2009 Annnual General Meeting takes place in Barbados
The MAC 13th AGM. The Turks and Caicos National Museum was privileged to host the 13th Annual General Meeting of the Museums Association of the Caribbean. Twenty five delegates representing the islands of Aruba, Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Guadeloupe,St Croix, Saint Lucia, Tortola and the Turks and Caicos Islands as well as representatives from several American organisations attended the meeting, which took place from 23rd to 27th October. Unfortunately, due to the then recent events in the USA and the fire in the Bahamas which affected the Pompey Museum, 10 delegates were unable to attend.

Following two days of association business, members of the Museums Association of the Caribbean heard two days of papers. The first looked at slave history and included one from Nigel Sadler, Director of the Turks and Caicos National Museum on the slave history of the Turks and Caicos and the problems encountered whilst carrying out the research. Other papers were presented by Jay Haviser from the Museum Kura Hulanda, Curacao, Kevin Farmer of the Barbabos Museum and Historical Society and Gerrard Richard, Attach de Conservation de Patrimoine Conseil Regional de la Guadeloupe as well as from Dr Mike Connors, lecturer at the University of New York . Copies of most of these papers are available for viewing at the Museum. Slavery was chosen as a suitable topic as it is the Museums Association of the Caribbean who is the local lead organisation for the UNESCO/WTO Joint Caribbean Programme of Cultural Tourism on the Slave Route Project. This project is identifying sites of importance for slave history throughout the Caribbean as well as encouraging greater research in the subject. The second day looked at Museum practices with papers from Nigel Sadler of The Turks and Caicos National Museum, Emma Mae Dawson of Department of Archaeology, Belize, Lee and Marvin Cook of Wilderness Graphics and Reynold Kerr of Kerr Museum Productions. One of the benefits of the annual meeting was that delegates got an opportunity to exchange ideas and an insights on how often museums conduct business. A great help to those organisations who were thinking about setting up a museum or in the early development. Whilst in the Turks and Caicos Islands the delegates were treated to a wide range of activities in the evenings. On the first evening they were given a sneak preview of the new Lucayan Gallery at the Museum.

On the Wednesday evening the delegates took part in a rum tasting evening at the Water's Edge restaurant. Each delegate had been asked to bring a bottle of their local rum with them and Lucayan Rum Company kindly sponsored the evening by supplying many bottles of the "Rum of the Turks and Caicos" as well as donating a bottle of rum for each of the delegate's welcome pack.