Annual Meeting and Member Days - Organic Trade Association

Experience the power of the organic community!

OTA will hold its Annual Meeting and Member Days events at Natural Products ExpoEast co-located with All Things Organic. Plan to join us in Boston from Wednesday, October 13 through Saturday, October 16. This is the place to jumpstart your professional goals, whether they’re growing your network, building your expertise, or contributing to the collective voice for organic.

All Things Organic™ is the primary, annual gathering place for the Organic Trade Association (OTA) membership. OTA’s Annual Meeting and Member Days are a time for association business, member meetings, and social and networking events.

Hundreds of members took advantage of OTA’s co-located Annual Meeting and Member Days events from June 16-18, 2009 in Chicago, IL.OTA hosted its Annual Meeting, Annual Awards Dinner and Dance Party, Task Force meetings, Member Forum gatherings, and Member Hospitality Lounge. Other activities, such as exclusive Members Only Seminars, and an Executive Networking Session brought the OTA membership together for information, education, and fun.

OTA’s Conference Break and Executive Networking Session offered many members their first opportunity to meet OTA Executive Director, Christine Bushway. OTA’s Board President Julia Sabin enjoyed catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones, before The Gort Cloud keynote began.

Members took advantage of the centrally located Hospitality Lounge to hold business meetings, meet OTA staff and refamiliarize themselves with OTA’s programs and benefits. Others relished the exclusivity of the comfy chairs, free internet access, and bottomless carafe of organic coffee.

OTA drew an enthusiastic crowd of members and “not yet-members” to its early morning Annual Meeting. After a number of Board members shared testimony about the importance of OTA’s work on behalf the membership, a whopping 96% of attendees who completed an evaluation agreed that OTA had communicated the value of being a member and said they found the meeting worthwhile to attend.

Annual Meeting attendees worked in small groups on a creative exercise to brainstorm ways in which to extend the reach of OTA and the Organic Institute’s “Organic. It’s Worth it.” consumer education campaign. Using primarily social media-based channels, members assembled a tree representing millions in potential media impressions.

Barbara Robinson, Deputy Administrator for Transportation and Marketing Programs in the Agricultural Marketing Service, affixed a symbolic bluebird to the “Organic. It’s Worth it.” tree after Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, pledged to integrate organic into USDA programs during her keynote address.

Members from both sides of the border celebrated the historic signing of the U.S.-Canadian Equivalency agreement as OTA’s Annual Dinner and Dance Party got underway. Dag Falck of Nature’s Path Foods and Kelly Monaghan of Ash Street Enterprises were just two of many revelers proudly sporting Canadian crowns.

A number of Member Forums and Task Forces chose to meet in-person with their facilitators, co-chairs, and staff liaisons to network and share ideas. Natalie Reitman-White of Organically Grown Company and Forum Facilitator for OTA’s Sustainability Practices Forum gathered with members to discuss the opportunities for “Defining Sustainability Though an Organic Lens.”

Members can access the audio and visual recordings of the OTA Member Seminars presented during OTA Member Days at All Things Organic™. The 2009 sessions— Capital Funding in Today's Economic Crunch, Marketing in the Age of Social Media, and NOSB Update, plus seven other sessions from 2007 and 2008— are now available for free download.

All Things Organic^TM Conference and Trade Show and OTA's Annual Meeting ands Member Days Photo Recap.

This page will be updated as programming details become available. Contact membership@ota.com with questions.

Thank you for your membership in OTA!