2024 West Region Convergence

Join Us at the 2024 West Region Convergence

DATES: May 3-5

Join us for a weekend of connection, learning, and fun! Bring your favorite experiential activities, methods, and practices to share with our community.

SCHEDULE:

LODGING:

Lodging is separate from the registration fee.  We will send you a google form to select your lodging after you register.  Payment for lodging will be collected at the event.   

On-Site Lodging: Max 34 in beds on site overnight.  Cost $36/per person, per night

Overnight guests need to bring a pillow, sleeping bag, and towel. Single beds are abundant, but private rooms are not.  Link to Alpine Lodge

Camping: Max 60 people at campground between 4 sites.  Cost $10 per person, per night

China Camp SP (31 min away from site)

Sites - 20, 23, 24, 25

Description: The campground is located off North San Pedro Road in San Rafael. Parking is at the end of a 1/3-mile paved access road. All of our tent-only sites require a short walk (50 to 300 yards, depending on the campsite) from the parking area. Sites are tent-only. Carts are available for portaging gear. Each campsite includes a picnic table, wooden food locker, outdoor grill, and a fire ring. The campground also offers potable water, hot showers, and flush toilets, and camp hosts are on-site. No hammocks are allowed.

Check in/out - campers can arrive from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Check-out is noon. The gate at Back Ranch Meadows Campground entrance, accessed via N. San Pedro Road, is closed from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily.

MEALS:

• Friday dinner

• Sat breakfast

• Sat lunch - make sack lunches in the morning

• Sat dinner

• Sun breakfast

• Sun lunch - make sack lunches in the morning

• Snacks out throughout day

ACTIVITIES:

• Open Space Technology

• Hikes

• Activity/Skill Shares

• Learning sessions

• Saturday Keynote 

• Music 

• Star Gazing

• Fire pit and s'mores

Registration Rates

One-Day - $45

Includes Convergence programming for the single day, Meal(s) for that day (Friday: Dinner | Saturday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks | Sunday: Breakfast, Lunch & Snacks) Lodging not included.

Entire Conference (3 days)

Includes Convergence programming for all 3 days, Meals for all 3 days (Friday: Dinner | Saturday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks | Sunday: Breakfast, Lunch & Snacks) Lodging not included.

Regular (March 16-April 26) 

AEE Member $85

Regular Not-Yet-AEE-Member $95

Student/Retired

AEE Member $50 

Not-Yet-AEE Member $60

For folks with financial needs, please consider applying for one of our scholarships:

Nina Roberts Scholarship Fund - 1 available

We are excited to offer accessible rates for this year’s WRAEE conference including supplemental scholarships to ensure ALL can join us at this incredible event! Registration goes to cover our costs for hosting this amazing conference with regional partners. Please share with colleagues, friends, and in your networks. If you are interested in a scholarship please send an email to: wraeeconference@gmail.com

Nina Roberts was and still is my soul sister.  The intersection of our lives, loves, passions, connection to the outdoors, adventure and social justice bound us together through time,  space, heart and now beyond the veil. Some of our early work together focused on diversity & humanistic risk management. We trained, published and presented workshops at Aee, the Wilderness Risk Management conferences and combined our consulting business. Our synergy, love and collaboration was a gift to both of us and we knew we had some serious work to do to try to make the world a more just an equitable place and space in the experiential/adventure education and beyond. Our most recent project was to publish a text book focused on social justice and the outdoors. We were in  final talks with Rutledge publishing, when Nina’s cancer flared.  We had to fall back and regroup, and thus we reimagined a DEIB field guide, which you will learn more about at the conference. It was a true labor of LOVE and captures Nina’s spirit/legacy throughout. 

In 2016, Nina and Terry asked me to be the keynote at the AEE West conference when I moved to the Northbay of California (thank you Nina) and with an open heart, I accepted.  Nina was a fixture at AEE regional conferences throughout her career and at  many AEE conferences across the U.S. Naming a scholarship after her in the AEE west region is fitting, as she spent much of her impactful career in at San Francisco State University and supported the work that of AEE by bringing numerous students and colleagues alike. 

