Reposted from UNESCO

In 2024, UNESCO celebrates the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, the first international legal framework entirely dedicated to the protection of movable and immovable heritage.

UNESCO

13 May 2024 - 15 May 2024

EVENT

UNESCO International Conference “Cultural Heritage and Peace: Building on 70 years of the Hague Convention”

13 May 2024 - 5:00 pm - 15 May 2024 - 1:30 pm

Location

The Hague, Netherlands

Rooms :

The Hague

Type :

Cat IV – International Congress

Arrangement type :

In-Person

Add to calendar

On this occasion, the International Conference “Cultural Heritage and Peace: Building on 70 years of the Hague Convention”, will be organized by UNESCO and hosted by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in The Hague on 13 - 15 May 2024, at the historical location and date of its signature.

This landmark event will gather specialists involved in the protection of cultural property as well as the global community, to collectively reflect on the achievements, challenges and lessons learned in the implementation of this international normative instrument. It will also serve as a unique global platform for UNESCO and its partners to enhance advocacy efforts and work towards universal ratification to build and foster the foundations of respect, diversity and peace.

Protecting cultural property, whether during peacetime or an armed conflict, means safeguarding the memories of peoples and societies, and passing down the diverse fabric of humanity to the generations to come. Instruments such as the 1954 Convention contribute to building and cementing a foundation of peace.

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Reposted from NYTimes

The first burglary was in 1999 at Keystone College in Factoryville, Pa. One of the gang, authorities said, sneaked onto the campus, smashed some glass display cases and walked off with memorabilia, including a baseball jersey once worn by Christy Mathewson, the legendary pitcher. The Everhart Museum in Scranton was next, six years later. An Andy Warholsilk screen print and a painting attributed to Jackson Pollockwere taken. Then the pace picked up.

The Space Farms: Zoo & Museum. The Lackawanna Historical Society. RingwoodManor. The Sterling Hill Mining Museum. The United States Golf Association Museum and Library. The list goes on. 
Over the course of almost two decades, the crew showed up at 12 small,
low-profile museums that often lacked elaborate security systems, stripping
them of cherished items, including treasured heirlooms from America’s
sporting past, authorities say. Just a partial list includes — from the National Museum of Racing and Hallof Fame — the 1903 Belmont Stakes trophy. From the International Boxing Hall of Fame, middleweight Tony Zale’s from the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, seven of Berra’s championship rings, his 1954 and 1955 M.V.P. plaques, and nine of his 10 World Series rings. The only Berra World Series ring not stolen was the one he wore on his finger. “These kinds of artifacts tell people the story of who we are, and the connect us to the past in a way that really nothing else can,” said Eve Schaenen, executive director of the Berra Museum. “And now they’re gone.”
 
In the fall, four men charged with taking some part in the burglaries are
scheduled to go on trial in Pennsylvania, where they live. Another five
people have pleaded guilty. All nine, authorities say, avoided arrest for
some portion of 19 years as museum directors across five states woke up to
find smashed glass and things missing.
Stolen items included, clockwise from top, “Upper Hudson” by Jasper Cropsey
taken from Ringwood Manor; Roger Maris’s Hickok Belt from the Roger Maris
Museum; a gold nugget from the Sterling Hill Mining Museum.Credit...via
Ringwood Manor, West Acres Development LLP, and Sterling Hill Mining Museum. With so many heists going unsolved for so many years, one might imagine thethieves as some sort of a world-savvy, blueprint-studying, techno-literate crew so often seen in movies. But in court records and interviews, they
come across as more 7-Eleven than Ocean’s Eleven. Prepared? Yes. Sophisticated? No.  Sometimes they just hit houses. One favorite burglary tool was an ax, according to court records. They drove cross country to rob the Roger Maris Museum in North Dakota, rather than take a plane.
 “These guys were not world-class criminals,” said Michael Wisneski, an
official with the Everhart museum who described the thieves as schlubby.
“They were operating out of the North Pocono School District.” Most upsetting to many people is how little care was shown for the objects that were taken. A Jasper Cropsey painting from 1871 was torched. The crew did not even try to sell some of the high-profile sports memorabilia. Instead, gold and silver items like Berra’s rings, Maris’s M.V.P. plaque and the Belmont Stakes trophy were melted down and hocked as raw metals, according to court papers.
 
