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Seminar questionnaire
Graham:
Well said Fuzzy.
It must be very hard to ask for suggestions etc and not take any criticisms personally.
The team did a fantastic job with the seminar, it made a profound impression on me and I don't feel the need for many changes, but how do we sell it to a few more people ?
It is OK to say that the joys of woodturning needs to be spread to the younger section of the community but that will take many years to being about. We have to accept that for now ( i.e, the next seminar ) we have to deal with / appeal to a more aged membership.
Dave Brookes:
Not wishing to get embroiled in any 'tit for tat' comments, I would say that I totally agree with both Pete and BHT's.
I would ask PaulH a couple of questions:
As a self professed expert cameraman with years of experience, did you volunteer your services to the AWGB for the recent Seminar?
and
Did you ask Peter Hemsley why there was no AWGB attendance at the Toolpost?
I will make no further posts to this thread.
Dave
PaulH:
--- Quote from: Dave Brookes on November 09, 2015, 10:42:39 AM ---As a self professed expert cameraman with years of experience, did you volunteer your services to the AWGB for the recent Seminar?
--- End quote ---
No, I'm not a member and I wasn't free for it all anyway.
Frankly, I work hard enough that spending three days working for free isn't at all appealing.
--- Quote ---Did you ask Peter Hemsley why there was no AWGB attendance at the Toolpost?
--- End quote ---
No. I thanked him for running the event as I left.
I have no idea if the AWGB choose not attend trade events like this or if their presence was unwanted.
I would have thought that it would be a perfect place to attract new members and could also 'add value' to the event for Toolpost too.
Dave Atkinson:
--- Quote from: PaulH on November 09, 2015, 10:54:48 AM ---
--- Quote from: Dave Brookes on November 09, 2015, 10:42:39 AM ---As a self professed expert cameraman with years of experience, did you volunteer your services to the AWGB for the recent Seminar?
--- End quote ---
No, I'm not a member and I wasn't free for it all anyway.
Frankly, I work hard enough that spending three days working for free isn't at all appealing.
PaulH that last statement will bring you some flak! I am self employed (and that means working more than a standard 5 day week most weeks), and have been on the committee since 2009 and helped run and organise 4 seminars since which mean giving up a lot more than 3 days believe me. It felt like most of my life this year!
But I'm not bothered. Neither do I take anything that is said here personally, neither am I downhearted about the loss at the Seminar. The AWGB has organised a seminar every 2 years since 1987 and what we achieve is an event of world class status. It isn't elitist, or cliquey and we set the charges at a price we feel people can afford that will at least break even. We set the price slightly lower this time than the seminar before and took account of feedback from the last seminar. It wasn't enough and as a group of Trustees we have taken the decision to revisit our assumptions - hence the reason we are taking a number of steps to make sure we continue to provide an event at an affordable cost that is enticing to turners across the UK and overseas. And we get people from USA, Spain, Iceland, mainland Europe and Israel (this time) and from Australia last time as well.
We are very good at organising the event and putting it together. I take Graham's point about why people don't come and I've heard them before.
We have given a lot of thought to the questionnaire. The results so far are interesting and worthy of analysis. Perhaps there is some confirmation bias, but it's as good as it gets with the resources we have available. Just because the answer to one question is obvious (do you use the internet doesn't mean the rest is useless. And many people have replied with valid and useful comments.
When it comes to attending events we have a show programme. We attend a number of woody (Harrogate et al) and non woody (county) shows. If we are invited to attend corporate events we will. In the case you mention we weren't. We are 15 Trustees many of whom work full time. We are located across the UK and we can't attend everything everywhere. We cant afford it in terms of the AWGB's money or the available funds. And just as you don't want to give up your free time we have to balance the amount of time we give up.
Keep your comments coming but please give me something concrete to work on.
Dave
--- End quote ---
The Bowler Hatted Turner:
Paul you are quite right in saying it would be a good place for the AWGB to recruit more members but bear in mine the only people that attend these events are woody type people and so the AWGB would be preaching to the converted (mainly) people. However in order to bring woodturning to the notice of a wider audience perhaps woodworking shows are not the best place to be.
The other thing that should be taken into consideration is mannning an event such as this, I know everyone gets fed up hearing the same old thing but without volunteers to do it it just does not happen. With the number of events going on around the country the volunteers canot be expected to man every event.
I wonder how many turners local to Toolpost even noticed the AWGB were not there? I also wonder how many turners local to Toolpost would volunteer their time at the next Toolpost event? not many I suspect.
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