United Poultry Concerns Conference Wrap-up

The Conference

I have to say that overall I was disappointed with the conference, from the perspective of the stated focus and purpose. Although there was information I found thought-provoking in a few of the presentations, little of that had to do with the topic of effective advocacy and how to bridge the existing divide among animal advocates.

Most of the presenters generally offered defensive statements about their positions, in poorly organized presentations, with little time left for productive attendee participation. This kind of conference would be better served without “speakers”, with the focus instead being on challenging advocates coming from different viewpoints to directly address one another in order to come to some solutions. For instance, I think a better approach would have been to assign everyone to a small group of advocates of differing views, and have them, as a group, come up with a solution or consensus on a particular issue. Then each group could have addressed the other attendees, revealing their compromise, or why one was impossible.

I particularly felt bad for those attendees who traveled a long distance and spent lots of money to attend the conference, yet left without any sense of understanding of any position, or even a glimmer of resolution on the issues. There were some wonderful advocates in attendance, whose insight was in no way harnessed for the benefit of everyone there. What a lost opportunity to hear their perspectives and try to find some way to understand where they are coming from.

I did appreciate the opportunity to see the sanctuary, meet the feathered residents and hear Karen Davis’s always inspiring words, but unfortunately that visit cut into valuable time that could have been spent more productively. I do hope in the future that when such a diverse group is gathered, a more effective format will be employed in order to get to the heart of the issues.

Norfolk

Norfolk was interesting. The people seemed very friendly and diverse and really attractive (I couldn't help but notice this for some reason!). The city center is small, with some very beautiful older homes in one section near the water. The visual highlight was definitely seeing PETA’s large headquarters looming from many points in the city. As someone who has to drive by NRA headquarters frequently, I can’t tell you what a refreshing change it was to see an animal group building featured so prominently!

Vegan Eats

We had some good food while there. The conference host hotel, Hilton, offered a delicious lunch of salad, stuffed red pepper with some tofu mixture, pasta and grilled veggies with a peanutty chocolate pie thing for dessert. Some of us ate dinner at Amalfi’s, of which the faux salmon was freakishly authentic, with fake “skin” and all! My faux chicken with a wine sauce, veggies and potatoes was really good. And the raspberry vegan cheesecake was awesome! We also indulged in some vegan pizza – a mushroom, olive and spinach pie with soy cheese – from Bella Pizzeria. It was the best vegan pizza I have had yet. Unfortunately, the vegan frozen custard place was closed for the season, so we had Rita’s Water Ice instead, which was almost as good, but not quite….