Day 668: Announcing Rising Tide 2

It’s time for the tide to rise once again! The Rising Tide conference will be held this year on Saturday, August 25, 2007 at the New Orleans Yacht Club. Those of you who attended last year’s gathering were part of a real-life demonstration against the conditions that almost destroyed this city. We came together to “dispel myths, promote facts, share personal testimonies, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels.”

While the conference’s mission remains the same, at the beginning of the third year since the Flood, we present the more dynamic themes of Action, Accountability, Corruption, Determination and Responsibility. Along with the traditional panels, this year will promote more audience interaction, with breakout sessions, increased audience participation, and more. We have not finalized panel topics and participants, so please be patient and check back over the coming weeks.

For the night before the conference, many of us suggested an event more substantial than the meet-and-greet held last year. The idea of a social event, while screening movie shorts, came up – 4 or 5 shorts made by New Orleans movie-makers are shown, after which each director briefly talks about the motivation behind the film, etc. This, we suspect, will be a big draw and are looking for a free venue where we can hold a social event for roughly 200 people and screen movies (with required AV, power, etc.) Ideas?

We hope you, especially those outside New Orleans, can make it to Rising Tide 2 this year! Your support made the conference a smashing success last year, and we hope the same for this time around.