What is an Unconference?

A Guide for the Hotlum Water Gathering

Most gatherings end up on one of two ends of the spectrum. On one end, you have a cocktail party — people mingle, conversations happen by chance, and you might or might not find the person who knows the thing you need to know. On the other end, you have a traditional conference — speakers on a stage, attendees in chairs, an agenda set months in advance by organizers who had to guess what would matter by the time the event arrived.

An unconference lives in the rich space between these two. It is more organized than a cocktail party and less organized than talking heads on a panel. It is all the methods and processes that allow a group of people to have the conversations that actually need to happen — the ones that emerge from who is in the room and what they care about right now.

The Shape of Our Gathering

Our time at Hotlum weaves together hands-on land stewardship and open dialogue about water:

• Friday — Hands on the Land. We begin with workshops to steward and care for the land. This is how we arrive — not by sitting in chairs, but by putting our hands in the work together.
  
  
• Saturday — Open Space Unconference. This is our day of participant-driven dialogue about water, watersheds, and our relationship to this place. The format is described below.
  
  
• Sunday — Back to the Land. We close the gathering the way we opened it — with hands-on stewardship and care for the land.
  
  

The unconference day on Saturday is held by the days of physical work on either side. The conversations will be richer because we have worked the land together first, and the work on Sunday will be informed by what we discovered in dialogue.

How the Unconference Works (Saturday)

On Saturday, we will use Open Space Technology to co-create our agenda together. Here is what that looks like:

1. We gather in a circle. Everyone can see everyone else.
   
   
2. Anyone can propose a session. If you have a question you’re wrestling with, a topic you want to explore, a skill you want to share, or a problem you need help with — you stand up, say what it is, and put it on the schedule board. You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to care enough to start the conversation.
   
   
3. We build the schedule together. Sessions go up on a big grid — time slots and spaces. Within minutes, we have a full day’s agenda created by the people who are actually here.
   
   
4. You choose where to go. Attend the sessions that call to you. There is no wrong choice.
   
   

The Five Principles

• Whoever comes are the right people. The conversation doesn’t need fifty people to be valuable. Sometimes the most important exchange happens between three.
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. Let go of expectations. Be present to what actually unfolds.
• Wherever it happens is the right place. 
• When it starts is the right time. Creativity and insight don’t follow a clock.
• When it’s over, it’s over. If the conversation is done in twenty minutes, it’s done. If it needs the whole time, take it.
  
  

The Law of Mobility

If you find yourself in a session where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your feet. Go to another session. Take a walk. Sit by the water. The only wrong thing is to stay somewhere where you are not engaged. This is not rude — it is how the system self-organizes. We call this being a butterfly or a bumblebee: butterflies create space for unexpected connections, and bumblebees carry ideas from one conversation to another.

Why This Format for Water?

Water doesn’t respect agendas. The questions we are gathering around — how watersheds heal, how we relate to water cycles, how land stewardship and policy and science and indigenous knowledge weave together — these are living, complex questions. No single expert can set the right agenda for this conversation. But a room full of people who care deeply about this land and this water? Together, we can find the questions that matter most and move toward answers that none of us could reach alone.

An unconference trusts the people who show up. It creates space for emerging structure to arise — for the conversation that needs to happen to find its way into the room.

How to Prepare

• Come with your questions and your passion. Think about what you most want to explore, learn, or share. You might propose a session, or you might find that someone else proposes exactly the conversation you need.
  
  
• Come ready to participate. This is not a spectator event. Everyone here has something to contribute — whether that’s decades of hydrology experience, a question you’ve been sitting with, or a story about your relationship to water in this place.
  
  
• Come with an open mind. You will likely end up in conversations you didn’t expect, with people you didn’t know you needed to meet. That’s the magic of the format.
  
  
• Bring what you need for the land. We are in wilderness. The unconference is one layer of what’s happening here — alongside the land tending, the restoration work, and the simple act of being present to this place at the convergence of the Cascadia and California bioregions.
  
  

To learn more about unconferences, visit unconference.net.

To learn about the Mount Shasta Water unConference here.