The 5th Annual Confluence: Summit on the Outdoor Economy joins will be more accessible this year thanks to Zoom. The event, Oct. 27 - 29, features five sessions on topics aimed at Re-Imagining Alaska's Outdoors.
What is Confluence? Confluence is AOA's annual stakeholder get-together to build community, share info, discuss solutions to challenges that can help grow the state's $3.2 billion outdoor recreation economy.
What it's not: Confluence is not a traditional lecture-style conference. This is an action-oriented event where we strive to move the needle on issues and challenges facing our public lands, outdoor recreation infrastructure, businesses and programs. Therefore, it is a mostly Power Point-free zone designed for maximum audience engagement. Each main session is roughly divided into three parts: 1) The session opens with our guest speakers sharing the high-level views on the topic at hand. 2) Break into online rooms for Deep Dive discussions. Attendees self-select which breakout room is most relevant to their interests. During breakouts, attendees can ask more directed questions of the speaker and/or explore directions and solutions to challenges at hand. 3) Participants reconvene to share readouts from their Deep Dives and explore next steps to take after the conference.
What are this year's sessions topics?
- Public Land Manager's Forum with federal and state public land management agencies discussing COVID repercussions and the specific ways Alaska will benefit from the Great American Outdoors Act;
- Tourism from established to emerging sectors sharing future visions;
- Outdoor Rx, presented by Recover Alaska, will delve into the mental health benefits of outdoor recreation;
- Active Transportation will seek to bring the statewide active transportation plan off the shelf and to the streets to create more bike- and walk-friendly communities;
- Policy Day - a day to explore and prioritize policy ideas that can resolve problems and create greater opportunity for businesses, jobs and better health for Alaskans.
What's in it for me? Learn a few things, meet new allies, share your views, and have a voice as we collectively shape the future.
Many Zoom conferences I've attended are free, so why are you charging to attend Confluence? With COVID hitting our sponsors and funders in the pocketbook, we're more dependent than ever on our friends and colleagues to support the work of AOA. Confluence is a way you can show you support the ongoing work of AOA. We hope you'll participate in the full conference; it's half the price of our usual in-person event. We never want price to be a barrier to participation so if that's still too much, we've made it possible to pay only for those sessions you want to attend.
Where can I get more information! Easy, just click here!
Hope to see you at Confluence!