National Summit

about OEN’s annual national Summit

Every fall OEN hosts a national summit where members come together from across the country to share knowledge and grow as a network. Through member-led presentations and discussions, evolving best practices, hands-on activities and workshops, and guest speakers from the larger outdoor education and recreation community, our members connect and learn from each other to provide the best programs for their communities.

Previous national summit resources & overviews

+ Virtual Summit 2021: Celebration & Look Ahead

Please watch the Virtual Summit livestreamed on December 8, 2021

We are excited to once again connect with supporters around the world to share the work of the OEN network this past year. Learn about our new members, explore our new Strategic Framework and DEIJ commitments, and take a sneak peek into our work for the coming year. The informative hour will include highlights from network members, board members, and donors.

Learn more about the Outdoor Inclusion Coalition at minute 10:26
Learn more about Detroit Outdoors at minute 27:49
Learn more about Indigenous Cultural Concepts at minute 43:39

+ the 2020 summit

Overview

For our 2020 Summit, we hosted a virtual event to celebrate, share, and thank our community for standing with us and supporting our mission during 2020. The program included:

Keynote remarks by CJ Goulding
Sponsor Award Ceremony
2020 OEN Highlights
Member Introductions & Sharing

Outdoors Empowered Network’s Summit has been an annual highlight since our founding, and an opportunity for our members to build community, engage best practices, and learn from leaders in our field. This year we celebrated our members and their work during these challenging times. We are proud of their resilience in the face of covid and the continued deepening of our programming around equity andinclusion in the outdoors.

The call “Outdoors for all!” has never been more necessary.

Watch the 2020 Virtual Summit here.

Click here for more information about the 2020 Summit.

+ the 2019 summit

Overview

The core program focus of the summit has always been about the outdoor leadership training and gear libraries that build community capacity to connect kids to the outdoors. Key topics have included:

Information and resource sharing through online community platform
Shared metrics and evaluation
Building community capacity to access the outdoors
Cultural competency, equity, diversity and inclusion
Technology and the outdoors
Best practices within our train and support model
Using earned revenue streams to support our programs

Resources, Tools, and Presentations

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in our Programs

Avarna Group: Presentation
Inclusion Tips for Program and Field Staff
Hiring Toolkit Part 1 & Part 2
Guide for Interrupting Individual Bias

Tech and the Outdoors

Transforming Youth Outdoors (TYO) - An online platform that is an ever-growing collection of resources–including knowledge, best practices, practical tools and guidance–that helps people deliver impactful outdoor programming to the youth they serve.
OuterSpatial and Transit & Trails - A platform for publishing outdoor data and maps and tools for increasing access to the outdoors
Strava - A GPS outdoor activity tracker

Networks, Metrics and Evaluation