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+ | ====== Things you liked, things you disliked... | ||
+ | **And how would you improve Luminous Green gatherings? | ||
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+ | //This is a summary of comments and suggestions collected from the participants at Luminous Green 2007// | ||
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+ | ===== 10 point summary ===== | ||
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+ | * Great mix of people | ||
+ | * Beautiful settings and spaces | ||
+ | * Stimulating learning and sharing atmosphere | ||
+ | * Good facilitation | ||
+ | * Interesting formats (Open Space, Bazaar, Hands-On workshop, Open Lab) | ||
+ | * Clearer and stricter ' | ||
+ | * How to present participant' | ||
+ | * Appreciated effort to design sustainable events (with room for improvement) | ||
+ | * Improve balance between goal oriented and exploratory methods | ||
+ | * It could have been simpler | ||
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+ | ===== The Retreat (Expert Gathering), 27-29 April 2007 ===== | ||
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+ | All participants congratulated us on the diverse mix of people. The people were selected based on their expertise, interests, as well as ' | ||
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+ | Having a residential workshop, allowing different work-related and social activities to mix was very much appreciated. However, it would have been better if everyone was housed on the same site (about 10 out of 30 people slept in an nearby abbey, due to spatial constraints). La Classe was an interesting venue, raising much debate about design and sustainability (many of the facilities at the venue were aesthetically pleasing, but not very environmentally friendly...). In one of the sessions, the participants offered a series of suggestions as to how we could make our environment greener, wherever we happen to be. See [[foamy ecosystems]]. The first step would be to prohibit the use of electronic gadgets in the eating room! | ||
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+ | Being situated in the countryside helped make the atmosphere relaxed and refreshing. However, this made the logistics too complicated and the amount of trips too large. For the future, the venue should be situated closer to public transport and international airports. Also, being stricter on arrival and departure times would have diminished the amount of trips from Denhee to the train station in Dinant. | ||
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+ | Not many people in the group have experienced an 'Open Space' meeting before, but most found it an excellent format for informal, P2P learning. Participants found it thought evoking, engaging and pro-active. Even though several people complimented us on the facilitation, | ||
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+ | An interesting dilemma arose around goal driven vs. horizon expanding workshops. In different professional ' | ||
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+ | Another issue linked to the different professional cultures appeared to be the length of the workshop. Some people prefer short and intense, others long and exploratory. Most people felt that the retreat should have lasted for another day or two, but due to everyone' | ||
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+ | ===== The Symposium (30th April 2007) ===== | ||
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+ | The site was beautiful and inspiring, the atmosphere stimulating. There was a range of things to do, experience, absorb and discuss, which all participants appreciated. Most participants found the informal conversations and more structured discussions to be most memorable. The food was great, and well conceptually matched to the topic. Participants appreciated the design of the communication materials (handout, website...), | ||
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+ | The programme format was stimulating and challenging at the same time. Most people would have preferred shorter presentations, | ||
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+ | The participants welcomed FoAM's efforts to make all aspects of the event more sustainable. It was a great first attempt, with a lot of room for improvement. One of the questions that arose was whether we had let the whole become too complicated and too expensive, which in itself is not a sustainable thing to do for an organisation (in terms of energy, time and financial drain) | ||
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+ | Participants in the retreat found themselves flooded with new people, without a formal outlet to explain what they were doing in the previous days. A better integration of these two events would probably have been appreciated by everyone (perhaps the speakers should have talked about new initiatives spawned by the gathering, have the presentations focus on what was achieved at the retreat, etc). | ||
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+ | ===== The Hands-on Workshop (1st-5th of May) ===== | ||
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+ | The mix of people was one of the highlights of the workshop. The other was the atmosphere where non-hierarchical, | ||
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+ | Even though there was an unexpected schedule change (due to the workshop leader having to leave earlier), the format of the workshop and the people involved were flexible enough to make this a positive experience. Some participants felt this would have worked even better if they would have been able to prepare beforehand - through an online reader, discussing the topics that would be dealt with, with links to all participants, | ||
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+ | Hands-on experiments were very engaging for people - trying things out and making their hands dirty was a welcome thing to do after each morning of technical tutorials. However, the quality of the experiments varied greatly, depending on the session leaders. Some of the experiments were not much more evolved than high-school science projects, which was interesting for some, while boring for others. Having parallel sessions and the 'law of the two feet' (you can move between sessions as you find appropriate) has remedied this problem. Some participants found that it would have been beneficial to consult them beforehand about the hands-on experiments they would have liked to conduct. Others on the other hand enjoyed that the decisions were made during the workshop and using the materials available, rather than purchasing them beforehand. | ||
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+ | Discussions and presentations varied in quality as well. Some of them were well conceived and moderated, others would allow people to 'sell hot air'. One of the people suggested not to have a discussion unless there was an expert present, to avoid wild guesses. Another recurring comment was that participants should not be allowed to have their laptops open during presentations. Technical tutorials in the mornings were very much appreciated, | ||
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