Towards Carfree Cities VI Organisers' Evaluation
by Ana Maria Rodriguez Contreras and Randy Ghent
Info for participants
Positives:
Participants received a lot of info in a professionally prepared conference pack/bag once they arrived, including a city map, programme, etc. Sometimes the host org provided escorts to help people get to the meeting points.
Negatives:
The printed and web programme didn't always provide the addresses of the venues or meeting points. There was no city map on the website. Info on how to get to accommodation and venues was provided late and not on website. According to the contract, there was to be only one conference website, on Worldcarfree.net, but in the end there was also one on Ciudadhumana.org, which led to confusion and duplication. The info provided to potential participants as outreach before the conference was often focused on less relevant information rather than the highlights of the conference. It sometimes had a matter-of-fact tone that does not inspire people to attend. In one case it was written that ITDP and the World Bank had offered their full support to the conference, when in fact they had done no such thing.
Food and refreshments
Positives:
Very good and plenty of it. Catering was served professionally.
Mixed:
Dinners weren't provided, although it was required in the contract.
Negatives:
During the breaks, the refreshments could have been without packaging, to be more eco-friendly.
Debates
Positives:
It was nice to have a panel of people discussing the presentations that had just occurred, and to have questions from the audience answered through the panel via slips of paper passed out to the audience.
Negatives:
We didn't have any in-depth organised debates.
Participants
Positives:
It was good that there were so many young people among the participants. They were interested and engaged in the programme activities. They came from a diversity of countries, cultures, ages and backgrounds. We had a good gender balance.
Mixed:
There were 111 registered participants in total, of which 56 were Colombians, 14 were other Latin Americans, 24 were Americans, 4 were Canadians, 1 was Indian, and 12 were Europeans. There were 18 extra presenters and 10 extra staff of the host organisation. There were about 250 people total on the public day. The total number was about the same as in recent years with the conference series.
Negatives:
They weren't always on time.
Presentations/presenters
Positives:
Very interesting presentations. Willing to answer questions and speak with audience during breaks. People found it interesting that projects and initiatives of "developing countries" can be and are being applied to "developed countries".
Negatives:
Lack of respect for allocated time, and time keepers should have been a lot more forceful to ensure that presentations end when they're supposed to. Some confirmed speakers cancelled at the last minute.
Organisers
Positives:
People were pleased with the organisers and their attention to the participants' particular needs. They thought it was remarkable that young people were able to do such a job.
Negatives:
There should have been different organisers for the conference and the TRUE exchange. Some organisers were directing Colombian members of the TRUE exchange to take on roles and tasks outside of the exchange, and this was very problematic. Before arriving, in some cases the presenters were seeking more communication from the organisers than was provided. They reported a lack of responsiveness to e-mails, which continues into December 2006 with at least one participant attempting to get copies of the full presentations.
Workshops (street conversion, citizen values on mobility, clay maquette)
Positives:
People enjoyed the street conversion design workshop and learned from it, but the judging wasn't serious enough, considering the amount of work that some of the participants put into their submissions.
Negatives:
The citizen values workshop was too focused on the situation in Colombia and wasn't always understandable for those from abroad, so this required explanation during the workshop. The clay maquette workshop and the related trip to Usme didn't happen. The meetings with Bogota youth didn't happen.
Accommodation
Positives:
We provided lots of options very early on, via the website, in all budget categories - except mid-range.
Negatives:
Mid-range options not provided until late.
Translation
Positives:
Was extremely well done. Some of the best we've ever heard. We had professional translation in two parallel sessions.
Negatives:
None.
Trips and Activities (Transmilenio, Carfree Sunday, bike rides, Chiva tour, Montserrate, closing party)
Positives:
Plenty of bikes available. People enjoyed seeing the various projects and programmes in Bogota. The municipality and Transmilenio were very cooperative.
Mixed:
There were different opinions on whether the Transmilenio trip was interesting enough and whether it was too long.
Negatives:
Could have organised discount Teleferico tickets or at least gone during the cheaper time of day. Carfree Day activities were shortened or cut because of running behind schedule. The bicycles weren't always very rideable. There was no real action for Carfree Day.
Venues (museum and university)
Positives:
The museum was an excellent and beautiful place that met all our needs. We had very good weather. The university was also very nice.
Negatives:
Distances between places were too far. No social space provided. The venues were chosen very late in the process.
Timeline
Positives:
We managed to pull things together in the end.
