- An Alliance For Community Action
- (970) 256-7650
- info@WesternColoradoAlliance.org
The 2021 Western Colorado Alliance Annual Conference
The 2021 Western Colorado Alliance Annual Conference
Business Meeting starts at 9 am
Keynote Speech at 11 am
We’ve seen a lot of changes in the world over the past 18 months, and we know there are changes still to come as we regather into more familiar patterns of life. The members of our Alliance have been reflecting on these changes and what it means for the future. The world has changed and it is important that our work is driven by the current knowledge of both the problems and aspirations of our communities. For that reason, the theme for this year’s Annual Conference is Connecting the Dots, where we aim to connect what we are hearing and learning from communities across the country to better organize for healthy, just and self-reliant communities here in Western Colorado.
Out of an abundance of caution, the Conference will be online again. We hope next year, we can once again join in face-to-face camaraderie and solidarity. But in the meantime, we promise we’ll do our best to make this year’s online conference fun and engaging! We’ll kick off a series of online workshops on August 3 with a series of four workshops leading up to the annual business meeting and keynote on August 14. See below for all the details!
WORKSHOPS
THE PURPOSE OF POWER
Our Path to Victory
Tuesday
August 3
6:30 pm – 8 pm
“Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
— Fredrick Douglass
As members of our Alliance work to build more just communities, there is a constant pull from those in power with different motivations. To reach our goals, we must understand our individual power, our collective power, and the power of others. This workshop breaks down those dynamics and put us on the path to victory.
REVEALING THE PICTURE
A Closer Look at Deep Listening
Tuesday
August 10
6:30 pm – 8 pm
You’re handed a page filled with numbered dots, but the picture isn’t clear yet. You carefully draw lines between the dots until the
hidden image reveals itself. The needs of our communities are on our page and the full picture is waiting to come into view. We’ve got the page, now we need to connect the dots. Deep listening is the pen we’ll wield through conversations and active listening. Our intent won’t be to draw the picture through persuasion, but instead to discover it through questions. This workshop is an introduction to deep listening — how it works, what’s our intent, and how you can lead this work with us.
STORYTELLING
The Narratives that Connect Us
Thursday
August 5
6:30 pm – 8 pm
Each of us has arrived at this moment with a lifetime of relationships, triumphs, heartbreaks, adventures, failures, and dreams that shape who we are, what we value, and what moves us to action. This workshop will explore the power of storytelling in community organizing, and how to identify, connect with, and build relationships upon the foundational elements of human identity. Topics will include understanding how individual narratives build power, the components of individual stories, and how to open the door for sharing experiences.
LINES OF COMMUNICATION
A West Slope Perspective Panel
Thursday
August 12
6:30 pm – 8 pm
In today’s world, the structure of our lives means we don’t often have a chance to deeply connect with, and listen to, people who are living very different lives from our own. Our Western Slope Perspectives panel will feature a chance to go in-depth with several diverse voices from our communities. Topics will include how people view unmet needs in their communities and their lives, their perspectives on today’s political system, and what shapes how and when they engage or don’t engage in civic life.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS FROM
STEVE DELINE
OF THE NEW CONVERSATION INITIATIVE
Steve Deline (he/his/him) is an organizer who began in this work as a gay volunteer terrified to talk to anti-gay voters. But after his first few knocks and the experience of coming to understand someone on the other side and be understood himself, he was hooked. Over the next eight years on the groundbreaking Leadership LAB team of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Steve helped develop the original deep canvass conversation model.
He helped the LAB team partner with numerous other organizations to apply deep canvassing on the ground. In 2012, he embedded with the Minnesotans United marriage equality campaign as a Regional Field Director, mobilizing LGBTQ volunteers and allies in deep red Central Minnesota. That campaign ultimately organized over 14,000 volunteers to have more than 220,000 deep canvass conversations on the phones and ended in a victory that many thought impossible.
He is deeply passionate about the superpowers of vulnerability and non-judgmental curiosity that we all carry within us, and the political and personal transformations that occur when we use those powers to bridge fear and difference.