Good:
Made decisions; the wonderful hosts in Tuebingen; the translation; the facilitation; meeting nice people and making friends; the presentations - in terms of being able to see the feedback; pre-organisation was good; the meetings didn't run TOO late; presentations - in terms of giving people information; the hand signals worked well in terms of giving constant feedback; the structure of the meeting was good - in terms of having a plenary with feedback from the other meetings; although people wanted to be efficient, the more abstract theoretical discussions were also appreciated.
Bad:
Energy got low in terms of translation and people speaking too much and at the same time towards the end of the weekend - perhaps because people were tired; unrealistic timetables; low energy in Friday night meeting; it is left too unclear who is doing what after the meeting and how decisions and discussions will be followed up upon; people from the UK spoke too much, they should sometimes just shut up and not say anything; it was tiring for people having to listen to English as a second language for up to 10 hours a day; sometimes the discussions were a little too abstract;
Ideas for the future:
Info session on Saturday morning could've been more concise (people could've prepared themselves if texts had been available); perhaps it would be good to start the meeting on the Friday at mid-day the next time so that we could have more breaks; would be good to have good maps of the area where the meeting is so people can avoid police controls; name badges for the next meeting; people shouldn't be afraid to talk in their native languages and be translated if necessary; there should be positive discrimination for those who haven't spoken in meetings - i.e. they should jump to the front of the queue; should maybe restrict the time that people speak, for example, to one minute; there should be a greater consciousness of those with less experience - for example, people shouldn't presume everyone understands the hand signals that are used.
Announcements were also made about upcoming events:
- 4th March-G8 counter climate summit
- 26th March- International Mobilising meeting - London
- 27th March- International Mobilising meeting - Leeds
- 26th-27th-Working groups Dissent! Meeting
- 10-11th March- G8 Employment ministers meeting
- 15-15th March- G8 energy round table
- 17-18th March- Enivronment ministers meeting
- 6-10th April- Festival of Dissent!
- 20th April- German Speakers networking meeting (Mannheim)
- 5th-7th May- German Speakersmeeting- Hamburg
- 1st week of June- Training for convergence centres
- 28th June- Luxembourg EU summit ministers meeting
- 16th-17th June-G8 Justice ministers meeting Sheffield
- 10th-11th- June -G8 Finance ministers meeting.
- April-May- Info tour through Austria, Germany, Switzerland
- April/May-Trapese info tour in Ireland and Britain