AMO Conference Live and In-Person

By Petra Wolfbeiss
Director, Membership Centre, AMO

COVID-19 saw the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) move to a virtual format for its annual conference and general meeting. Amidst a great deal of uncertainty, AMO was pleased to be able to have hosted very successful and well attended events in 2020 and 2021. The success of the virtual events only emphasized the importance of the conference for AMO’s membership and the provincial government who are long standing and important partners in the event.

Now, finally, we are able to gather again, live and in-person in Ottawa for August 2022. While certainly missing the important “human” elements of meeting in person, our virtual conferences provided us a great opportunity to test new approaches to our programming. This included partnering with TVO to moderate our mainstage events, increasing the number of Minister’s Forums to three, and providing delegates more time and insight into your key areas of interest by making programming available for a month after the conference. These were some of the benefits that emerged as AMO had to rethink such a large scale event as our annual conference.

We are looking forward to working with TVO again this year in Ottawa in conversation on issues such as climate change, diversity in municipal leadership, economic recovery, women in leadership as well as the Ministers’ Forum. We are looking forward to the Ministers’ Forum as it will be the first time the new provincial Cabinet will be together for conversations with AMO and its municipal partners. AMO will also be making available, for a limited time, all of the mainstage features through video shortly after the conference. For those not able to join in person for any reason, we wanted to make sure you still were a part of the conference and some of the great educational programming we are providing.

One of the things our delegates don’t get to see is the complexity of details that go into every aspect of the event coming together. AMO staff begin this planning in January and  work through every detail, from programming and working with each speaker and provincial representative, to venues, production, food, networking, receptions, registration and more. Hours of time are dedicated to each fine point to ensure that AMO members and all delegates are immersed in an experience that is seamless and fulfills their expectations.

AMO is excited to welcome delegates back to the Westin and the Shaw in Ottawa, and sharing in both the familiar and all the new sites and sounds that will be a part of AMO 2022. We look forward to seeing you then.

For more information about the AMO Conference, please click here.