Sights and Sounds of the RCEN AGA
The national conference to which I've been obliquely referring was the Annual General Assembly (AGA) of the Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN). A set of YouTube videos providing an overview of the event is posted at http://www.youtube.com/user/RCEN1.
In 1989, the last RCEN AGA to be held in Alberta convened at Nakoda Lodge, Kananaskis. I first began attending RCEN AGAs in 1990 or 91 and so missed that event exactly 20 years ago now. It was part of what was then a practice of the national network to hold its assemblies on a rotating basis in every region of the country. However, an organizational crisis (I'll have to look up the years) ended this practice for at least half a decade when the event became confined to the Ottawa region.
In addition to the 20-year anniversary of the last time it convened beneath the wide Alberta sky, the 2009 RCEN AGA also upholds a return to the practice of regional rotation. In 2010, we'll be in Montreal, Quebec.
Talk of moving out from Ottawa began in early 2008 when the idea for meeting in Alberta first arose. The then Alberta Environmental Network's (AEN) National Council member, Andrea Waywanko, pitched the idea and then accepted my friendly amendment that it happen in June 2009 when the ICLEI World Congress would convene in Edmonton. The amended idea was accepted at the 2008 RCEN AGA in Richmond Hill, where Amandi Khera, Josh Brandon and I had found the horse-race betting parlour in the basement of the Best Western. (http://suite-mck.livejournal.com/33735.html?mode=reply)
More later.
In 1989, the last RCEN AGA to be held in Alberta convened at Nakoda Lodge, Kananaskis. I first began attending RCEN AGAs in 1990 or 91 and so missed that event exactly 20 years ago now. It was part of what was then a practice of the national network to hold its assemblies on a rotating basis in every region of the country. However, an organizational crisis (I'll have to look up the years) ended this practice for at least half a decade when the event became confined to the Ottawa region.
In addition to the 20-year anniversary of the last time it convened beneath the wide Alberta sky, the 2009 RCEN AGA also upholds a return to the practice of regional rotation. In 2010, we'll be in Montreal, Quebec.
Talk of moving out from Ottawa began in early 2008 when the idea for meeting in Alberta first arose. The then Alberta Environmental Network's (AEN) National Council member, Andrea Waywanko, pitched the idea and then accepted my friendly amendment that it happen in June 2009 when the ICLEI World Congress would convene in Edmonton. The amended idea was accepted at the 2008 RCEN AGA in Richmond Hill, where Amandi Khera, Josh Brandon and I had found the horse-race betting parlour in the basement of the Best Western. (http://suite-mck.livejournal.com/33735.html?mode=reply)
More later.