Planning and Preparing for OAESV’s 2024 Conference!
It’s hard to believe it’s already June, which means it’s our conference month! Our staff has been working hard to plan our 2024 conference since July of last year, right after our last conference! This blog will give you a little glimpse into that planning process and offer some tips for June 25-27. We’re so excited to see you!
After the conference ends, a lot of follow-up is involved, including tracking continuing education hours and sending out individual certificates. We ensure our presenters are paid accurately and begin reviewing recordings and organizing any presenter follow-up with participants. We also choose dates for the following year, so we can reveal them to participants and build anticipation. Around July, we begin to look at our programming for next year and review what went well and what changes can be made to the conference. We look through participant survey feedback and begin planning how and what we can incorporate. For example, this year we are having our half day on day three. We heard directly from you that you wanted to hit the road earlier on that last day—and we couldn’t agree more!
The fall includes gathering information on our theme and putting together our call for proposals. January is when most internal planning begins with several staff workgroups doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Each year, we balance conference planning with ensuring we can still put on a successful Advocacy Day, Advocate 40-Hour Training Institute, and providing high-quality, relevant training and resources.
All this planning has led us to what is sure to be another conference experience full of networking, self-care, and time spent with others doing similar work. Tuesday will kick off with keynote Alisa Zipursky discussing how and if we can show up as our full selves in this work. Inside your conference swag bag of goodies, you’ll find a copy of Alisa’s book, Healing Honestly, which she’ll gladly personalize and sign for you! After a day of workshop sessions, affinity group spaces, and seeing your old friends, head on over to Pins Mechanical for a networking event and a chance to relax a bit. Several competitive staff members will gladly bowl a round of duckpin bowling or go head-to-head in pinball with you!
Wednesday will have a similar structure. Make sure you pack a sweater if you get cold—it can be hard to gauge what the inside will feel like with June’s outside heat. We’ll start the day with a highly interactive keynote from Varsha N., who will be exploring different healing modalities we might practice in our lives individually and together as a collective. We’ll end our lunch hour with a special awards ceremony; if it’s anything like last year, it will be a celebratory, slightly rowdy show of appreciation for our friends and colleagues. May we suggest heading to your nearest Jeni’s that evening to process all that you learned over a scoop or two?
We’ll end our week on Thursday, starting with a panel discussion focusing on forensic nursing, the exam process, and relationship-building in the hospital system. We’ll head into a resource fair, with chances to win prizes for visiting our fair participants! Our last set of workshops will include a members-only discussion with A Call to Men; a session focused on self-care; and a workshop discussing how design thinking can enhance our prevention efforts. We’ll say a short goodbye and send you back on your way!
We hope you will then take some time to reflect, rest, and apply the new skills and ideas you’ll leave with. OAESV staff will do the same, and then head into another summer of making sure we’re providing you with what you need most! See you on the 25th!
This publication was supported by Rape Crisis Funding awarded by the Ohio Governor’s office, administered by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. The opinions, findings, conclusion, and recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Governor or the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.