Anna Skaya, Basepaws
October 22, 2019
Colleen Bray, Director, Boone County (KY) Animal Shelter
October 29, 2019
Kristen and I had a booth at the She Podcasts – Live! conference on October 11-13 in Atlanta, GA. She Podcasts, the first podcast for female podcasters, strives “to support and nurture as many female-led podcasts as possible.” Kristen and I both had a lot of fun answering folks’ questions about their cats and being asked “What is a community cat?” about a thousand times!
It was very refreshing to be around a group of people that aren’t as well versed in animal welfare as our usual audience. It really helps bring us back to understanding that there is a lot of information we need to continue to share and educate folks around.
Since we weren’t there to learn about cats, what could we possibly learn at a podcasting conference? Well, Kristen does all things design and technology for the show, and I am sure she learned a lot of new tips and tricks. As for me, I am focusing on the marketing and networking aspects of the show and how to improve my interviews (please send ideas if you have them!), so I gathered a lot of information on those topics.
Of course one of the highlights of the weekend was visiting the cats at Java Cats Cafe. Hadyn Hilton has been a guest on the CCP (Episode 228) and a speaker at the Online Cat Conference (get your tickets to the 2020 conference here). We had so much fun visiting the kitties in her awesome cafe, which is across the street from “your typical southern cemetery” (according to Kristen). Coffee and cats—there is nothing better. We spoke to a few people who were at the cafe, several of whom visit the kitties often. Others were there for the first time. There were about 17 kitties in the room and they seemed to get along well. There were a few old-timers and some new adolescent kittens who really needed to find a home.
After the conference ended on Sunday, Kristen and I were also able to visit LifeLine Animal Project’s beautiful new 26,000 square foot facility, which just opened up two weeks ago. They have a huge spay/neuter clinic and space to have 200 cats and 100 dogs up for adoption. It was quite impressive. A special thank you to Tracy for taking the time out to show us around late on a Sunday.
To say the least, at the end of a three-day conference and visiting with cat-loving friends Kim Freeman (CCP Episode 248) and Dr. Lynn Bahr of Dezi and Roo (CCP Episode 239), we were exhausted. It was quite an adventure!