One of those arrested is accused of using some of the stolen gems to make
himself a scepter. “They could have done a smash and grab at a strip mall jewelry store andcome away with more gold,” said Lindsay Berra, the granddaughter of Yogi. When the accused crew members were finally named in an indictment lastJune, federal prosecutors laid out the inventory of what had been taken. It included stolen paintings, at least five 19th-century firearms, a Tiffany lamp and sports memorabilia that included more than 30 golf and horse
racing trophies. Prosecutors valued the lot at $4 million. Most of the
objects have not been recovered. “This was a group of dishonest people that saw easy marks,” said WilliamKroth, executive director of the Sterling Hill Mining Museum. He called them “low life grifters.”
The Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center suffered the loss of multiple items
once owned by Berra, including nine of his 10 World Series rings. They were
melted down for their metal. Credit...Steve Crandall/Getty Images
‘A Violation of Trust’ Michael Wisneski of the Everhart Museum remembers the morning in 2005 when he woke up and turned on the local television news. To his surprise, the reporters were in the parking lot of his museum, talking about a break-in. When he arrived at the building, he found the back door smashed in, the Warhol and Pollock gone. “It felt like somebody broke into your house,” he said. “It was a violation of trust or of security.”
 
According to authorities, Thomas Trotta, 48, of Moscow, Pa., had used a
ladder to smash the door of the museum. Of the nine people later arrested, Trotta was the one relied on to ventureinto the museums to take things, according to court papers. But he was helped in meaningful ways, authorities say, by Nicholas Dombek, 53, who has known Trotta since they were teenagers. After Trotta was arrested, he accused Dombek of being the ringleader, according to court papers. But Dombek’s lawyer, Ernest D. Preate Jr., said in an interview that Trotta was the ringleader, and he described his client as a handyman, not a
mastermind, who did not even operate a computer.
 
Trotta’s lawyer, Joseph R. D’Andrea, declined to comment.
Thomas Trotta, who is identified in court papers as the person who
personally, entered the museums and stole items. He has pleaded guilty to
theft of a major artwork. Credit...via Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections Dombek, who has pleaded not guilty, is from Thornhurst, a rural patch of Pennsylvania, where he lives on a street that carries his family name. His father and his brother were both science teachers, but Dombek never
graduated from high school, and in a 2019 court hearing testified that he
was in financial straits and was two months behind on his mortgage. Still, he was not without ambition and, according to a search warrantaffidavit, Trotta told investigators that Dombek had constructed something like a chemistry lab in his garage. Dombek himself spoke during the court hearing of hoping to cure cancer by tinkering with the chemical properties of water.
 
Dombek’s garage became an informal headquarters where the group planned
break-ins, Trotta told investigators according to court papers. It was
there that Dombek constructed a collapsible ladder and other tools for
Trotta to use at heists, afterward using the space to melt down stolen
memorabilia, according to court papers.
Image Nicholas Dombek, who authorities have charged in the museum burglaries. Each museum was studied before a break-in to determine access, security measures and what looked good to steal, investigators said in court papers. During one scouting trip, Dombek tested the thickness of a display case at the golf museum in New Jersey by scratching the glass with a coin, the
papers said. Trotta would sometimes wear a disguise, dressing as a firefighter when the stole from the Roger Maris Museum, and as a Hasidic Jew when they went to break into the Harvard Mineralogical & Geological Museum, the indictment said. (The theft was called off because a particular diamond they hoped to steal was no longer on display.) The other accomplices are accused of playing a variety of roles: sometimes as getaway drivers, sometimes as transporters of stolen materials after the
burglary. At the Berra Museum, the thieves cut the glass to gain entry, and were able to elude security cameras during one of the larger hauls, according to
museum staff. “They knew exactly where to break in,” Schaenen said. “They had a method toit.” The Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame in Goshen, N.Y., had a motion sensor but no cameras in place when the thieves arrived in 2012. It lost 14 trophies and afterward, Janet Terhune, the executive director, said she
called the staff of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in
Saratoga to warn them to increase their security. Both museums upgraded
their protection. It didn’t matter.  The next year, Trotta smashed glass displays in Saratoga with a center-punch tool and grinder and took off with five trophies, according to court records.
 
