Ontario's umbrella organization for its land trusts is the Ontario Land Trust Alliance. In order to provide up to date information regarding a number of topics of interest to Ontario land trust members, such as board members, the Ontario Land Trust offers regional workshops and a yearly conference.
The regional workshops were held this year in Kingston, Barrie and Guelph, featuring day long workshops. Kim Gavine, Executive Director of the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust and Lisa McLaughlin, Nature Conservancy of Canada, co-presented a workshop entitled Doing It Well or Doing It Better – Land Monitoring & Stewardship. Participants to this workshop received the newly published OLTA manual A Volunteer's Manual for Land Management. A second workshop was held on "Branding" where participants learned what it takes to make your land trust's name instantly recognized in your community.
The Ontario Land Trust Alliance's 2005 Gathering was held November 10-13, 2005 at the Kempenfelt Conference Centre on the shores of Lake Simcoe in Barrie, Ontario. This was the largest OLTA gathering to date with one hundred participants, not only from Ontario but British Columbia, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Some of the topics presented included fund development, engaging an appraiser, choosing projects carefully, understanding baseline inventories, insurance coverage, finding and keeping volunteers, and standards and practices that land trusts should be using to prevent future easement violations.
OLTA website address is http://www.ontariolandtrustalliance.org/.