Feedback, eh? I'll give ya some feedback. I'm not doing this again - collating and publishing feedback that is. <grin> I waaaay underestimated the time it would take to put all the pieces into some semblance of order. I really thought that I could do it much faster.
I should take the time to thank sooo many people for their help and support in putting this little event together. I called on several people to take care of a wide variety of tasks to make this happen. It just wouldn't have been possible without them. You deserve public recognition, but I just don't have the time at the moment. I MUST, however, publicly thank Lynne Robertson. She was instrumental in pulling so much of this event together. How nice of ME to stand up at the end and take credit for her work. <grin>
------
I'm a big believer in feedback. This page can be very helpful to the roundtable leaders as well as to others planning similar events in the future. I decided to put it ALL on this single page. Each section is chronologically bookmarked for ready access from the menu below.
Most of the feedback I received was positive and constructive as you will see. I did not arrange the comments below. They are collated in the order in which I received them. I DID, however, do a touch of editing for clarity - never did I try to change the tone of the feedback.
Thanks again to all who participated in the conference, and thanks to those who took the time to respond with your comments. Doc
Friday Night at Joe’s Crab Shack
8:30 - 10:00 Registration & Continental Breakfast
9:30 - 10:30 Roundtables:
“Establishing a Computer Learning Center” – Jim Boynton
“Computer Repair Within Your Club” – Ron Kalmin
“First Timers: Welcome & Orientation” – Judy Johnson
10:45 - 11:45 Roundtables:
“Increasing Your Outreach & Membership with CyberMentoring” - Dave Dockery & Art Crofford
“Holding a Computer Fair” - Stu Silverman
“Monthly Programs: Entertaining & Educating Your Group” - Ed Mitchell
Dave Gussow Keynote: “The Year of Insecurity: Computer Users Under Attack”
1:40 - 2:40 Roundtables:
“Digital Photography Applications” – Sam Wexler
"How to Write a Good Tutorial" - Nicholas Chase
“Computer Acquisitions for Community Service” – J.B. Hillard
2:50 - 3:50 Roundtables:
“Web Design for User Groups” – Sharon Rump
"How to Increase Membership, Interest and Speakers in your User Group." - Sam Wexler & Dave Gerber
“Service Pack 2 for Windows XP: What you NEED to know” - Chuck Vroman
3:50 - 4:30 Wrap-Up and door prizes
Hurrah "DOC"
The conference today was very good. You and your team did an excellent job in preparing and presenting the agenda. You can be very proud of the entire day. Three cheers for ALL.
The conference was great.
Enjoyed yesterday's program--thanks for all the hard work. It's a big job organizing something like this!
Sound was really good. Projection equipment was more than adequate. I did not like people speaking in the main room without using the hand mike. They may think they are loud enough, but they were straining and they were not heard as clearly as when they could have been using a mike. It's just something that a speaker has to acknowledge and use.
Not having toilet paper in the women's bathroom was a real problem. The facility should have anticipated that there would be that many people and had the room supplied.
For the meeting in the large room I think there is a need for a monitor. One of my pet peeves is trying to listen to a speaker and having several other groups of conversations going at the same time. It was especially bad for the roundtables because the group at the back were constantly talking. Even after asked they continued. I know that they were people helping with the program but there needed to be a location for them to visit. Similarly, late arrivals signing in and talking at the front table were distracting.
It could also help to have a monitor to attempt to curb the unrelated and continuing questions. Sadly some people seem to just like to hear themselves speak.
All in all it was a great experience as usual.
THANKS FOR A GREAT DAY. CONGRATS TO DAVE DOCKERY AND HIS TEAM.
My day was well spent. The facilities were good. I loved the microphone and speakers. Food was good. Everyone was great. Thanks for taking this on!
Chuck Vroman and Dave Gussow--these two really made my day!! Thanks!!
This was my second fall meeting and I have attended two spring meetings. Doc and his crew did an outstanding job and deserve much credit for presenting new round table topics as well as being the first to try a Friday Social gathering. Had I known that a screen was needed, I would have brought our (10’ x 7’-6”) portable along. Although the wall worked, us older folks can use the larger size images to read the print better. Great Job!
Everything was handled beautifully. If there were any areas needing work, no one could tell. You and your team did such an excellent job I congratulate you all.
Sorry, but I sent an email last week that I would be unable to attend. After looking at the agenda, I felt our computer club had already gone far beyond the topics being discussed and I felt my time would be better used elsewhere.
All in all it was a very well planned and went off well. Good Job to all who contributed their time and effort. Especially you and Lynne.
This was the first FACUG Conference I attended, and I thought it was great. I attended Ron Kalmin, Dave Dockery & Art Crofford, Dave Gussow, Sam Wexler, and Chuck Vroman roundtables, and I thought they were all excellent.
