Dear GARE Membership Network,
I am so excited to announce that Registration is now live for GARE’s 2021 Annual Membership Meeting! After having to cancel last year’s event, we are thrilled to get back to holding an Annual Membership Meeting (AMM). Pre-conferences will take place on May 18, 2021 and the conference itself will run from May 19-21, 2021.
Conference Theme & Platform
You and your government colleagues have been forced to grapple with myriad challenges over the past year: from Covid-19, to calls for an end to police violence and a national reckoning on racism, as well as the many affronts to democracy that we’ve all endured. In light of these challenges, we wanted a theme for our Annual Membership Meeting to encompass a way forward. This year’s theme this year is: Democracy for All - Governing for Racial Justice.
In order to prioritize our members' and staff's health, while also recognizing the need for our network to come together, we have chosen to make our 2021 annual conference a virtual event. We will be using Hopin, a dynamic digital platform that provides a contained conference experience for attendees. You'll get to meet new people and share ideas using Hopin’s "Networking" platform; participate in live Breakout Sessions where you’ll learn about promising practices in the field of racial equity; and attend Plenary Sessions where you’ll hear from visionary racial justice leaders!
Registration & Getting Your Tickets
We know many of your jurisdictions are facing budget shortfalls and are being forced to do more with less, in a particularly trying environment. We also recognize how vital coming together is to our movement, both to share racially equitable practices that can be replicated elsewhere, and to re-energize each of you to continue your valiant efforts to bring racial equity to governments across the country.
In an effort to make our Annual Membership Meeting accessible to as many members as possible, we have drastically reduced the price of attendance to this year's event, starting at $125 per ticket. We hope this price point will enable more of your jurisdiction’s colleagues to attend the AMM to reap the benefits that come from the member exchanges there. Register today!
We are also hoping that members do their best to refrain from requesting invoices. We are a small (albeit mighty) team that does not have the capacity to process invoices in-house. The volume of invoice requests that come in with the AMM can be overwhelming, and with more members than ever, we are requesting that you either: a) use a jurisdictional credit card to directly process payment for the AMM or b) consider using a personal credit card to process payment and get reimbursed by your jurisdiction. Our prices have been reduced significantly this year, which will hopefully make personal reimbursement a more amenable option for you and your colleagues.
Complimentary Tickets
Your jurisdiction’s primary contact, also known as a GARE Team Lead, will receive a follow up email with a complimentary ticket code that can be used in Eventbrite to register for the AMM. That person will be charged with disseminating the complimentary ticket codes to the selected employees.
The number of complimentary tickets available to your jurisdiction is dependent on the number of employees who work for your jurisdiction.
Our current complimentary code structure for GARE members is as follows:
- Jurisdictions with up to 4,000 employees -
1 complimentary ticket
- Jurisdictions with 4,001 to 14,000 employees -
2 complimentary tickets
- Jurisdictions with more than 14,000 employees -
3 complimentary tickets
We encourage jurisdictions to send as many employees as you would like to the AMM. If you have a question about your complimentary ticket code, contact gare@raceforward.org using the subject line “AMM21 TICKET CODES.”
Submitting a Proposal for Content
As always, you and your colleagues will have the opportunity to share your exciting work with the network by proposing your own sessions! Highlighting the work of our members is one of the greatest aspects of the AMM. Please consider lifting up a promising program, policy intervention, or practice that has furthered racial equity in some way in your local community. The deadline to submit your proposal is March 15.
Additional Details
Need more information? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions page. Please note that we get many, many emails about the AMM and are not always able to answer your questions immediately. As such, please refer to the FAQ page before reaching out to staff with your inquiry.
Additional Ways to Participate
Do you have a small business you would like to feature at the AMM? Apply to be a vendor at our event.
Are you interested volunteering at GARE’s Annual Membership Meeting? Sign up to volunteer!
We are so excited to get the chance to connect with you this year!
In solidarity,
Ariana