OTN Spring Conference
River Talk and Networking
Date: Thursday, April 5th, 2018
Where: Mequon Nature Preserve: 8200 W. County Line Road, Mequon
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Dinner: Pot Luck with some basic fixings provided (Bring a dish to pass, and/ or your favorite beverage to share if you can.)
RSVP: As always, it really helps planning to know about how many folks are coming. Please just reply This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can bring a guest if you like.
Thank you to Kristin Geis, Executive Director of the Mequon Nature Preserve for hosting our spring event! If you can come early, there are some wonderful trails at MNP just waiting for you to go exploring.
Conference: This is a great time to enjoy food and drink with friends and new friends, share some "shameless plugs" about your organization and listen to some interesting members who will be giving "extended shameless plugs" - 5 minute updates on some exciting ventures. Our focus is the Milwaukee River Basin and related happenings:)
Extended Shameless Plug Presenters for the April 5th OTN Conference
1. Mequon Nature Preserve
2. Riveredge's Mandie Zopp will give us an overview/results of the first year for their Community Rivers Project.
3. Milwaukee Riverkeeper -Cheryl Nenn will brief us on their water trail map, which now includes Ozaukee county, touch on the river cleanup, which will be April 21st and their citizen water monitoring training dates.
4. Huda Alkaff, Founder & Director of the Wisconsin Green Muslims
will share their river-related work: Faithful Rainwater Harvesting, River Cleanups, and ThinkRiver -applying systems thinking to a river.
5. William Kort, PhD Freshwater Science & Policy, will update us on the 9 Key Element Watershed Plans for Sweet Water that covers sub-watersheds in the Milwaukee River watershed.
6. Gary Casper will do a mini presentation on 4 years of intense study of the river for the Area of Concern project.
7. Eddee Daniel will introduce us to "A Wealth of Nature" - a project of Preserve Our Parks.
8. Ozaukee County Planning and Parks - Andrew Struck
OTN Autumn 2017 Conference
Forest Beach Migratory Preserve
October 12
5:30 p.m.
Pot luck
Think tank event: Looking at OTN, Networking and Self-evaluating our organization
What is OTN achieving?
Where are we most beneficial to members?
What can we do better?
Outreach, Recruitment
Current community needs/topics for future conferences
Future direction?
As you can see, this one is all about us, so everyone is important to this gathering.
Pat Marchese has offered to open with a short history of our network. (You can get a step up on this by clicking on the "about us" section here on this site.
We will divide up by self-selected topic at tables to take a look at where we are and where we should tweak things and explore.
We will of course go around and do introductions and any shameless plugs* for your organization that you wish to share.
The rest of the evening will be eating, drinking and networking.
Food & Drink
Bring along a dish to pass and / or a beverage to share
* Secrets of Shameless Plugs
A shameless Plug is:
Secrets of a great shameless Plug! Here is what to do!
The plug must be concise and focused!
It is OK to just introduce yourself and not do a plug!
It’s OK to do a “Shameless Ask” BUT follow the same secrets of a shameless plug.
Heads up!!
OTN Spring Conference
5:30 pm
April 6th - Thursday evening
In the barn at Riveredge
Pot luck (and we will have a few basics so if you don't have time to grab some food or beverages, no worries.
Two Things!!
1. This event will be all about networking, eating & drinking and sharing! Some new and exciting river initiatives will be discussed. Stay tuned. I will send a reminder mid-March.
Presenting
Joe Fitzgerald - Milwaukee Riverkeeper - the impact of road salts on the health of the Milwaukee River Basin
Mandie Zopp - Riveredge - Community Rivers Project
and a few others TBD
2. Let me know if your organization has any upcoming events between April 7th September. We will have a list of those events up on the screen to share at the conference.