As a side note: I met some new people, and it turned out that J.B. Hillard, Secretary/Editor of Chautauqua Cyber Club, is a next door neighbor of an old friend of mine from back in the sixties. I look forward to the next one.
Doc did a great job!
I had a great time. Thank you for inviting me. I did notice that there were no younger people attending. The clubs should try to attract younger members. I'm not sure how...just an observation.
You and your crew did a great job. I know what it takes to put together the fall conference, especially when you don’t have the agenda filled.
I would like to thank you again, your team of officers and members and speakers who made possible the FACUG Fall Conference 2004. Also like to thank again the persons responsible for the outstanding lunch and evening at Joe's.
The highlight of the conference were presentations by:
Dave Dockery & Art Crofford (10+)
Dave Gussow (10+)
Chuck Vroman (10)
Nicholas Chase (9)
Jim Boynton (8)
I anticipated learning some new things at the conference but never thought I would leave with so much useful and timely information. The round trip drive of 800 miles was worth it to attend this conference.
Your conference was an unqualified success. I now have enough challenges to keep me and our club members busy until the FACUG Spring Conference 2005.
Now about Doc. You did an excellent job, I enjoyed every moment of the meeting and even the food was the best.
THANK YOU, DOC FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK TO PUT ON A SUCCESSFUL DAY.
I really enjoyed the whole day. I met some really nice people from all over. I also enjoyed the roundtables.
I do not expect you to necessarily publish my feedback. I tried to be frank and critical with hopes to generate sparks for improvement. I prefer very critical (especially negative) feedback as opposed to false adulation from the politically correct camp. In fact...a pat on my back usually makes me feel uncomfortable. Thanks again for inviting me to a very good well planned conference.
Great!! Nice to meet and greet!
Great time had by all... Thanks for the appetizers, but I don't think that went too well.
Don't use in the future.
Great idea and good venue.
The welcome party at Joe's Crab House was a hit. I met some FACUG members which I hadn't met before and had an opportunity to meet with some others that I had known. It was a great icebreaker.
Everyone seemed to enjoy it, including me.
A bit cacophonous and hard to converse over the din.
Great Fun.
Too expensive and too noisy for conversation.
Showed up naked for the orgy at John's Lobster House and was arrested. I tried to explain about the orgy but the police only laughed, I will need you to testify at my trial. Great fun but food was bad & overpriced. Can't win 'em all.
I thought that the registration process went well. It would have been nice if the handout bags were available when people arrived but it was handled well.
The breakfast was ideal for the occasion.
Enjoyed the doughnuts and coffee.
The good breakfast made a good start for a good day, and a good "get-acquainted" opportunity to mix in with a few attendees from other CUG's.
Friendly, quick registration, and good breakfast.
I thought the registration went smoothly and the coffee and donuts were appreciated.
I was a little disappointed with breakfast.** I guess I missed the fact that it was a continental breakfast.** Had I known, I would have eaten out.
Very efficient registration. Lynne did a really nice job with the selection of food & the presentation.
Yummy
A bit too carby.
No trouble. Went right through, got some coffee and had a donut, found two other members to sit with and enjoy the day. I liked it.
Always interesting.
I enjoyed the roundtable. It was especially interesting to learn about the interest in a computer lab and repair activity. Since we are having dire problems funding our training facility and making many major changes, the new concepts are very valuable.
Jim did a good session, both informative and participational. His photos were a good background.
MOST INTERESTING; SCORE 8outof10
Great topic, good content and presented in an expert manner with visuals to illustrate various points.
Did a great job of explaining the resource center. Jim was very precise and clear in explaining all. People were a little taken with the $1300 per mo. rent (so was I). Think I'll invest in office buildings.
This was a good session. Focused more on "what we have" than how to set one up but was still informative. The pictures taken the day before helped to illustrate points made during the presentation.
Was interesting, gave me some ideas for our own room.
Very nice.
Very interesting.
Kalmin & Dockery very good.
I enjoyed Ron's presentation and didn't realize, all of the people who repair the computers, were trained technicians.
Ron's knowledgeable presentation was excellent and coupled with good humor. I consider it a privilege to have met him.
Excellent seminar!!
Expected to learn some basic troubleshooting or computer repair, or what to look for, maybe what to try to correct a problem. Very disappointed as I was told the history of how it got started in our club. Nothing about "Computer repair" in the hour.
Excellent.
Inspirational! I'll be working towards something like that for our group eventually.
Didn't think there was any orientation; people pretty much just asked questions.
Two of my favorite speakers. Topic nicely handled.
ENJOYED THIS SESSION and saw power of net computing. Suggest stick with a practiced set of actions in future. Spontaneity was good but detracted from the power of the net meeting and conference mode. SCORE 6outof10
Good.
