as the gathering is all about responding, giving feedback and constructive criticism about our work, we naturally gather feedback about the event itself. we do this via a written evaluation form (or in any other form people want to give it to us) & i'm now collating the feedback received thus far.

as in the past, everyone has been very happy with the event - generally it has met or exceeded people's expectations as an enriching & inspiring event, & the catering gets a lot of praise : ) mostly people are happy with the venue (the newtown community & cultural centre) & most are also happy with holding it at easter. However, those who can't be there at easter obviously haven't filled out an evaluation form! (we are thinking holding it at queen's birthday weekend next year (early june) to see how that works for people.)

the randai demonstration & workshop (led by megan collins) was very much appreciated, as were the morning training sessions, the writing sessions and the fabulous closing night party. there was a lot of positive feedback about the responding process, & notably several people commented on the evolution of our processes: now that we are up to our third gathering, we can see that we are building a body of experience, facilitation skills, & a process around the sharing of & responding to work-in-process. this process is not rigid, but one that's evolving along with our own needs & experience - for instance this year we spontaneously added in a 'next steps' session which gave the presenting artists very practical tangible action points with dates attached, to take away with them.

constructive suggestions included training up more facilitators so that the responsibility can be shared; developing greater critical strength in the feedback; being more organised with the evening programme; having takeaways instead of going to cafes for dinner; more time for the presenters to prepare; and stricter adherence to start times!!!

thanks to all of you who have sent in an evaluation, & if you haven't yet you still can - it's never too late : )