What was Autreat?
Autreat is a retreat-style conference run by autistic people, for autistic people and our friends.
Autreat focuses on positive living with autism, NOT on causes, cures, or ways to make us more normal.
We quoted that from Autreat’s website. But Autreat was more! it revolutionized peer supports in the autism community by providing the community a safe space to unmask. Jim Sinclair’s vision for a conference built around autistic people was way ahead of its time like many inventions by autistic people. Autreat wasn’t immune from its growing pains. In 2013 Autreat (the organization and event) imploded after fallout after an medical emergency. A guest having a seisure caused the leadership of Autreat turn against each other and ultimately unfairly scapegoat Jim Sincair.
Our Post-Mortem
It was a lack of experience problem
A crisis brings the worst or the best out of an organization. If better planning for emergent situations along with better board governance Autreat would not have failed in 2013.
Leadership as a team failed
- The lack of leadership experience lead to mistakes that experienced leaders know to side-step
- Autreat should of engaged with an expert on contingency planning
- As with many volunteer-run organization the leadership skillsets skillsets of the board were underdeveloped and lead to bad decision making
- We’re not sure how much training volunteers received to ensure the staff works well in a crisis situation. The results speak for themselves.
Our Vision
We intend to:
- Build a world-class event to replace Autreat.. However this event will downplay politics given our divided state as a nation. We feel its important for the community to work together in order to be strong and effective
- Develop a very capable leadership team capable of keeping the organization focused and ready for emergent situations
- Properly train volunteers on event planning and operations