Great topic and delivered in an expert manner!
Enjoyed the talk until it got a little over my head. It was worthwhile and well done.
Well presented and informative.
Very good Dave. I will use NetMeeting in the future. It simply makes good sense to simplify computer support. Your and Art's presentation was the highlight of my day.
Good info about cybermentoring – didn’t really touch on increasing membership etc.
Excellent! Solid, helpful information. I was able to apply, within minutes of trying, almost everything required to setup this function!
EXCELLENT!!
Demonstration was done well and I believed this can be done and some safeguards are there in the first 20 minutes. The next 40 minutes were a repeat of the first 20.
Very Good, would like to learn more of CyberMentoring.
Excellent, had no idea of the possibilities. Plus, it helped with using NetMeeting which we've been trying to figure out.
This small discussion session was very nice. With the limited number of people it allowed us to not only hear about the planning of a computer fair but generally discuss topics of interest.
Very interesting. He did a good job.
Breathtaking! - he's good! I took lots of notes.
Some good ideas from Ed and also from the group.
An excellent job of explaining their newsletter, meetings, speakers, etc. The group offered other suggestions.
Ed is a great presenter; really knows the subject. There was a lot of good discussion. Very informative.
Sorry, Did not get much out of this one.
Yes, it was delicious.
LUNCH WAS EXCELLENT !!!
It was ok, but I am lactose intolerant and no one asked if there was any dietary needs, and I didn't think about it until it was too late.
Lunch was a pleasant surprise. It is difficult to bring in such a nice meal for a group. The selection was such that anyone could be happy and the quality fine.
Lunch was very good.
Good dinner.
Thanks for the great lunch; it couldn't be better.
GREAT CATERER SCORE 9outof10
I thought it was very good--and served quite a crowd in a short period--lines moved right along--and there was plenty of food.
You bet ya! I believe that it was healthy and tasty. The ice cream was a nice thought too.
Wow! It was excellent, better than any I've had at business luncheons in fancy country clubs. What was the name of the caterer?
The lunch was great.
Yes, but I shouldn't have eaten the sundae! It was a nice selection and plenty of food. The chicken didn't look very appetizing but tasted good.
The food was better than good. The people at our table did have much fun trying to decide what the flattened meat was: pork? veal? chicken? One went up to the servers and asked. They said it was chicken. But then again, everything tastes like chicken so we decided that we still were not exactly sure. Much fun.
Food was great!!
Yes, lunch was great. However, it looked like you expected many more people.
The folks putting this on really did a super job! All day long I noticed that nothing seemed to run out.
SUPERB FOOD!!
This was very good and much more than I expected. Kudo's to whoever set this up [this alone was worth the trip].
Yes, it was very good not spicy and had no green peppers which is great for me.
YES!
Dave was interesting, as usual. Really dry sense of humor.
Fabulous! Did anyone tape record him?
Informative and timely.
Dave was interesting as usual.
I always enjoy listening to Dave.
EXCELLENT 9outof10
Gussow so so.
Dave was excellent as always!!!
Timely Subject presented by an expert!
Very informative and worthwhile. Good speaker with a lot of important, useful information.
As always Dave Gussow was a big hit. He is very glib and is an entertaining and informative speaker.
He is always an interesting speaker.
Dave Gussow's presentation was interesting. I found it amusing when he said that he will no longer help his family and friends with their computers. A broken man, Microsoft and the hackers have won the game.
Great talk… informative and timely.
A speaker with a current topic again gave us information we can use and apply. (I already have Foxfire running)
Entertaining, this man is a good speaker and enjoyable to listen to.
Dave is always good.
I enjoyed this part the most. He was a fantastic speaker. How does one get to his articles in the newspaper?
Good Talk, I wasn't aware of BHO's.
I wanted to give a word of explanation about Sam's roundtable. I had asked roundtable leaders if they needed any equipment. I did not understand that Sam needed an overhead projector, and therefore did not supply one for him. He had to adjust on the spot. While I apologized to him privately, I wanted to make sure that you all were aware that he had to "work without a net". Sorry Sam. - Doc
Always a good topic and well attended.
Wexler needed presentation help. He probably is a great hands-on trainer.
I appreciate what he did. He helped me some.
Great idea for a topic, however, I would have appreciated a presentation that utilized the projector instead of a one page handout. I wondered the whole time if he would illustrate use of the camera that was on the table. While many good points were covered, I thought that the session could have been much better.
Okay presentation. I think people were expecting a little more than an outline. Some examples, how he organizes a class, what his expectations are, etc. may have made it more interesting.
I've just presently purchased my first digital camera so I would have preferred a presentation with actual demonstrations on how to do things. Interesting but not much new info.
Picked up some tips.