Brien Bouyea, the communications director for the Saratoga museum, said the
institution had a solid security system in place at the time of the thefts.
“The smash-and-grab style of the robbery, however, narrowly beat the police response time,” he said. The Lackawanna Historical Society in Pennsylvania lost a Tiffany lamp in a 2010 burglary. Credit...via The Lackawanna Historical Society
A Fateful Traffic Stop Even with the snow blanketing Route 307 outside Scranton early on the morning of March 4, 2019, the maroon Pontiac was swerving too much.

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Reposted from ArtForum

Land artist Mary Miss has filed suit against the Des Moines Art Center to stop the institution from tearing down her Greenwood Pond: Double Site, 1989–96, an outdoor installation commissioned by the museum for its permanent collection in 1994. Citing the work—a series of structures adjacent to a lagoon—as a danger to the public and the cost of repairing it as beyond its means, the museum had planned to begin removing it on April 8.

In commissioning the work, the Art Center had contracted with Miss to “reasonably protect and maintain the project against the ravages of time, vandalism and the elements.” However, Greenwood Pond, which is made of treated metal, wood, mesh, and concrete, had deteriorated in recent years under the museum’s stewardship. In her suit, filed on April 4 in US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa’s Central Division, the artist accused the museum of failing to properly care for the work. She asserted that the museum’s dismantling of Greenwood Pond would violate the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which gives artists the right to “prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature.” The work is thought to be the first urban wetland project in the United States. Miss is seeking a temporary restraining order against the museum until the matter can be resolved in court. A hearing is set for Monday.

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Reposted from EMR-ISAC

In recent testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), and the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) discussed how fast fire can progress within a typical modern structure and how little time there is to escape. Today’s structure fires can go from a small flame to flashover in just 3 to 5 minutes, partly due to the synthetic materials used in modern furnishings and interior finishes. Additionally, lithium-ion batteries are becoming increasingly common household items used in consumer electronics, power tools, micromobility devices, and electric vehicles. When these batteries burn, the time from the first sign of smoke until thermal runaway and explosion can be as little as 15 seconds. Public awareness of common fire risks is critical to saving lives and drastically reducing property loss. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issues voluntary and mandatory standards that consumer products must meet to be considered safe. CPSC also directly informs and educates consumers about safety risks from products already on the market. The fire service can help by reporting unsafe products to the CPSC and by sharing CPSC’s fire safety messages with their community. Just last month, the CPSC released several alerts about consumer products posing fire hazards:

• Insignia air fryers and air fryer ovens. Best Buy has recalled more than 187,400 of its Insignia air fryers due to overheating, which could lead to fire, burn, or laceration hazards as components of the fryers may melt, break, or shatter under heat.

• Honeywell System Sensor L-series low frequency fire alarms and strobes The sounders and strobes can malfunction and cause the fire alarm system to fail to alert consumers of a fire. Honeywell is recalling about 29,000 units.

• Elide fire extinguishing balls. CPSC is warning consumers about the risk of burns and smoke inhalation associated with the use of Elide brand fire extinguishing balls. These products can fail to extinguish a fire, which could lead to serious injury and death.

• EVERCROSS EV5 Hoverboards. CPSC has received one report of a fire, resulting in substantial property damage to a residential building in New York City in May 2023. The company has not agreed to recall these hoverboards or offer a remedy to consumers. CPSC urges consumers to immediately remove the lithium-ion battery packs from the hoverboards and dispose of them following local hazardous waste disposal procedures.

Fire and public safety departments, especially code officials and anyone involved in fire prevention education, should share this information with their community through all means available. Follow CPSC’s social media feeds or sign up to receive email notifications for future product recalls and alerts. Unsafe products can be reported to the CPSC at SaferProducts.gov.

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Reposted from EMR-ISAC

Mutual aid agreements establish the terms under which one party provides resources — personnel, teams, facilities, equipment and supplies — to another party. These agreements can support all mission areas; they can be established before, during or after incidents; and they can be between all levels of government, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. Mutual aid does not include direct federal assistance.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) just released an updated guidance document, National Incident Management System for Mutual Aid (Guideline). The Guideline supports the Resource Management component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) by providing guidance on different types of mutual aid agreements, the key elements of a mutual aid agreement and the key elements of mutual aid operational plans used for implementation.

