Vermont Attractions Meeting

May 6th, 2011

On May 4th, the museum had the pleasure of hosting members of , of which the Vermont Marble Museum has been a member since its inception in 1956. The day’s events consisted of a smattering of different speakers, including Megan Smith, former VT state rep and recently appointed Commissioner of Tourism and Marketing for the state of Vermont, and culminated in a tour of the marble museum by Robert Pye, former director of the Vermont Marble Museum and sculptor. Several of the weary warriors who remained for the tour after a full morning and afternoon of activities remarked that despite being native Vermonters, they had never before been in the museum, and consequently hadn’t a clue how enormous, multi-faceted or full of historical import it is.

Attendees had the opportunity to introduce themselves, and many took advantage of the time to share business practices or regional news, and discuss how best to disseminate industry information to one another. It was a fruitful set of meetings that reinforced a sense of community and mutual support, lending structure to a group of businesses that, while largely independent, can absolutely stand to benefit from communicating with one another.

During the tour, Burr Morse, owner of in Montpelier, remarked to me (a Chicagoan new to both Vermont and this position– grateful to be participating in the tour not just for the novelty and history, but more importantly because I’ll hopefully lead similar ones), “This is literally Vermont’s best kept secret; I plan on sending everyone I know down here to Proctor to check you guys out!”.

Throughout the day, members of the VAA, many of whom are longstanding wholesale customers of the Marble Museum, took the opportunity to browse the gift shop, which we had operating at a nearly normal clip—we open for business officially on May 16th!