The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) is inviting proposals for education sessions at the 2025 SUMA Convention and Tradeshow in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan April 13 to 16, 2025. This call is open from September 17 to October 17, 2024.
Who Attends?
Approximately 1,000 delegates attend the SUMA Convention, including
Why Present?
Being a presenter is an outstanding way to share your knowledge and expertise, leading to professional visibility, recognition, credibility, and influence in the future of Saskatchewan's urban municipalities.
- Exposure for the resources and services offered by you and your organization.
- A chance to elevate the knowledge base of Saskatchewan’s municipal leaders.
- Networking opportunities.
- Opportunity to build relationships with SUMA, the voice of Saskatchewan’s hometowns.
Sessions are recorded and are available to SUMA members on the SUMA member portal following the event.
Session Format
SUMA is looking for innovative and engaging presentations that will captivate the audience. We encourage submissions outlining presentations that go beyond the lecture format and incorporate participation from the audience through group work, polling, question and answer, tangible resources, and any other ideas you have. Sessions are 1 to 1.25 hours in length. You are encouraged to discuss how your presentation will incorporate audience engagement, and the size of municipality that your presentation would be focused on in your submission. The session types are:
- Education sessions – relevant to all member municipalities
- Cities breakout (1) – relevant to municipalities with a population greater than 5000
- Towns/Villages breakout (2) – relevant to municipalities under 5000
- Northern member breakout (1) – relevant to northern municipalities
SUMA also offers optional excursions for members. If you have a facility or service in the Saskatoon area that would be interested in hosting an excursion, contact education@suma.org.
Session Objectives
The theme for the 2025 SUMA Convention and Tradeshow is We are URBAN. As members come together for the first time following the municipal election, SUMA would like to celebrate the strength of our communities as a part of the urban family. This theme creates an environment of inclusion and education by shining a light on all the ways urban municipalities—from the smallest villages to the largest cities—serve their population.
We are looking for creative, out-of-the-box speakers to share their knowledge. We are open to suggestions for topics; however, we have identified the following topics as main concerns to urban municipal governments:
- Hot topic: Mock council meeting
- Hot topic: Dealing with harassment from citizens
- Hot topic: Cyber security
- Hot topic: What municipalities should know about AI
- Conflict of Interest for Municipal Officials
- Roles of a municipality in mental health and addictions
- Municipal relationships with First Nations communities
- Property assessment
- Online presence for municipalities, staff, and elected
- Regional Collaboration
- Municipal Economics
How to Apply
If you are interested, please fill out the form below by October 17, 2024. Please ensure to fill out all the fields marked with an asterisk, these are required and the form will not submit if they are left blank.
Other Information
A complimentary one-day registration for the day of the presentation will be provided to presenters. Selections will be made based on several criteria, including topics and benefits to delegates.
If you are interested in convention sponsorship opportunities or having a booth at the tradeshow, contact marketing@suma.org for more information.
Please note that this form is not able to be saved. It must be completed in one session - prolonged inactivity will cause it to time out.
If you are unable to complete this form, you can download a .PDF copy here, and email it to education@SUMA.org