Since the Guideline was last updated in 2017, it has been expanded to incorporate national stakeholders’ new best practices, strategies, and resources for mutual aid agreements, including:

• Impacts and lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic on mutual aid operations.
• Acknowledgement of legal liabilities for parties in a mutual aid agreement.
• Additional special considerations for underserved communities.
• Additional emphasis on the importance of a common operating picture.
• Guidance for virtual mutual aid delivery in order to provide support in alignment with FEMA lifelines.

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Reposted from Tim Richardson

Who was the hardest working person you have ever known?

Hands down, the hardest working person I have ever known was a man with only an 8^th grade education named Morris Bunton. I first experienced his amazing work ethic when I worked for him as a young teen picking oranges in the hot, humid Florida summers. We would leave his home long before the sun came up and sometimes not return until dusk. I worked alongside my brother for 2-3 weeks every summer to earn money for summer camp. We were paid 50 cents a box and I don’t think I ever made more than $20 in a day. It remains the hardest work I have ever done, and Morris did it every day alongside us. After multiple freezes damaged his fruit trees, Morris sold his grove. Throughout his life, he worked in farming and owned several businesses. Then he patented a high efficiency solar water heater and sold, built, and installed them himself. During my college years, I helped him with this business too.

In his early 70’s, Morris was diagnosed with cancer. He read everything he could on cancer, paying particularly close attention to how peak health and eating well could extend one’s life. He also researched and tried alternative treatments. A life-long meat and potatoes eater, Morris radically changed his diet and eliminated beef, replacing it with small portions of chicken or fish once every third day. He juiced fresh fruits and vegetables. Ultimately, he extended his life far longer than the doctors predicted. He continued working even as cancer began to destroy his body. Six months before his death, he was still climbing on top of homes to install his solar water heaters. My grandfather, Morris Bunton, died when he was 84 years old leaving behind a legacy of hard work and determination.

I have never met anyone who had physical stamina and determination like my grandfather. While he often worked 6 days a week harder than anyone half his age, he rested every Sunday. Even when I was there working alongside him during the summers, we worked every day but Sunday.

Throughout his life, my grandfather exemplified the following values:

• Risk taking. He owned several businesses continuously reinventing himself over many years. Don’t follow the status quo. Life is easier when you do but more rewarding when you take calculated risks. This was a constant throughout his life.
• Continuous learning. Even though he only had an 8^th grade education, my grandfather was always studying and learning something new. There is power in learning. Commit to life-long learning. Find a subject that interests you in which you know little about and immerse yourself in learning about it.
• Results oriented. When you work hard, you get results – period. Be the hardest working person on your team, in your business, or in your volunteer organization. As trite as it sounds, the dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
• Rest and renewal. While he worked hard 6 days a week, he never worked on Sundays. You can’t sustain high quality work without taking time to rest and in today’s hustle culture it’s more difficult than ever to have it. Give yourself a weekly break. Try to take a regular Sabbath.

The example that Morris Bunton demonstrated influenced me greatly. I hope his example can influence you too.

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Reposted from AMM

 

The countdown to Columbus has begun!

 

We're thrilled to kick off the countdown to The Way Forward with the opening of online registration! You can now register in advance for the 2024 Conference, taking place virtually on July 24 and in-person July 31-August 3, and organized in collaboration with the Ohio Museums Association. Over the coming weeks, we'll share a deep dive into the exciting speaker lineup and events we have in store for you this year.   Advance registration will be available online through July 15 for Virtual + In-Person registrations and through July 19 for Virtual Only registrations.   Members save! Members have access to the best possible rates for the conference through July 15th and, depending on your membership type, you might have access to other offers. Click here to learn more.   Need help? Check out our form instructions and find answers to common registration questions on our FAQ page. Contact AMM for further assistance. NOTE: Sponsors, exhibitors, presenters, and other special guests will receive instructions directly from AMM on how to register and access discounts or comps.

