The Michigan Barn Preservation Network (MBPN), a partner organization with the National Barn Alliance, is holding their 2012 Annual Conference and Meeting on March 9 and 10 at Kellogg Center, Michigan State University (MSU) campus in East Lansing. The 17th annual conference is themed Barns in a Changing World and is packed with an exhibit/vendor showroom, networking time, informative sessions, statewide Barn of the Year awards and the famous barn tour by bus. The Conference celebrates Michigan barns, farmsteads and rural communities for everyone with an interest. Michigan and surrounding state attendees are barn and farm owners, admirers, and preservation-minded, business-minded people who love barns and farmsteads.
The two-day conference attracts over 200 people with twelve sessions to choose from all day. This year, Tim Barnes returns with sessions on exterior barn painting and advertising and we get a virtual tour of the Osceola new Barn Quilt Trail!
Our quarter-scale barn model as part of our Teamwork and Timbers program will be a feature of the exhibit/vendor room, as well as some impressive ‘barn art’ offered for auction. The room is open to the public for free, bring your family and friends and just walk in.
Friday March 9 is an all-day bus tour with commentary on noteworthy farmsteads northwest of Lansing. Each year this tour surprises attendees with extraordinary barns you never knew existed and it will happen again! A barn is a barn? Not after this tour! The six barns on tour were built from 2010 back to the 1860s, serve as local landmarks and include an antique establishment in Michigan’s picturesque countryside.
March 9 also is the date for the Barn of the Year awards dinner at the Kellogg Center celebrating impressive restoration and reuse barn projects from around our state. Plus an after dinner sneak peek at the exhibit/vendor room too.
Saturday March 10 offers four tracks of three sessions each covering a variety of barn-related topics including restoration projects, hands-on structural repairs for buildings, real estate, tax and legal information and agritourism usage. And that colorful new barn quilt tour in the Lower Peninsula, central Michigan area! Meet the experts and learn from award-winning projects. A live auction and silent auction of barn memorabilia entertain at lunch, and the exhibits and displays round out an eventful day. If you love rural Michigan, be there!
Kellogg Center is the MSU campus conference center noted for quality accommodations, excellent cuisine, easy parking and all the conveniences for conference attendees.
The MBPN Conference is open to members and non-members with registration information on the MBPN website, www.mibarn.net.