today’s evolving operational and security demands.

Please join us and your fellow security professionals for what promises to be an informative and engaging meeting.

Please RSVP:

Charlie Gaito: chasrgaito@msn.com

Louis Bédard: Louis_bedard@moma.org

Mordechay Givoni, CPP  mgivoni@doylesecurityservices.com

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