Polyday Report & Thanks

[emanix]

Polyday happened on Saturday. After months of planning, plotting, communicating and organising, I still feel like I ought to be crossing my fingers as I speak about it, but it's over for this year, and it went well!



The Day:

The day itself started with a bit of a flurry, as the venue was in use until we were due to actually start, so we were delayed a little bit getting into the main hall. Everyone was wonderfully patient with that though, and we had a really good turn out right at the start, so thanks to everyone attending for being really good-natured (and for laughing at the joke in my opening speech!).

The Desk:

The desk was manned by a wonderful set of volunteers, and we had *just* enough people - we had recruited more, a few called in sick and others were delayed by transport being out, but the ones we had pulled together fantastically - you guys were great!

Workshops:

Every report I've heard for the workshops I wasn't directly involved with has been really positive, and my own went really well. As a side effect, I think I've finally cured my dislike of public speaking - once you've sat in front of a room packed with people and talked about kinky sex, it doesn't seem like there's much more to be scared of!

Cabaret:

The cabaret also went well, and to be honest rather better than expected - having had our initial headline act drop out due to external issues, another key act drop out close to the date due to illness, and one of our performers ill actually on the night, it came perilously close to not happening at all! I'm very grateful to our final group of performers, (some of whom were drafted in on very short notice) for having pulled through admirably. I also suspect I will be dining out for some years on the tale of Gilly, the professional pianist who we found playing in the cupboard as we set up for the show, and agreed to play for us on the spot!
We did have a couple of negative comments about the content of some of the songs - having recruited some more alternative acts, one does run the risk of offending the odd couple of people. However those people I have heard from were each bothered by a *different* song, which seems perhaps the mark of a good, if slightly edgy show.
I will be posting further about a complaints procedure for this and future Polydays, as I have realised following the cabaret that this has been something missing up til now.

Survey:

I promised in the Future of Poly workshop that I would put up a survey on the Polyday to find out more about who we had at Polyday - where our attendees are coming from, how they heard of the event, and so on. If you have suggestions for this, please feel free to make comments below, or to email info@polyday.org.uk. Work will be starting on this in the next week or so, with the aim of getting it up before everyone has forgotten about it.

Thanks:

Thanks again to everyone who helped to organise the day, particularly Meg and Erich, who I could not have managed without, and Alex who took charge of the kitchen and *all* of the cleaning, so that by the end of the night there was very little for the rest of us to do. You were all amazing.
Thanks also to my team of desk and venue minions, most especially, for not minding being referred to as minions (it's one of my favourite words!).

Also thanks to everyone who has come up to me, or sent me messages of appreciation for running Polyday and the cabaret. There were times, especially in the last few weeks, when I've asked myself 'why the hell am I doing this?' and you guys remind me of the answer.

Processing:

I'm still processing, and recovering, so I'm not making any promises, but I *might* be willing to do it again, though I suspect I'd also be very happy also to step back and just be a minion myself if someone convincingly said 'please let me take charge'.
As is my way, for every role I take on I tend to write the manual on the way out, so I'll be attempting to write some sort of 'book of wisdom' based on the experiences of myself and previous teams at some point. If anyone is interested in leading, or joining next year's Polyday organising team, please let me know so I can point you at it once it exists.

We have the sign in sheets, and will be counting up the attendance numbers when we have recovered a bit more.

I think that's everything covered, except to declare myself SAMOTURE - which I will explain in a future journal.
.

Wishing you all a happy poly year (for those who want it, at least),

Maxine.

x

Comments

[meihua.livejournal.com]

It was overall a very good day and I enjoyed it hugely - thank you very much.

We did have a couple of negative comments about the content of some of the songs - having recruited some more alternative acts, one does run the risk of offending the odd couple of people. However those people I have heard from were each bothered by a *different* song, which seems perhaps the mark of a good, if slightly edgy show.

I should probably be clear that I and about five other people I've spoken too all objected to a single song, but I at least didn't come to you to complain since I got the feeling that you had already had a fair number of complaints and more wouldn't be helpful. If you've come to the conclusion that the show was "good if edgy", though, then I think maybe it would be helpful if I raised my concerns. What would be a good way to do that?

[emanix.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know.

This is a part of why I said I intended to post further about a complaints procedure, as I did become aware that we didn't have one, and nor has there been a formal one for previous years. In the meantime I'd appreciate emails addressed to myself directly, preferably not to the other organisers and absolutely not to the performers. If messages need to be passed on to them I will do so.
My address is theofficialmaxine at gmail dot com, and I'd like to know which song is being referred to, the reasons for offense, and what can be done, if anything, to avoid in future.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've sent you an email - and yes, I agree that a route for complaints beyond "wandering up to you or commenting on LJ" would be a good thing to have. :)

WRT Polyday...

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

The day didn't just go well, it went WONDERFULLY. Overall it was an amazing bit of work you did. All the more amazing since you had barely any experience of past Polydays and How It Was Done. So many people had a wonderful time (me included). You and your minions did a very good thing here and your Community owes you a real debt of thankfulness. We can all thank you...one at a time...;->

One thing I wanted to mention that I don't think I told you over the weekend: ciphergoth deserves much gratitude for being extremely helpful with Registration Desk Duty. Without needing to be asked, he jumped in and totally made sense of the things that needed making sense of. I was extremely grateful that he was there and that he was willing to give up some of his Polyday time in order to help out.

::sends grateful smooches and cuddles and snuggly bathrobes::

Re: WRT Polyday...

[plumsbitch.livejournal.com]

All the more amazing since you had barely any experience of past Polydays and How It Was Done.

