Call for speakers

Our call for speakers is closed. We will let you know if your submission was accepted by Monday, April 20th.

Speakers whose talks are accepted will receive complimentary registration. However, financial assistance is not available for speaker expenses.

Topics

Here's some ideas to spur your thinking.

How-to Talks

There are many practical skills useful for activists. This includes technical things like setting up a website or mailing list, as well as things like leafleting, letter-writing, or event-organizing etc.

If you know how to do one of these things well, then consider sharing that with the rest of us.

Issue Information Session

Have you done a lot of research on a specific issue, like battery cages or animal transportation? Maybe you're an expert on vegan nutrition. Tell us something about it.

Organizational Skills

Do you have some good tips for how best to organize effective activism? Maybe you have some ideas on how to be effective as a solo activist, or how to manage a small group.

Moderated Discussions

We're also looking for people to moderate group discussions. You need to be comfortable running a discussion with 30-40 people, and you should know something about the topic you propose. Controversial topics are okay, but we do expect discussions to be civil.

Talk Length

Talks can be either 20 or 45 minutes. We encourage people to submit 20 minute talks, as we'd like to include as many speakers as possible, and 45 minutes is pretty long to sit and listen to someone anyway.

If you're a first-time speaker, we strongly suggest you submit a 20 minute talk, as a successful 45 minute talk takes some practice. The exception is for moderated discussions, which should be 45 minutes, since 20 minutes is too quick for any substantial topic.

We will also be doing a Lightning Talk session, which is a session of back-to-back 5 minute talks.

Guidelines

We expect all speakers to abide by Compassionate Action for Animals' core values, in particular the ethical values.

For issue talks, we prefer talks focusing on animal agriculture, but will consider talks on other animal issues on a case by case basis.

If you're proposing a talk on a scientific topic such as animal science or nutrition, please mention any relevant academic credentials in your submission.

FAQlet

Can I submit multiple talks?

Yes, please do! More talks give us more to choose from, which is really helpful for us. However, please submit each talk separately (in other words, fill out the submission form once per talk).

I'm not a big name, who wants to hear me?

We do. As a community, we want to encourage people to step up and try new things, so we're really excited to see submissions from new people.

You don't need to be famous to give an interesting talk. Just pick one topic you know a bit more about than other people.

My topic really needs more time!

No, it doesn't. People have short attention spans when listening to people talk, and it takes a very experienced speaker to make long sessions work. Pick the highlights for your topic and if it's interesting people will get in touch with you outside your talk to discuss it.

Will you have AV?

We will have a hookup for a laptop and an LCD projector available for talks. If you ask in advance, we may even be able to provide a computer for you to run your slides on.

We can also provide VHS or DVD players as needed, but please let us know ahead of time.