As the festival season in Kerry draws to close it is vitally important for organisers and their volunteers to take stock of the successes, and challenges they encountered.
It is understandably tempting to think of hibernating until Spring but to do so would miss a genuine opportunity for organisers to debrief and have an enhanced 2016 event. In Kerry we are blessed to have a plethora of festivals, events and activities, some of which include the Bealtaine Festival, Valentia Isle Festival, Puck Fair, The Rose of Tralee International Festival, Listowel Writers’ Week, Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival and Dan Paddy Andy Match Making Festival. These local festivals and events exist mainly due to the determined efforts of their volunteers and enormous forward planning.
The intention behind hosting debrief sessions is positive, they are conducted with key players to enable forward planning by listening, gathering feedback, recording observations and identifying recommendations.
Debrief session with Volunteers
Having conducted an initial mini informal debrief on the last day/night, immediately at the end of your event or festival, a reminder notice of the formal debrief session and its importance to future volunteer engagement and the event’s sustainability is outlined. The initial mini debrief is important as it allows you the opportunity to check in with your Volunteers and thank them for their involvement.
The formal debriefing with your volunteers is a valuable way to learn about and address issues that arose during the event and demonstrate your commitment to valuing Volunteers. Getting people together after the occasion to brain storm can afford you the chance to analyse any areas of concern, capitalise on your strengths and learn from any mistakes that might have been made.
During such meetings, to gain a better understanding of any issues, it is important take on board the feedback given by your Volunteers. Focus on the project, not the individual person. Don’t allow the discussion to be side tracked and leave people feeling the meeting was a waste of their time. It is important to set an agenda and stick to it, the session is neither set up for personal complaints or self-congratulating individuals. The highs and lows of the experience all add up to creating a great discussion within the realms of the questions on your agenda and in the long run will help to make next year’s event or festival even better.
Your agenda should be carefully considered prior to the meeting to try and include questions that are relevant to your particular event or festival. Here is an example of questions offered as a guide only to give you an idea of a potential agenda:
• Did we have enough volunteers?
It is often after an event that you may realise you needed for example more stewards to direct traffic or more hands to help with the clean up afterwards perhaps. Or you may have had too many Volunteers and ended up feeling underutilised and bored.
• Did anyone have trouble with issues like accessing refreshments, parking, traffic and getting to their post on time?
This is an area where volunteers will have had either a really positive or negative experience depending on your forward planning, for example there may not have been enough parking dedicated to volunteers so they ended up having to park far away resulting in them being late.
• How was communication during the event?
Communication is key to the smooth running of a successful event, especially regarding any back up needing an immediate response. Did you have enough ear pieces and walky-talkies for volunteers? Were they all working?
• With the great turn out for the event did everyone manage to get their allocated break/lunch?
Volunteers are not robots, they need breaks whether they want them or not! Sometimes Volunteers can be enjoying what they are doing so much that they forgot to take a break, ensure that everyone takes an adequate break and enough food and water is available.
• Did anyone experience any health and safety issues that need to be addressed next year?
Health and safety is of the utmost importance and should not be overlooked afterwards. You, as the event organiser may not have been aware during the event of an issue that happened so it is important to ask afterward if any issues arose, identify how these issues were resolved and how to prevent it from reoccurring in the future.
• Did any volunteers not turn up?
For some reason or another a volunteer might not show up. It is important to keep a list of the names of the Volunteers that got involved, what duties they undertook and how many hours they did. This will enable you to identify if each Volunteer fulfilled their role description and if perhaps their role description needs to be amended for the following year. For more information read our Blog on Creating a Volunteer role description.
• What parts of the event went well?
This gives everyone a chance to say how they enjoyed it and what areas they feel were successful.
• Were there any environmental issues such as stands, lighting, seating, set up etc. that need to be addressed?
Volunteer observations here can offer an insight into how wisely resources were allocated. If for example, a Volunteer is stewarding at an event they might have found that there wasn’t enough lighting in a certain area.
• Was there enough support available and offered to volunteers?
This issue needs to be discussed and support services and personnel contact details need to be provided to all Volunteers.
Don’t let your debriefing session be hijacked by conversations or lengthy explanations as to why something happened or who was to blame. A debriefing session is all about identifying issues that arose and identifying recommendation for the following year’s event.
Formal Debrief meeting with the Emergency Services and Local Authority
An additional formal debrief should be arranged with the Community Liaison Officers from the emergency services. It is essential after the event to get their feedback in order to review the effectiveness of the events safety strategy, to identify any health and safety issues which arose and plan for following year’s event.
The local authority representative officer, if appropriate, should be invited to attend this debrief meeting. Kerry County Council is a key player in any festival or event in Kerry and forming a good relationship with your local officer can prove beneficial when seeking advice or support in the future.
Final Note
Reserving time and energy to debrief after an event or festival, regardless of its size, is a sound investment of your limited time and energy. If you do not reflect on this year’s array of experiences there will be no new learning. Without appropriate debriefing, mistakes and challenges will only be compounded next year, until ultimately, your event or festival will be stifled. Debriefing is a gift worth giving to yourself, it will enable your organisations plus its event to thrive, moreover you will become a magnet for new and existing volunteers.
Written by Wendy Brosnahan