 

Register Now

 

 

Call for Volunteers

 

Running a conference is a big job, and we need your help! It takes 50+ volunteers to keep our virtual and in-person programs running smoothly. As a volunteer for our 2024 Conference, you’ll help with a range of needs like conference setup, passing out name badges, and greeting attendees at sessions and events.   In return for your time, we offer perks like a free limited edition Proud Museum Person t-shirt, up to 100% off registration, and access to a staff and volunteer office/lounge at the conference hotel. Of course, the true benefit of volunteering is having the perfect excuse to say “hello” to everyone you see!   We are now accepting volunteer applications through May 10, or until all positions are filled. Consider applying to help in one of the following capacities: ·     Zoom Breakout Room Moderator (Virtual) ·     Setup Crew (In-Person) ·     Registration Helper (In-Person) ·     Offsite Event & Workshop Greeter (In-Person) ·     General Session Greeter (In-Person) ·     Breakout Session Monitor (In-Person) ·     Photography Ambassador (In-Person) ·     Networking Activities (In-Person)

 

Apply Now

 

 

Don’t forget…

 

·     Start planning your conference experience! Program information and the Schedule-at-a-Glance are available at ammconference.org.    ·     Reserve your room! The Hilton Columbus at Easton is currently accepting reservations for conference attendees. Book your room by July 6 with the reservation link provided to get the group rate of $185/night!   ·     Support Midwest museums! Check out the conference website for information about exhibiting and advertising or contact AMM about sponsorship opportunities.   ·     Members save! Join or renew your membership with AMM or OMA to access member rates. AMM Institutional members and their employees, as well as Individual Premium and George R Fox Society members can access the virtual conference day for FREE.   ·     Support professional development for your whole team! Thinking about sending more than one staff member to this year’s conference? Become an Organizational Champion or Team Builder Sponsor to encourage staff professional development and build.