Excellent speaker. I found the topic informative and useful. The concepts may have been over the head of some of those attending, but that is the fault of their choice and expectations. I understood that the discussion was to be conceptual about writing a tutorial and not a demo of writing one.
Wasn't what I expected.
EXCELLENT A truly interactive seminar 9outof10
It took me a while to warm up to Nick. I opened up my mind to his presentation and just let the information sort of flow in. I liked it...a lot. I walked away knowing that I had gained some good global knowledge but I could not really explain it. I do know that I would be able to construct a better tutorial now than before Nick's presentation. The class had too many "teachers" in it. They all wanted to put their own two cents in and basically wanted to hear themselves talk. Here is what the teachers did not understand: My quote, "An excellent tutorial obviates the need for a teacher". So the teachers should have a vested interest in not providing good tutorials. As for Nick, by the end of the session I decided that I would enjoy sitting down with him to have a beer. Very good.
Absolutely wonderful – the highlight of my day.
A tutorial on writing a tutorial. This was a fun learning experience. I would recommend this topic and/or speaker for future events.
This was meant for me! Our PC Refurbishing SIG has to learn some things and JB was "the man".
Seemed more geared toward preferred building software than actual design.
Worthwhile!!
There should have been an Internet connection in the room. When a person is showing Web Designs, you need the web. Could not look at different sites. But a good presenter.
Really good presentation and excellent audience participation. I took lots of notes.
Would of been interesting if he had been able to stay on topic. Two TBCS members wanted to tell him what WE were doing instead.
Chuck has something interesting no matter how many times you hear him speak.
Again a very timely discussion.
GOOD but overly embellished. Could have covered all material in one third of the time. SCORE 4outof10
Excellent, very clear, well informed, VERY good information about how to protect oneself!!
This is certainly a very timely topic and I appreciate the research done to provide the web sites that one should use to help with the process. The presenter was very energetic, but seemed to be grand-standing. It might have helped if he had used the projector to illustrate the steps of the process and perhaps have the web pages loaded on the laptop to show what they provide and let the audience read lists instead of having the presenter read them to us.
As usual, Chuck had a wealth of information and it was well presented.
Appreciated the handout of websites. Excellent job.
The information presented by Chuck well be a great value to me because I haven't loaded service pack 2 yet. If a few people hadn't monopolized so much of his time, I'm sure he could have given us a lot more valuable information.
Well presented and informative.
A great presentation with useful information we can bring to our members.
Very good and was very helpful, in telling me all the things I did wrong last week when I installed this. This was the most useful class for information of the day, wish I head what he had to say before I installed mine.
I always enjoy Chuck. He explains things so you can understand it.
Pretty good but he kept getting off topic by answering some lame questions.
Hand-outs might have been good since he might not have been able to cover everything.
Great, I usually don't win anything!
Well handled and right on time. Some items were chosen without the winner recognizing that the prize was hardware specific and they had picked the wrong item. (i.e. the earbud mikes) I didn't hear Dave warn anyone about that and it would have been helpful.
Went well.
LEFT PREMISES as nothing worth waiting for. The vendors are to be thanked for supporting this grab-all. Who needs any of this stuff anyhow. Just hand-out pens and t-shirts in future. I missed the wrap-up...
Handled very well! I frankly believe that one round is enough. Any items left over could then be provided to the user groups who attended. This was a pleasant surprise and it was great that everyone attending got a prize.
It's unfortunate that the vendors did not see fit to participate in person. But, I guess they see it as not a big enough event for them to attend.
Extremely well organized. Nice prizes.
Freebies are always good!
Handled very well. Get in, pull the tickets and get out.
I got a Tee shirt and was happy as I have never won anything in the last 3 years of monthly meetings door prize drawings.
WOW I got this great Adobe Photoshop book. Thanks Santa!
I thought they were helpful and informative. It's a relief to receive something that is not an ad.
I found the messages extremely useful. It saved me from having to check the FACUG site to see if there were any updates. Being able to think ahead about the roundtables was great.
Very helpful.
Keep the messages coming.
KEEP THEM COMING. GOOD EFFORT. THANK YOU FOR THIS.
I do not consider your emails to be SPAM--they have been very helpful--easy enough to scan and delete if not of major importance.
The emails were also much appreciated and were no problem. I'd rather have more information than not enough any time. Again, thanks for a great day, filled with useful information and great people.
*Without the SPAM, we would not know what is going on. Sometimes it's a necessary evil.*
I thought your spams were informative and helped the event to gather some momentum prior to the actual opening of the conference.
BTW, it would be REALLY great if everyone attending could be told again that joining the FACUG Yahoo! E-Mail list is really easy: just send an e-mail to FACUG-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FACUG/ and click on JOIN NOW button.
The e-mail communication worked very well. Especially since they were consistent and on schedule.
Doc, Your messages were wonderful. I'll miss them!!!