Our inaugural Brooks Congress will take place February 14-16, 2020.
We view the Institute as the “micro” of collaborative activities and new intellectual fruit. We will have a “macro” of collaborative activities through the Brooks Congress. The Brooks Congress will be a by-invitation-only discussion of top community thinkers and actors, rising stars, and also persons who we would like exposed to best policies (such as legislators, judges, prosecutors, media, etc.). The Congress may pay-the-way of the attendees and be structured to major on discussion and relationship building and minor on presentations. The goal of the Congress will be to facilitate discussion, relationship building, and a sense of community strategy.
More particularly to the Brooks Congress, its mission is to create and provide an annual Congress-like Summit that facilitates synergistic interaction, collaboration, and alliance building of, by-invitation-only (annually evaluated for best rotation actors):
- Key community leaders and other such movers-and-shakers,
- Rising stars and mentees, and
- People we would like to influence (for example Justices, Attorney Generals, key legislators, key government agency personnel, scholars, veterinarians, media, etc.) through exposure to the animal welfare community. However, there will be no lobbying efforts.
- Bearing of costs: It is anticipated that all the costs of attendance will be paid for by the Congress. This recognizes: Limited budgets of most animal welfare organizations; and allows such limited budgets to be available for other quality animal rights conferences.
- Synergy: The Congress will have must-listen-to key speakers as well as reporting on the activities of the Brooks Institute. The Congress should be a good “feeder” for Institute perspectives and ideas. Most importantly, there will be prearranged large and small group moderated discussions that will connect people, organizations, ideas, and inspire and motivate.
- Regional, state, and specialty class facilitation. Facilitating smaller regional, state, or specialty class (such as wild animal shelters) moderated focused discussion groups (mini and micro summits) can be evaluated for impact opportunity.
Formal moderation of alliance building. Congress discussions will be moderated by trained independent moderators along with report writers.