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Reposted from Dplan|Arts Ready     Dear colleagues, The Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) project is offering the free emergency preparedness webinars listed below that are tailored to the needs of performing arts organizations during April-June. Also, the dPlan|ArtsReady online emergency preparedness and response tool for the arts and cultural heritage sectors guides users through risk assessments and preparedness actions and produces elements for your disaster plan. The dPlan|ArtsReady online tool can be found at: https://www.dplan.org/. Webinars:   Disaster Response for Performing Arts Organizations, April 18, 2024, at 2:00 ET. Description: Emergency response can be a daunting prospect for performing arts organizations. This webinar will lay out the basic tenets of responding to an emergency including support organizations, working with vendors, and helpful resources for organization and planning. There will also be a brief introduction to the Incident Command System so that performing arts centers can work more seamlessly with their local first responders. Instructor: Donia Conn Introduction to Emergency Preparedness for Performing Arts Organizations, April 23, 2024, at 2:00 ET. Description: Localized emergencies, regional disasters, and catastrophic events can have a devastating impact on performing arts organizations where even a brief loss of business can threaten sustainability. This free 90-minute webinar will provide an introduction to why emergency preparedness is critical to protect your organization from external risks and internal vulnerabilities. These include human caused and natural crises. You will learn the typical process and contents of a plan and receive information about resources to help with planning. This webinar is appropriate for attendees representing large and small performing arts organizations as well as those with and without their own performance facilities. Executive and management staff will find this webinar useful, as well as H.R., finance, communications, marketing, technical, and front-of-house staff. Instructor: Steve Eberhardt Crisis Communication and Reputation Management for Performing Arts Organizations, April 30, 2024, at 2:00 ET. Description: You serve on the staff of a local performing arts organization. A press release was tweeted from a local environmental group stating that your theatre’s plumbing system is leaching untreated waste into the community’s waterway. While the press release is inaccurate, season ticket holders and donors are demanding answers. And the organization’s Twitter handle is blowing up. You have an interview with the editor of the state newspaper in five minutes. What do you say? What do you do? As professionals rise through the ranks, they will face issues that thrust them into the spotlight and threaten organizational reputation. A recent study found that 9 in 10 business leaders (94%) admit that the executives in their organizations need more training in core communication disciplines, such as reputation management and strategic communication. Are you prepared? This class reviews elements of strategic communication that are essential before, during and after crisis events. It examines how your organization can best prepare to respond to crisis and restore organizational reputation. Instructor:  Kathleen Donohue Rennie Event Preparedness: Active Shooters and Hostile Activity at Your Venues, May 1, 2024, at 2:00 ET Description: In recent years we have seen an increase in hostile attacks across all sectors, including events. These attacks have come in a variety of methods. Performing Arts and Cultural Heritage organizations must be prepared for all scenarios and need to be able to react to all emergencies. This webinar will cover the types of attacks to prepare for, as well as the training you should consider for your venues and staff. Our instructor, Emma Stuart, also presents the “Safety and Security for Performing Arts,” “Road to Recovery: Performing Arts During COVID,” and the “Pandemic Response for Performing Arts Organizations” webinars for the PAR project. Instructor: Emma Stuart Risk Assessment for Performing Arts Organizations, May 7, 2024, at 2:00 ET. Description: Natural disasters, local emergencies, and other disruptive events can have devastating effects on all sizes of performing arts organizations. This webinar will focus on mitigating risks at institutions, to prevent disasters from happening and to reduce the impact of unavoidable disasters. The session will clarify the need for risk assessment as a part of an organization’s disaster preparedness strategy, provide basic information on risk assessment tools and practices, and address how risk assessment can benefit performing arts organizations. The instructors will also present case studies as a part of the session, so participants can learn from actual disasters in performing arts organizations. Instructor: Tom Clareson Networking for Disaster Management in the Performing Arts, May 14, 2024, at 2:00 ET Description: Emergency response and preparedness for performing arts organizations can be a difficult task for individual organizations. This free 2-hour webinar will demonstrate how working with multiple organizations in a network for disaster management can be accomplished. The history of networking for improved emergency preparedness in the cultural heritage, arts, and government sectors will be examined, with an exploration of existing networks. Case studies of the Pennsylvania Cultural Resilience Network and CultureAID in New York City will be presented to help guide you on how to start your own, or join an existing, cooperative disaster network. You will learn how to use the Cultural Placekeeping Guide to direct your networking efforts. Instructors: Tom Clareson and Amy Schwartzman Fire Safety and Preparedness for Performing Arts Organizations, May 15, 2024 at 2:00 ET Description: Fire Safety is an essential element in the day to day preparedness of any organization, especially in the unique environment of the performing arts. In addition to sound emergency management principles, the application of National Fire Protection Association Standards (NFPA) will ensure that a comprehensive protection plan is developed in cooperation with appropriate emergency response partners. This free webinar will provide fire safety considerations and introduce best practices from the fire protection industry, which offers a road map to achieve fire safety benchmarks. Participants will learn how the Life Safety Code and the Code for Protection of Cultural Resource Properties can help you protect your patrons, staff, and facility. Instructor: Chris Soliz Fire and Emergency Protection Plan Development, May 21, 2024 at 2:00 ET Description: Participants in this webinar will be presented with the components of a Protection Plan and the process to follow for the development of a plan following guidelines provided by the National Fire Protection Association’s Code for Protection of Cultural Resource Properties. Grounded in a vulnerability assessment, the planning process covers fire safety, security, construction considerations, prevention, special events, and recovery strategies. At the completion of this webinar, participants will have the tools needed to begin developing is a significant step towards a resilient organization. Instructor: Chris Soliz Safety and Security for Performing Arts, May 29, 2024 at 2:00 ET Description: With the ever-changing nature of events, are you prepared for the unexpected? With audiences and Local Government agencies expecting more from you as an organizer, do you have plans in place to not only try and prevent, but also respond should any incident happen? Safety and Security are more important now than ever and more questions will be asked of you and what plans you have in place. This class will help event organizers and venues establish the key elements for prevention and responding to incidents of any shape or size. It will provide a background of what happens when things don’t go as planned, and show that it doesn’t matter what size or type of event you have, the basic principles are the same. We will look at what you would do in certain scenarios, and how even small adjustments to your venue can keep your event safer. Instructor: Emma Stuart Introduction to Archival Programs for Performing Arts Institutions, May 30, 2024, at 2:00 ET Description: With many performing arts organizations operating for some time, legacy records have been created that can benefit not only staff but also the public. Join us for an introduction to what archival programs do and how they can help your organization. This class will be organized into two parts. First, participants will learn what practical actions they can take now with minimal resources and then learn about program components for consideration in the future. By the end of the class, participants will be able to: - Learn what archives do and what archival work entails - Understand what materials are considered historical - Acquire skills in basic preservation and safe storage practices, including electronic materials - Become aware of what is needed to develop archival programs over time Instructor: Katy Klettlinger Lessons Learned from the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival Shooting, June 12, 2024, at 2:00 ET Description: Kelly Hubbard was attending day 3 of the Route 91 Country Music Festival with her daughter and a few friends when someone opened fire on the crowd of 22,000 attendees. 58 attendees died that evening, with hundreds more severely injured, making that night the worst mass shooting to date in our Country’s history. Kelly speaks as a survivor, but also as an emergency manager on the events of that evening to help others in her profession and in the entertainment and hospitality industry to improve large event planning and mass casualty response. This session will reflect on lessons for all parties involved in large pop-up location event planning and mass casualty response. Learning outcomes will include considerations for security and safety in pop-up venues, coordination concepts with local government partners, understanding the response and recovery process, considerations for integration of non-traditional response partners and trauma care for survivors and staff. Concepts such as how to integrate those who may not think they have a role (such as the hotels that became triage and shelter centers with no warning) will be covered. Insight will be provided on how survivors of traumatic events get information regarding hospitals, Family Assistance Centers, and recovery resources, especially when watching the news is experiencing the trauma all over again. Instructor: Kelly Hubbard . The complete list of PAR webinars and recordings may be found here.   Your friends at the Performing Arts Readiness project, PAR@Lyrasis.org www.PerformingArtsReadiness.org See Original Post

