2006 APH Conference
Events
Community Forum & Town Square

Community Forum:

The Power of Life Stories: Judith Kolva, who teaches interdisciplinary studies and psychology at International College in Naples, Fla., will discuss how older adults benefit from the power of sharing life stories. To promote healthy aging, it is important to invest in a process that helps older adults identify meaning in life. She will identify specific interviewing skills that result in evoking the compelling events of an older adult's life story. Kolva, who earned her Ph.D. in the Psychology of Aging, examined in her doctoral dissertation how older adults discover specific meaning in life through telling their life stories. She has presented her findings at the American Society of Aging.

Genealogy: Genealogy is one of the most popular hobbies in America. Amy Oaks Long of Provo, Utah, has taught family history and genealogy at Brigham Young University for thirteen years and has been writing and publishing personal histories for seventeen years. Long will help people understand the amazing family history and genealogical resources available on the Internet from the privacy of their own homes.

Ethical Wills: Pamela Luce of Central Lake, Mich., an ordained minister who has worked as a chaplain, hospice director and bereavement coordinator, will share with the public the importance of passing values on to children and grandchildren through the writing of ethical wills, legacy letters or spiritual legacies. Life stories are never complete without integrating the emotional and spiritual journeys of the narrators. Luce also is a certified trainer in conflict resolution, crisis debriefing, listening skills, mediation, facilitation and consensus decision-making.

Preserving Family Heirlooms: Many families have precious family heirlooms, but they might be allowing them to self-destruct by failing to preserve them properly. Jennifer Cobb of Vancouver, Wash., will help others understand how best to preserve family treasures—photos, documents, textiles and "stuff." Cobb has an M.A. in Physical Anthropology from Arizona State University and taught anthropology for seven years at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she was in charge of preservation of the archaeology lab. She launched her business, Heirloom Preservation, in 2003.

Moderating the Community Forum will be APH Secretary Paula Stahel, who received rave reviews for her public speaking workshop at last year's APH conference. She will share her story with the audience and introduce each presenter throughout the afternoon. Stahel has worked as an independent writer and producer for more than twenty years and joined APH in 1999.

Town Square:

In the spacious Exhibit Hall at the Doubletree Hotel, Town Square will spread into several attractively designed environments. APH member displays will be featured in one area, product and service displays offered by vendors will be grouped in another, and a spacious alcove along the back wall will serve as the presentation stage for our Community Forum.

If ever a year existed for APH members to bring samples of their work so other personal historians and interested Town Square attendees can view and appreciate them, this is it. The array of tables, at no charge, will allow APH members to display their finished books, CDs, videos, family Web sites, DVDs, history quilts—whatever form their life stories and personal histories have taken.

Town Square attendees with items to promote or sell are invited to rent vendor tables to display and market their products. That includes, for example, anyone who prints and binds books, sells recording and video equipment, features historical books for sale, publishes memoirs, prints brochures and business cards, provides marketing services, coaches entrepreneurs, offers transcription services, sells software or office supplies, or provides freelance editing or graphic design. Vendor tables cost $50 for APH members, $75 for nonprofit organizations and $100 for non-APH commercial organizations.

Some vendors will present mini-workshops during Town Square to demonstrate equipment and the ways particular products might help personal historians in their work.

Book signings will be another feature of Town Square. APH members who have written books and narrators who have shared their stories with personal historians for publication will be on hand to sell and autograph their literary works.