Yeah, from my personal experience it went off very well and v.impressive to come straight into an event with a history and run one. (which, I realise, I have also done myself with BiFests so if you'd like to talk over that would be happy to.) Also a combination of 'old' and 'new' heads is a very good thing I think, as while previous knowledge and experience are invaluable, fresh perspectives and new personal vision are also important.

Re: WRT Polyday...

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

Yes - go Paul and his sensible suggestions :)

[pir.livejournal.com]

Thanks for running the event. I feel a large part of it went very well (although I had to leave fairly early due to other commitments so I can't comment about the evening at all) and with that as a given, complaints should be taken as "it was good but...".

My only grumble was the lack of real socialising space. I go to these events mostly to be social in a different context, meet people and catch up with people. The venue limited this severely in having no space a reasonably sized group of people could talk to each other or those they'd met in an earlier part of the event. Some of the spill-over ended up outside, blocking the road and annoying the cars that came through, others split off to a nearby pub which breaks up the attendees and you had to know they were there.

My experience of technical conferences, cons and other events is that a venue with a central (preferably you go through it to get to most/all of the event space so it encourages use as a meeting place) socialising/break/lounge area may be better or worse at the events it was advertised for but a lot of people come away with a better impression if they have that space to pause between events and talk to people.

The evening part of the event may have mitigated this for a lot of people but many of us had left by then, some telling me primarily because they were frustrated with the location.

[emanix.livejournal.com]

Hiya,

I would very much prefer to receive complaints via email, but I wanted to respond to this one particularly on my public journal, as we did have every intention of using half of the main hall as social space, but due to the day and some of the workshops in particular being much more popular than we expected, we had to cut into that for workshop space, and I had actually already talked about this with the organising team.

There really is a shortage of venues around an appropriate size (and price), especially that are accessible to the organising team. If we were to stick with the same venue next year the plan would be to start earlier, and have much longer breaks between sessions in order for people to socialise and digest. Otherwise it'll be a hunt for a new venue all over again.

M.

[pir.livejournal.com]

Venues in London are a perennial problem, which seems odd for a city this size. Thanks for the response and I'm glad it's a concern.

[naxela.livejournal.com]

I keep on thinking I should run a venue just for events and pub meetings...

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I would very much prefer to receive complaints via email

I have some comments to add to this. There's a bit of discussion about it on my LJ (I can add you as a friend if you'd like to read it there) or can send email if you can tell me which address it should go to. Let me know which you'd prefer.

I would like to say thanks for organizing Polyday, but it wasn't quite the event I and at least some others I know were looking for.

[emanix.livejournal.com]

theofficialmaxine at gmail dot com

also interested in reading discussion, since it already exists, if I'm welcome.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Done!

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

Excellent event and particularly impressive given a new venue and small team of helpers and the large numbers you managed to attract.

I will process through many ideas from the weekend and will also be in touch about what I think might be resolvable and learnable from the small parts I was not at all happy with.

[lemuria.livejournal.com]

Well done for putting on a great event - can't comment on the cabaret as I didn't attend but the day itself went very well and I thought the organisers coped admirably with the constraints of the venue.
From a personal viewpoint, having been off 'the scene' for several years I found it very heartening to see so many people there and to get back in touch with people I hadn't seen for years as well as meeting new folks.
(And the kink panel alone was worth the entry price!)

[blazingrowan.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I had a wonderful time!

[n-g-neer.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to add my congratulations to you on organising such a great event. THat was the first Polyday that weirdwombat and myself had attended. The workshops answered a lot of questions, and also posed a whole new set!

Thanks again to your good self for putting so much effort into it!

Cheers

P

[n-g-neer.livejournal.com]

P.S.

SAMOTURE - Self Appointed Member Of The Ruling Elite?

P

[emanix.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I'll explain the why in a separate rant essay, but there were a few comments in the future of poly discussion that made me feel the need to.

[mriq.livejournal.com]

"I think I've finally cured my dislike of public speaking - once you've sat in front of a room packed with people and talked about kinky sex, it doesn't seem like there's much more to be scared of!"

So that's the cure? Even for poor ol' me? :o

And glad to hear everything went well! :)

[emanix.livejournal.com]

Well you have to get there in the first place...

[janieluk.livejournal.com]

I suspect there may be ongoing tension between the 'edgy' material that many cabaret performers tackle and the sensibilities of parts of the poly community. Possible solutions I can think of immediately:

• Agree clear taste and decency guidelines with performers beforehand, then hope they don't take great glee in breaking them all
  
• Hire people from within the community or who share the moral standpoints of the attendees
  
• Don't have a cabaret
  

My view? Storm in a teacup. I'm far more concerned about there being good social spaces, which is the primary reason I come to Polyday. There are quite a few options out there. I'm guessing it's finding somewhere cheap in Central London that's a bugger:

• The Anarchist Bookfair used to take place at http://www.theresourcecentre.org.uk/
  
• OpenTech normally takes place in http://www.ulu.co.uk/ - this or other university premises might be ok
  

Is there a proper Polyday mailing list or discussion group somewhere? It might be worth pushing for more suggestions.

Also: congratulations!

[emanix.livejournal.com]

Very good point, there is indeed an lj group called polydayness for all things polyday related. That would seem like an excellent place for these discussions!

[snork-maiden.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on putting together such a well thought out event and for overcoming your fear of public speaking. I think you and your team did a great job and you should all be very proud of yourselves.

xx

[scatmania.livejournal.com]

Sounds awesome! Wish I could have made it!

Still... there's always next year!