Negatives:
The timeline wasn't followed. Very little seems to have been done early on when Maria Fernanda was the conference coordinator. It wasn't easy to change conference coordinators in the middle of the process. The main planned keynote speakers - Penalosa, Mockus, etc. - weren't confirmed early or at all. The advance planning visit should have been earlier. Skype contact made too late because Ciudad Humana prohibited the use of chat software.
Programme development
Positives:
We chose interesting topics for each day and chose presenters based on those topics.
Negatives:
In the weeks before the conference, organisers other than Ana Maria and Randy were changing the programme without their permission, which was not allowed under the contract. Ana Maria and Randy were to decide the programme via consensus and no one else was to take over that role. Daily themes weren't always followed. The programme general format developed in Budapest with Maria did not get followed up in more detail either with Maria or later with Ana Maria. The programme was not revisited in detail until the advance planning visit. The process was slowed by the fact that Ciudad Humana didn't allow the conference coordinators to make final decisions regarding the programme - despite this being a condition for holding the conference in Bogota.
Finances
Positives:
The host organisation managed to raise enough funding to cover the expenses of the conference. We managed to keep the registration fees fairly low relative to other conferences of similar quality. High-quality catering of lunches and refreshments was achieved for about 5 EUR/person/day.
Negatives:
Despite the announcements made, speakers weren't always aware that they were required to pay the registration fee. The idea of WCN not receiving 10% (or any %) of the Latin Americans' registration fees led to WCN only receiving an income of 336 EUR. This cannot be done in the future, and WCN will not allow an organisation to host the conference unless they agree to the 10% (or 15% in the case that WCN is handling online payments). The existence of the Colombian 30% tax was also not communicated to WCN. If it had been, we could have avoided this payment by having WCN directly receive a portion of the registrations to equal the amount owed.
Balance of programme content
Positives:
People liked having the more technical content in the morning followed by parallel sessions or outdoor activities in the afternoon. People liked the intercultural exchange.
Mixed:
Generally good, but perhaps too many presentations. Not always workshops provided in parallel sessions to the presentations. Possibly a bit too much concentration on BRT, although the topic was necessary because of its importance to Bogota, Latin America and abroad. People wanted more free time.
Follow-up
Positives:
Certificates were sent via e-mail to those who requested them. The conference series will continue with a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2007.
Unknown:
Was an e-mail sent to all participants afterward, thanking them for their participation and asking them for comments on what they liked/disliked? Did participants receive the participants' contact list (name, organisation, city, country, e-mail, website)? Will presentations be provided to participants?
Negatives:
The participants' contact list that Randy received was poorly prepared, with misspellings and generally inconsistent style. People would have liked CD-ROMs of the presentations available at the conference itself. At least one participant has been attempting to get them after the conference, with no response to his e-mails.
[end]
The following is an evaluation-related exchange of three e-mails sent by participant Jason Meggs:
1)
Hey Randy,
I've been trying to study the possibility of using electric trolleybuses in portions of the TransMilenio system (an inspiration that came from the conference). I'm sorry to report that after quite a few calls to Colombia and many emails, the promises made by our hosts and by Ciudad Humana have not been carried out. It's kind of depressing.
One thing CH promised was original copies of the presentations. I'm sorry I missed the opportunity to copy these by 1 minute or so at the conference, and spent a good amount of time trying to get them at the offices (we had an appointment). Then I was promised a CD in the mail. There is no reply from them on this. When I contact them about helping get info on TM, they don't reply either. Any idea what the problem is? Given this type of lack of follow-through, it's hard to imagine that they would have prepared a conference to begin with.
Do you have any idea what's going on? Is there something wrong with who I am or my approach? I've used both Spanish and English, and am simply following up on promises made in person in Colombia.
Jason
[RG replied regarding FCH contacts, and that his points would be included in in the evaluation.}
2)
Thanks, Randy.
I hope you mentioned the problem with last-minute time changes which caused ill will from the Bronx peeps. Presenters need to know how long they'll have, at the bare minimum, to prepare...also I had the problem with being told to put all the words in the slides, for translation, and also had the problem that there were two programs and it wasn't quite clear if WCN or CH was doing what, adding to the confusion.
Jason
3)
The main issue was that, based on the program, I was sharing 2 hr 10 min. So I worked really hard making a long PPT. Then the morning of, I was told 30 min. There was nothing else I saw about how presentations would be handled. I totally respect that it was hard and I'm sure you all did great the day of, it seemed that way (although I wished I'd been more clear about when certain things were happening that I missed, not that it was anyone's fault), but I guess the take-home message is, to the extent possible, give speakers an idea of how it's going to go, that it might change, how much time (even a range) to expect for speaking, etc.
Jason
[end]
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