Our President, Mary Kern, called the meeting to order at 12:30PM.
Paul Stone led us in the pledge of allegiance
Mary Kern gave us an invocation
Susanne McInerney led us in singing God Bless America

Sue Peghiny introduced our two guests:

1) her husband Ron
2) Neil Gordon, Executive Director of the Discovery Museums in Acton

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Paul Sullivan announced that its voting day today.  He also announced that he got an energy audit per the recommendation from the Green Decade and he feels he can save a lot of energy costs and recommend that others do the same.

Paul also announced that the membership committee met last week to discuss more membership ideas.

Jeff Tucker announced the DBC fundraiser committee met last Friday for the first time energetic and excited about the new venue.  It will be on Jan 26th at the Post 440 in Newton.  This venue is larger so we can have more vendors if we want.  He'll be approaching those people who sponsored last year to see if they can do the same this year. There are several categories of sponsorship options.  Next Meeting is Nov 22nd.

Mary said that next week, we are sticking with our TUESDAY meeting day even though Veterans day is Monday.  

Mary also announced that the next board meeting is being pushed up 1 week to Nov 19th at 11AM at Braeburn instead of the 26th due to the Thanksgiving luncheon being on the 26th.  All members are welcome.

HAPPY DOLLARS

Indira - she's happy (and thank you for collecting happy dollars for all of us!!)
Paul Stone - for Red Sox and also that he predicted it would be over by today's meeting
Peggy Lapore - for Red Sox 
Dick Bowen - for guests here today
Bert Martinson - to be here with all you nice people
Paul Sullivan - $5 for Red Sox
Paul Mahler - grandkids
Ed Casavant -
Sue Peghiny - husband, speaker Neil, going to Maine this past weekend, Go Red Sox
Chris Chu -
Susanne McInerney- leaving Monday for Marco Island with her son; sister who has been in hospital for 8 months. Finally got on facebook last night.
Marie Presti - our guest speaker, having taken her son to the Acton Discovery Museums many times

Neil Gordon, Discovery Museum
What the museum really is and what its about.
Prescription for kids and families
This job is Neil's 3rd career.  14 years at Boston Children's Museum.  Before that he was with city gov (budget director with Menino and HR).  
He used to manage $1B organization and then at Children's it was $10M org to now at Discovery Museum its $1M organization. 
31 year old organization started by a public school teachers
created to inspire curiosity and love of learning in kids
Every child is born an artist.  how to remain an artist once we grow up... - Picasso
Our job is to foster it and keep it going.  Not to light the fire of learning, but to foster the embers....
Discovery Museums served 180K people last year on $1M budget vs.
Boston Children's Museum served 550K last year on $10M budget
Large outreach program. strong science focus. They go into elementary schools. They served 26K kids in 1100 classrooms.
They have 2K member families who are very loyal
They make services available to those who otherwise can't obtain them (for price, learning issues, or cultural reasons)  38K were free or highly reduced in cost.
3M population within 45 minute drive.  That is their target audience.
60% come 6X/year or more
96% visitors would recommend to a friend
in summer every Friday night is free
especially for me program (autism and hearing loss) free nights for those families 16 nights
connected an elementary school in acton with an El Salvador classroom
live skype with two classroom
why are doing what we're doing?
children represent between 5-10% of population but represent 100% of our future.
Challenges and Issues
kids spending time differently than when we were kids
15-25% reduction of free time
avg 2 year old 4 hours/day.  recommendation is 0 time in front of TV
1 in 6  2 yr olds have a TV in their bedroom
more time in school; less time outdoors and free play
family dinners decreased and family vacations decreased
#1 factor correlate with education success (parental control)
pressure to grow up faster.  cognitive and physical
social and emotional development haven't kept pace with that
50% parents #1 thing they wish they had done was spend more time with kids
more sense of community in the past than is today
more resource constraints than ever before
Creativity Crisis in this country and Canada.  Creativity Index started Measuring 30 years ago.    gone down especially among youngest kids.
Einstein and Carl Sagan should be role models
independent scored tests MA has done well.  
Lowest rates of kids choosing to go into science careers.
Book, the Element, talks about finding your passion.  
Achievement Gap - math scores 1990-2007.  
Mr. Rogers was a thought leader on development of children.  Play is a way for children to solve problems express their feelings.  Play is the real work of childhood.
Our prescription for kids... we need to let kids play with their families.
high quality experiences.  reinforces the necessity of play in childhood.

better job connecting kids to nature and the outdoors.

experiences which support critical science process skills

Hoping for kids to explore things at their own pace

They did a dumpmania program (2 truckloads of dirt) last year and it was very successful.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -  Albert Einstein

Children's building and a science building equal the entire Discovery Museums (with an s).  Someday maybe they'll drop the s.

Neil Gordon

Mary adjoined the meeting promptly at 1:30PM.

Respectfully submitted by Marie Presti.  Please excuse typos and if I missed someone's announcement or happy dollars.  My ipad was charging at the beginning of the meeting so I had to take notes in my head for awhile. :)

 
 
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