AIM Conference 2024 speaker callout

Can you help? We are looking for contributions to our breakout sessions for next year’s conference at Black Country Living Museum.

Always a popular part of the programme, these run for 45 minutes and focus on pragmatic advice, real-life examples, and ideas drawn from across the AIM community.

For the 2024 event, breakouts will reflect on the following broad themes:

• Community-centred governance (boards making strategic decisions in response to community needs)
• The power of communities telling their own stories
• Building the business case for community (the economic, social and cultural impact of using museum assets for and with the community)
• Safe communities: staff and visitor wellbeing in museums

The primary audience at conference is AIM members. These range from very large museums or heritage organisations to those that are entirely volunteer run. The audience will include people from heritage attractions, sites and industrial heritage groups as well as museums.    

Top tips on presentations at AIM conference: 

• AIM conference delegates are open to debate, new ideas and concepts but want this linked to practical and useful suggestions.   
• Speakers who give ideas and suggestions (particularly ones that are low cost or easy to implement) which delegates can take away and use in their organisations, are always popular. Our hope is for every attendee at conference to be able to go back into their museum the following week with concrete ideas they can start implementing.  
• Finishing presentations with a summary of ‘top tips’ is a particularly popular format.   
• Ideas which draw on your own experience or perspectives or which are from outside the museum sector or outside the UK are greatly appreciated.
• Willingness to share the sometimes-difficult realities and how these are coped with, as well as the successes, is always very well received. 
• If you’re a supplier to the sector and keen to make an application, we’d recommend linking up with a museum client and making a joint application. Conference delegates respond better to real-life case studies in the breakouts, rather than a sales pitch.

AIM Conference 2024 is taking place on Thursday 13 and Friday 14 June 2024.

To propose a session, please download and complete this application form

Send your completed form to lisa.ollerhead@aim-museums.co.uk by Friday 29 September at 5pm.