Animal Advocacy Camp

A few weeks ago, Glenn Gaetz (Liberation BC) hosted Animal Advocacy Camp. I’ve gotten to know Glenn through our participation in several tech events, VanChangeCamp and Blogathon, and I consider him a friend of mine. I couldn’t make it to his event that day (I think I was in Nanaimo) so I asked him to write a recap. He generously accepted, and here is his recap. I’m so sorry I missed it! Thanks Glenn for the guest post!

A couple of weeks ago I hosted Animal Advocacy Camp, a one-day conference for Vancouver-area animal advocates. 80 area activists came to this free event to learn from each other about being more effective animal advocates.

This was an experimental event in a couple of different ways.

One experimental aspect was that this was pretty much the first time that anyone had organized an event that attempted to bring together activists from across the spectrum of animal advocacy in Vancouver. We had representatives from the SPCA and the Vancouver Humane Society along with more animal rights-oriented groups like Liberation BC and other activists with various other perspectives. Our interests covered a very broad sampling, ranging from pets and fur to farmed animals to ocean conservation. We also represented many different approaches to advocacy, and many different tactics, strategies, and goals.

The other experimental aspect was that the event was run as open space, meaning that the attendees set the agenda for the meeting at the beginning of the day, proposing and hosting sessions about topics they were passionate about. My role as event host was to open the space and then stand back and let everything happen, without exerting much, if any, control.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, and there is a lot to improve for next time, but I think the format really worked. “Normal” conferences stick to a conventional idea of knowledge, where someone who knows more about an issue presents her information, and hopefully we are able to absorb some of it.

Almost always, the most inspiring moments of a conference are the times when we meet new people and have conversations, where we learn form each other in a less structured fashion. Open space throws out all that conventional structure and keeps the spaces in between, those powerful and dynamic conversations, where people talk about what they want to talk about. Open space empowers each of us to follow our own passions by proposing topics and leading those sessions.

This being the first event of its kind in our animal advocacy community, some were likely challenged by the format. It’s hard to accept our own responsibility to make things happen, hard to realize that if we want to bring about change, we need to be the one to stand up and start those conversations. This event was an attempt to create a safe space to take those first steps, and hopefully build a stronger and more effective community at the same time.

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