Evaluation of the conference Creative Community Planning

The international conference “Creative community planning” took place in Pilsen from the 5^th till the 7^th of November 2009. The conference was aimed at sharing experience in the public participation in city planning and using Future City Game method. More then 100 people from 14 counties all around Europe registered for the conference.

Participants rated the conference very positively. It met expectation of 80 % of participants, 84 % of participants considered it to be a high quality conference. Almost all participants are interested in other opportunities for meeting people from the whole of Europe. They would like to receive information about similar actions. Culture and social field are the main spheres of their interest.
These numbers came from 62 filled-in evaluation questionnaires which we collected.

What benefit did participants expect to gain from taking part in the conference?

The most usual answers were:

• Exchange of experience with community and landscape planning.
• Getting information about the Future City Game method.
• Sharing of experience - how to organise Future City Game, looking for “best practice” in using Future City Game method.
• Meeting other Game masters, experience exchange.
• Meeting new people from Europe, networking, getting contacts and inspiration for work.

How could similar conference be improved in the future?

Participants suggested for example:

• More information about the Future City Game and its organisation for those who haven’t participated in the game.
• More space for discussions about community planning, its effective methods and processes, common looking for best practise.
• Not so busy day programme, more focused programme to deepen the theme.
• More variety in workshop organisation, better prepared workshops and facilitators.
• Better keeping time of presentations.
• More lectures of experts, involving of expert public and city representatives
• Working papers distribution before the conference.
• More free time and breaks to look around the place/city of the conference.

We would like to thank all conference participants for active engagement in the conference programme, their remarks, contribution to discussions and feed back.

If you have any comment on the conference or “Creative Community Planning – European Citizens Network’ project which is implemented with the support of the ‘Europe for Citizens’ Programme please contact us (e-mail: alena.lehmannova@cpkp.cz). We will be pleased to publish your message here.