Call For Proposals

APH 2012 Annual Conference — Turning Points

The Association of Personal Historians (APH) is an international trade organization of professionals dedicated to preserving the stories of individuals, families, communities, associations, and businesses. APH will sponsor a four-day education and networking conference in St. Louis, Missouri, Wednesday, October 17, 2012.

Personal historians probe the turning points in the lives of their clients, reflect upon the turning points in their own lives, and prepare for turning points that will grow their businesses. This conference theme will offer beginners as well as experienced personal historians creative ideas and skill-building workshops to improve their products, preserve their own life stories, and grow their businesses through new approaches and services.

Attendees will gain valuable insights and tools of professionalism at the Turning Points conference. Instructors will offer workshops to help their students achieve proficiency in the competencies to which personal historians aspire and any other topic that personal historians might find helpful in establishing and maintaining a successful enterprise.

We especially encourage proposals with appeal for seasoned personal historians as well as those with appropriate content for a wide range of interests and experience levels.

In addition to submitting proposals for 90-minute workshops, prospective presenters are encouraged to consider offering an extended two-session (3-hour) workshop or an in-depth 6-hour pre-conference seminar. You will be able to indicate the type of session when you fill in the online form to Submit a Propposal.

Experienced APH members and other skilled professionals in fields related to personal history are invited to submit proposals. Workshops for the conference program will be chosen by the program committee based on value to our members, relevance to theme and goals, creativity, and a balance of topics overall.

To discuss ideas for keynote presentations, please email the Conference Program team:
Mary Harrison, Conference Program Chair
Paula Yost, Events Manager
Marianne Waller, Conference Director

Proposal Guidelines

The APH Conference Program Committee is seeking proposals with strong audience interaction/participation rather than lecture-style presentations. Please indicate in your proposal the methods you will utilize to accomplish this.

Your synopsis and bio sketch will be used to promote both your presentation and the conference. Please take advantage of this opportunity to sell your workshop and build excitement about the conference with descriptive, definitive words that go directly to the heart of the matter, explaining your goals for the workshop and the benefits participants can expect. For space reasons in the printed program, the synopsis must be limited to 75 words or less. A catchy, definitive presentation title is important. Create something short (10 words or less) that will appeal to conference attendees and whet their appetites.

Workshop presentations will be recorded with the presenter's permission and will be sold in MP3 format at the conference and through the APH online store afterward. A presenter's preference as to whether to allow audio taping of his or her workshop will not be a deciding factor in workshop selection.

Presenters will be asked to provide handout materials eight (8) weeks prior to the conference in order that all materials may be prepared for distribution in a conference notebook provided to each attendee. Workshop facilitators will receive an honorarium of $100 per 90-minute segment. In the case of a workshop with more than one presenter, the $100 honorarium will be shared by the presenters.

APH reserves the right to edit presentation titles, synopses, and biographical information for clarity and/or to improve marketability.

Submitting a Proposal

To submit your workshop or seminar proposal, please complete the online Submit a Proposal form no later than Sunday, January 29, 2012. You will be prompted to login if you have not yet done so. If you are not an APH member and do not already have an APH account, you will see an option to create an account.

Once you complete your online proposal, you will receive an email confirmation that your proposal has been submitted. At that point, you can submit another proposal if you want. The Conference Program Committee will notify you no later than Monday, April 30, 2012 about the status of your proposal.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to seeing you in St. Louis, Missouri on .

Feel free to direct any questions to:
— Mary Harrison, Conference Program Chair
— Paula Yost, Events Manager
— Marianne Waller, Conference Director