Hitchgathering/2011/Evaluation

This evaluation article intends on evaluate the hitchgathering 2010 in Sines with the aim of improving organization and the festival itself next year.

Everybody is welcome to add his/her comments, may it be with logged in username or anonymous (only ip adress will be visible in the recent changes. You can sign your messages with clicking the second button from the right on top of the editing box (called your signature with timestamp).

Also be free to add questions/points and or suggestions, ideas, etc.

Evaluation
You took part in the hitchgathering 2010 in Sines and/or helped with it's organization and/or would like to participate in 2011, therefore you can tell us....

Promotion (flyers distribution, media coverage, events in the city)
What I appreciated:
 * The radio promotion in Spain and the article written by Tau and Mitch. Mirtillosmile
 * Pre-gatherings in Lyon and Barcelona worked well.Mirtillosmile
 * Artwork and text atopia
 * The flyers were designed like small thank you -letters for the drivers, and that's how we used them. Nice idea! --Astikain

What I missed:
 * Promotion on media for Portugal. Mirtillosmile
 * Flyers distribution didn't work that well: nobody had flyers at the gathering and many haven't been used (left in Berlin and Amsterdam). Mirtillosmile
 * Should be handed out much much earlier (some people need to plan participation for this kind of trips) --Astikain

what I wish for next year: Instead than promotion in many places, that requires lits if organizing effort, better to focus on one spot and do the media coverage of the gathering as for Odessa. Mirtillosmile
 * More focused effort on targeted promotion. Radio and press coverage needs to be done earlier (therefore we bneed to decide the location well in advance).
 * Widespread promotion on popular hitchhiking spots across Europe atopia

Location (country, gathering place, facilities, local hospitality, costs)
What I appreciated:
 * The split between Sines and Barcelona. The big city and the small town / The location in Barcelona / The location in Sines --Sitarane, atopia
 * Nice people, good place, the weather, the seaside
 * Great camping spot, with good facilities (showers, shadow, toilets). Very cheap (21 E. for each day to be slip between the participants)Mirtillosmile, n0id, atopia.
 * Great hospitality given by locals not used to international tourists. We have been welcomed with donated food by the owner of the camping. Dumpster diving was great in the market and local people gave pots, pans, and grill for cooking.Mirtillosmile.
 * Portugal was a good choice in terms of costs (food and alchool very cheap) Mirtillosmile.
 * I appreciated the presence of a local coordinator (Rui) who solved last minutes burocracy misunderstanding and took care of all the papers. His support on location has been essential for the successful managemnet of the location and for the mediation with the City Council and the Tourist Office. Mirtillosmile.
 * The spontaneous street-music band was an amazing initiative! We spread so good vibes throughout the town and made our small gathering very visible (and audible)! --Astikain 04:38, 10 January 2011 (CET)

What I missed:
 * People tended to spread between the beach(es) and the camping. Mirtillosmile, n0id, atopia.

what I wish for next year:
 * A location where people will be able to stay together without spreading too much around (or not all the time).Mirtillosmile.
 * Another local organizer (since it worked so well this year)Mirtillosmile.

Participation (workshops, cooking, quantity of participants...)
What I appreciated:
 * The hitchhiking spirit, which was everywhere around and is so unique and beautiful.
 * In Sines, around 90 people from all over Europe gathered for 4 days.How many in Barcelona?Mirtillosmile
 * I liked the circles in which people took responsabilities and created teams (cooking, dumpster diving...). Differently than in Odessa, in Sines people cooked for everybody, by using dumpster dived food or products bought through donations. Mirtillosmile
 * I appreciated people donating for food and camping.Mirtillosmile
 * I loved that we cleaned the camping site from the garbage left from the previous festival. I think it was a great way to show our affort in terms of leaving a place better than we've found.Mirtillosmile
 * More than a festival with workshops and schedules, we created a temporal nomad base (see also http://nomadbase.org/) where people where living together, sharing and making connections.Mirtillosmile
 * I liked the free shop and the "lost and found" corner.Mirtillosmile
 * Liked the spontaneously organized games on the beach and at the camping.Mirtillosmile
 * the spontaneous aftermeetings (Porto Covo, SPCC Lisboa). --w

What I missed:
 * After such a trip, I was too tired to want to wreck havoc on the town. I think many felt that way and we ended up chilling a lot and not doing much. --SitaraneMirtillosmile
 * I missed Spanish participants at the meeting! Maybe this shows that we should focus on peer--promotion rather than promotion to the drivers (or in the Country in general)?Mirtillosmile
 * Because people where busy with cooking/cleaning/dumpster diving or just relaxing, I missed participation in the workshops! I also missed the creation of a facilitation team (let's say a core team) that would help with the general organization (also by proposing workshops). Mirtillosmile
 * Robin :) --atopia