Reposted from CISA/DHS

As the nation’s cyber defense agency and the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today announced a new dedicated webpage with cybersecurity resources to support communities at heightened risk of digital security threats.

Through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), CISA has partnered with civil society organizations and technology companies to better understand the cybersecurity needs of high-risk communities, the role that CISA and our technology company partners can play to support their digital security and develop a collaborative planning effort to meet these needs. High-risk communities play a critical role in advancing democratic and humanitarian causes which makes them a uniquely attractive target for Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors who can leverage cyber intrusions to undermine the fundamental values and interests common to free societies.

CISA provides resources specifically for high-risk communities, such as:

·        Project Upskill which offers cybersecurity guidance designed to arm individuals from high-risk organizations with simple steps to meaningfully improve their cyber hygiene. It is designed for a non-technical audience so that all individuals in a civil society organization are empowered to take action to bolster their cyber defenses.

·        Cybersecurity Resources for High-Risk Communities offers a wide selection to high-risk communities, such as Cloudflare’s Project Galileo that offers cybersecurity protection, or Google’s Advanced Protection Program that provides additional safeguards against phishing attempts and harmful downloads, or Access Now’s Digital Security Helpline for support with incident response if compromise is suspected.

·        Cyber Volunteer Resource Center is a repository of cyber volunteer programs across the country that provide free, hands-on cybersecurity support to under-resourced organizations. CISA intends to help build capacity by providing a centralized place for prospective volunteers to learn about prerequisites and application processes for joining their local cyber volunteer program, and help qualifying organizations learn how to obtain assistance. CISA also published a blog with more details on the High-Risk Communities effort. All civil society organizations are encouraged to visit the Cyber Resource Hub | CISA, intended to serve as a one-stop-shop for cybersecurity guidance.

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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) kicks off the third annual Emergency Communications Month to honor the nation’s emergency responders and communicators, emphasizing the importance of emergency communications and the need to work together in building resilient critical infrastructure.  This year, CISA is focusing on how the nation can be “Resilient Together,” highlighting the importance of secure, interoperable emergency communications and how the agency supports this effort in collaboration with its partners across the emergency communications ecosystem. Emergency communications is a complex ecosystem with multiple stakeholders and moving pieces. It is more resilient and secure through strong partnerships and collaboration between emergency responders, government, information technology and communications providers, non-governmental organizations, and even private citizens. All through April, CISA invites the nation to celebrate the people who operate the systems we rely on and learn more about the vital role of emergency communications. 

CISA encourages critical infrastructure organizations, state, local, tribal, and territorial government, and others to significantly bolster communications resiliency and emergency preparedness by enrolling in free priority telecommunications services. These services, which include the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service and Wireless Priority Service, enable essential personnel to communicate when networks are degraded or congested due to weather events, mass gatherings, cyber incidents, or events stemming from human error. 

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