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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Happy New Year for 2017.

Last year was vibrant for SMMP. We had robust meetings in Tucson, Sainte Marie aux Mines, Denver and Melbourne. The minutes and photos are on our website (links below). At the Denver meeting, we discussed moving the time of our meeting to 5 pm, similar to Tucson. We will vote in Tucson. We also resolved to support young speakers at the Denver Show, with a $50 voucher. In Melbourne we discussed possibilities of using some of our healthy bank balance for education. If you have ideas, please bring them to the Tucson meeting, or garner support via the list server.

Jean is again organising the SMMP educational display at the Tucson Show, "Unexpected Treasures from the American Midwest". She will be sending out details soon. Please support our display by firstly contacting Jean to ensure she can do the labels and then bringing your interesting specimen to Jean at set up.

For our Public Program, Virgil Lueth will be sharing his expertise on "Light-induced Color Changes in Minerals". This will be held immediately after our general meeting. Please support it and invite anyone else along too as it is a public presentation.

Once again, Jim and Gail Spann, with Jordi Faber, are generously hosting an evening for SMMP on Thursday, 9th February at Casa Vicente, just after our SMMP program at 6 pm. This is a strictly invitation only, RSVP event. Please email me at pennyw@uow.edu.au to ensure your entry.

For those colleagues coming to Tucson, see you soon. For everyone else, be active via the list server.

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GROUP PHOTOS

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MINUTES OF THE DENVER MEETING
September 2016

MINUTES OF THE MELBOURNE MEETING
November 2016

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BEST PRACTICES PROJECT

"Best practices" documents are posted on the SMMP website:

BEST PRACTICES REPORT NO. 1: Research Sampling of Collections

BEST PRACTICES REPORT NO. 2: Moving Specimens

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SMMP RESEARCH STUDY GRANTS

Awards are to support curatorial research and methodologies that address one or more of the Society of Mineral Museum Professionals (SMMP) mission statement goals: 1) foster recognition of mineral science collections as essential scientific, educational and cultural resources, 2) promote support for growth, maintenance and use of collections and exhibits and, 3) advance museum practice through cooperation in the development, review and dissemination of information. Amounts vary up to a maximum of $1000 per grant. Grant awards determined by SMMP Board of Directors. Grant applications and more details are posted on our website:
http://www.agiweb.org/smmp/support-SMMP.htm

Grant proposals are due: August 1, 2017

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Board of Directors election

Three board member terms will be expiring this year.
Please be prepared to nominate candidates and vote.
Board members whose terms expire this year are:

Julian Gray
Terri Ottaway
Penny Williamson

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SMMP AFFILIATIONS

American Geological Institute (AGI)

Natural Science Collections Alliance NSCA)

Although the Society of Mineral Museum Professionals maintains no official ties with the Commission on Museums (CM) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), the Commission resolved at its December, 2000, meeting in Melbourne, Australia, to support SMMP's efforts in uniting mineral museum professionals worldwide.

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SMMP LIST SERVER

You are encouraged to interact with your fellow SMMP members via our list server:

smmp@listserv.nhm.org

Please remember that when you reply to an email sent via our list server, you will be replying to the sender, although you have the option of copying the membership.

Tony Kampf processes additions to and deletions from the list server. That way we limit the list to our membership and if a member decides that they want to be dropped from the list, Tony will know whether to send them the SMMP Newsletter by snail mail. Note that you are only able to send via the list server from your email address that is on the list server. This should be the same one that is used in our on-line roster.

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PAYING DUES

SMMP dues are $10.00 U.S., payable to Anna Domitrovic, treasurer, 6118 W. Lazy Heart Street, Tucson, AZ 85713. Any directory changes or additions should be sent to Tony Kampf. In Europe, dues can be remitted to Peter Davidson, National Museums of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, SCOTLAND.

To make paying your dues easier (especially for non-US members), a PayPal account has been established and installed on our website. You can use your credit card or your own personal PayPal account. Just go to our Dues webpage.

Note that you can check your dues payment status on the SMMP on-line roster. The year shown in the last column indicates the last year for which you have paid. If you are delinquent, please remit your dues payment as soon as possible.

Remember to renew your membership. If you are planning to pay dues at the Tucson meeting, help Anna by giving her a business card with your dues payment. Do it beforehand and save time at the meeting!