what I wish for next year:
 * More action there. --SitaraneMirtillosmile
 * A facilitation team.Mirtillosmile
 * A spirit of spending more time together (although I appreciate small groups and self-organisation) --atopia
 * 500 participants! --Astikain
 * A combination of pr-planned work-shops (and activities) (story telling, boat-hitching) and self-organized ones (Dumpster diving). Why not invite people from whatever country / location the gathering is taking place to give some work shops or run activities (history of place, language, culture, joint activities).
 * Photo Story telling - Ask Travellers to bring one printed picture of them on the road / of a driver / hitchhiking - and during the gathering at s specific workshop = ask them to tell the story around it. Put pictures on one board with Hitchhikers name after workshop so as people can put names to faces.
 * Relevant bushcraft demos o, e.g. foraging, identifying eatables while on the road.
 * Yoga for hitchhikers! How and why?
 * Psychology - There must be must psych students who can teach some techniques for motivation, patience, courage, trust etc!
 * What gear to bring while hitchhiking (tarp, no jeans, map etc)
 * How to cook roadkill? Skinning, cooking, eating?
 * Rough Camping - Where to camp, tent v hammock etc
 * Road recipes - what food to eat, where to get it etc
 * How to build a hobo stove / kettle!
 * A women only workshop?
 * Having just got back into hitchhiking, I think it would be a good idea to ask during registration, if particiapnts could do a workshop and maybe have a list of workshops that would be useful. Also might be good to invite some notable hitchhikers or people from locality of gathering who have particular skills (i.e outdoor enthusiasts who might have knowledge on camping) to do a workshop?
 * There are now nearly a dozen books about / based on Hitchhiking (i.e. http://followtheroad.com/en/media/book/). Why not invite these authors to give a presentation / Questions and Answers session (and they they an opportunity to sell/sign their books).

Organization/Coordination/Facilitation (on the place and before)
What I appreciated:
 * many people gave power and time to organize this meeting.Mirtillosmile
 * The huge website improvement in comparison with 789. Mirtillosmile
 * Huge thank you for organizers of the pre-meetings!!! --Astikain

What I missed:
 * Clear responsibilities (there is a point about power and so on, but responsibility is not the same than hierarchie and also necessary to get things done). Overview and informations about what was going on beside the meetings. It was hard to connect if you missed a meeting.I missed also a community feeling and some "action energy". We talked about much things, sometimes everyone agrees, but no one was moving, thats sad. Mirtillosmile
 * Flyers at the gathering and in the hitchhikers' hands on the road! Mirtillosmile
 * An even closer integration between wobsite and organisation and an integrated wiki. Hitchwiki, irc(!) and mailing list are still too far away from the website experience. atopia

what I wish for next year:
 * To know who is doing what and to have clear who is responsible for what, so things can be organized faster and easier. I would wish to have more exchange and less discussion in the common circle. I would also wish to have a kind of blackboard where we publish informations, workshops, requests, slogans, ideas, whatever.  I would wish myself more room and possibilities for creative methods (this has to be organized before and not during the gathering). For example, i facilitate in an open space in april and there we make kinda post box with a camera, where people can create messages to themselves and to the world, safe emotions or thoughts and so on.  I would wish to make the contact list directly in a laptop!!! not do the same mistake the third time again! Mirtillosmile
 * an easy way to keep track of emails of the participants so that people can stay in touch. Mirtillosmile
 * Pre-printed name tags with a brief introduction of the person and his bakcground, interests and skills would be great for quicker socializing! This info could already be at the website but also on physical name tags on the spot. --Astikain
 * Home-groups: divide the participants randomly in international groups of 7-10 people and organize a few getting-to-know-each-other activities for them. (not necessarily the same people who hitched together) --Astikain
 * Pre-planned quality discussions on topics of interest, ranging from "Wikileaks and media 2.0" to "Anarchism in the 21st century" and from "Asian foods" to "Washington Concensus" (without rejecting any idea beforehand as "too political" or uninteresting; keeping "the law of two feet"). Astikain
 * Some post-gathering follow-up: remind participants if they have photos, upload them. The photos are a great promotional tool. If everyone uploaded them to Flickr and tagged them with 'hitchgathering', 'hitchwiki' and 'hitchhiking', I am sure participation would go up.

On the road (experiences?)
What I appreciated:
 * Having a place to stay in Lyon, Barcelona. The hardest and most exhausting hitchhiking was between Lyon & Barcelona (many hhikers on the road and too much holiday traffic), so it was good to have a place to relax and (re)gain energy. n0id
 * Hearing from drivers (in Portugal) that they knew about the gathering from the radio etc. n0id
 * Hitchhiking in Spain and Portugal was amazing after all. --atopia

What I missed:
 * Bad experiences. --Astikain

what I wish for next year:
 * Dozens of people hitching together is fun! I would love to see kind of "festival on the road" (football, music, partying, whatnot). --Astikain

Comments
It would be nice for a better overview, if everyone could write his own evaluation and not just add comments to the existing frame. Just to see if there are several people with same opinions.

'''I've changed the frame: now people can comment on specific topics. In case you agree with something is already there, just add your name next to the sentence. I've also moved the previous comments under the relative topic. Hope it is fine, if not, restore it from the history :)'''

Thats also what i wanted to avoid. Everyone should find it´s own words for evaluation and not tag his name to some existing sentences. You miss much potential by this way. But on the other hand it makes things easier and we have a better overview. So thanks for this! :)


 * Mirtillosmile, thank you for getting this started. --atopia