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Organising Committee

The organising committee consisted of:

who all got to wear red tee shirts with a question mark on the back.  We're not sure what it meant either.

And what did the Committee think of the Forum?…

The Committee's Perspective on the Forum

The energetic committee thoroughly enjoyed the Forum. When asked to identify the highlights and low lights, they made the following comments:

Julie Brookman "The posters. I got such a lot out of participating in this section. I read all the abstracts, and was impressed that such a broad range of topics of such a high calibre were presented. I was disappointed that we only able to give three people from each section an award, as I thought that every participant deserved a prize".

Alison Medhurst "I enjoyed the Technology section (afternoon Day 1). I came out of it feeling really good, and there was some really good discussion. My lowlight was not being able to participate fully because I was helping organise things.

 

Chris Sounness "The dinner. I enjoyed the venue, the speaker, the chance to catch up with a range of people, and networking with some new people".

Kellyanne Semple "Doing the evaluation. It was a challenge. I learned the importance of using program logic in planning the evaluation, and the importance of the outcomes from the evaluation in planning future forums - a part of the APEN continuous improvement process.

Tegan Rennick "The number of people who came from different part of the country and different sectors of work. I enjoyed Anton Standls presentation and that everything went pretty smoothly. Not enough interaction between presenters and audience.

Helen Quinn "Elske van de Fliert - a totally different view to the concepts of agriculture and farming networking at the dinner, participatory extension workshop run by Elske.

Maybe too many people in the panels and not enough time for discussion"

Ruth Beilin "The highlight was meeting everyone and having an opportunity to talk informally with people from across extension spectrum. I thought the Forum presented an up date on the 'where' and the 'what' very effectively in the two days. The least successful part of it was the lack of time for formal questioning and discussion with the panels."

Chris Bell "I guess for me the highlight was the way in which the representatives of the research councils and corporations could come and genuinely discuss their bodies' needs in a friendly atmosphere. I have been to other meetings where the scientists get very defensive of their own turf and no actual dialog takes place because each is coming from a very different perspective. It reinforced for me that extension people do have an important role in the scheme of things, but that this role is misunderstood by the State departments as exemplified by the discussion in the second panel session. They seem to think that scientists do their own extension (or should), but this overestimates most scientists' abilities and devalues that of the extension people. It seems to me that both groups do not truly understand the processes of research, development and adoption. While they deliberately fund the first, they actually want the last and are then disappointed when they do not get it. And, of course, the other point is that neither group has any idea of the role of the education sector in all this!

Jane Fisher "My highlight was hearing the perspectives of the research and development corporations and the states on extension. My lowlight was people disappearing before the presentations were made on the Friday afternoon".

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