I close by sharing information on many of Nina’s collective accomplishments and legacy below. I hope you invest in buying the DEIB field guide to help spread social justice concepts and lived experiences expressed by those who took risks of sharing their stories.

The Inspiration for this DEIB field guide was Dr. Nina Roberts, a longtime professor, mentor, scholar, and advocate in the SFSU Department of Recreation, Parks & Tourism (RPT) passed away after battling cancer. Nina was a passionate and inspiring leader, a longtime park professional and an advocate, a renowned researcher, and a sought-after expert nationally recognized for her work and commitment to social and environmental justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion with a desire to break down barriers relating to park access and recreation opportunities on public lands. Nina’s primary focus in her career was on experiential learning and connecting urban communities with public lands. She knew that parks are important to our country’s well-being and that public spaces had to be accessible and inclusive for everyone. This project was underway when she passed, but her colleagues, friends and family have carried this through to completion to continue environmental and social justice education.

Please carry Nina’s social justice torch forward. She’s cheering us on…you can bet on that.

John & Sabina DeWit Memorial Scholarship for WRAEE - established 2015 

John DeWit, of Dutch descendance, was born and raised in Asuncion, Paraguay. At 18 he immigrated to California and graduated from UCLA. He earned his US citizenship, was proud of the opportunity to vote, and enjoyed working his way through the ranks before retiring from the same company after 36 years of service. After this, while enjoying retirement, he volunteered his time for almost two more decades on the Monterey Peninsula.

Sabina DeWit and her younger brother immigrated to California with their mother from post-WWII Germany. They had to fend for themselves as teens in an early-1960’s Watts, Ca.

The two met in Lakewood, California and married in November of 1964.

Their lives are not easy to fit into a sound byte, but here it is. They loved the area they called home, Carmel Valley. Sabina had an incredibly creative eye, which she used for watercolor and floral design, her true passions. John loved numbers and was a good businessman. Together, they were big believers (one or the other, sometimes both) in grit, hard work, determination, passion, perseverance, the arts, travel, education, and nature; but ultimately, they poured their hopes and dreams for a positive future -and a fair share of sweat and tears- into their daughter.

Kimberly Phoenix-Rose DeWit, has been successfully integrating experiential education techniques in and out of her earth science, Spanish, and now accelerated English classes for over 15 years. She shares that it is because of the wise counsel and encouragement of her father, along with the general support and love of her mother, that she became a teacher after returning from the Peace Corps. She believes her success as an instructor is connected to incorporating EE, which encourages individual thinking, teamwork, collaboration, and self-esteem, all of which are crucial elements for successful learners.

She says: "After I graduated from high school my only plan was to join the Peace Corps. Once I got back from that experience I had no plan, no idea what I would do next. I returned to the Monterey Peninsula and got a job as a kayaking tour guide. It was my dad who helped me realize that education would be a good fit for me.... my dad passed away in 2013 after a steady decline, and my mom followed unexpectedly just a year later in 2014. As their only child I want their names and legacy to be carried into the future. For this reason, I want to support students who are interested in any of the fields where experiential education can be found. Follow your passions, make your lives what you want them to be, and share your enthusiasm".

To apply for a scholarship, please send an email to wraeeconference@gmail.com. 

CONFERENCE PLANNING COMMITTEE:

Terry Williams, terrywilliamsphd@gmail.com / 831-601-6952

Kelly Munson, munson_k@yahoo.com / 207-650-2498

Joc Clark, joc_clark@yahoo.com 

Hunter Merritt, merritt.hunter@gmail.com 

Regional events bring together the experiential education community in a particular geographic area or area of focus – members and non-members – to work, talk, network, play, and learn together in an educational (and fun!) environment. They bring attendees together who share the goals of promoting, defining, developing, and applying theories and practices of Experiential Education. Meet an incredible community, enrich your work or studies, increase your professional network, learn from leaders and innovators, and leave with the momentum and inspiration to take on your next goal.

All regional events and conferences are entirely volunteer run. Each year, conference and event offerings depend on the capacity of volunteer teams, so events vary year-to-year! Regional teams are always seeking more volunteers!