“That’s true, Vic, thank you. Maybe both the orientation and Q&As should mention these things at the beginning of their sessions. Getting it out of the way will help focus questions on the material covered.”
“Good idea, Prof. I’ll let Wendy know in our hand-off call, and I’ll also forward that to the rest of the Council for the week. Next topic, was it helpful for you to have the orientation material printed off for easy reference, or is having an electronic copy sufficient?”
“Electronic is okay to have as it makes it easy to do a quick word search. But honestly, I loved having it in hardcopy. I appreciate you binding everything in one large folder and putting in tabs, so I could quickly flip to the section. Three panels per page was fine, it was legible, and I didn’t need to squint to see.”
“Thanks, Tiko. Anyone else?”
“I agree, I liked having it in hardcopy too. I actually made notes on my pages, so the next group can’t use it, sorry.”
“That’s okay, Libby. I asked Dani to make enough for the first two days. I just wanted to get feedback before I have more binders printed for the rest of the week. Everyone has their binder or has placed it in the secured recycle bin, correct? I just don’t want the materials to mysteriously walk out unless it’s in your hand. I mean, we went to such effort to contain the information until the end of the week.”
“I still have my binder, I’d like to keep it, actually.” Everyone agrees with Libby, so I give the okay for them to keep the binders.
“Okay, did anything stand out to you from the first two sessions? Anything asked that isn’t covered in the tour or orientation and isn’t related to consultations or categorical info meetings?”
“Actually, quite a few people were apprehensive about picking their own fruits and vegetables. They felt comfortable purchasing fresh food from a market or grocery store or just using canned or frozen food. But picking it themselves, not so much.”
“Jay, we definitely can’t cover that during orientation day. But if you want to do a quick video of you picking a carrot and post it to the website, be my guest.”
“Ha-ha, Vic. Not what I was getting at. Professor Biobaku, you’re on the Welcome TouchVoyant committee. Do you think having a get together at the community garden to demonstrate and practice this would also work as a ‘Welcome’ social event? I always feel less shy meeting people if I have something to do.”
“Yes, Jay, I think that is a fine idea. Sharon will be the perfect one to plan and execute such a thing. She grew up on a farm in Nigeria and loves the fact that we have land to farm here, though the crops are a bit different, of course. Ben will roll his eyes but help her demonstrate. He’s a teenager and cannot be seen to enjoy anything, though I know he loves to garden.”
“Sounds great, Professor Biobaku. The new residents currently have food to last them through Sunday, and we can start using the community garden on Saturday, but we also have our police Psycept orientation going on this weekend. I think we can move some content around so we can set aside Saturday morning for whatever Sharon plans. Vic, we need to swap our full-day Saturday and half-day Sunday training to accommodate this. And, Jay, can you move the catered lunch to Sunday?”
“Jay and I will work on rearranging the training and have it to you Wednesday for approval, Gray. But we’ll change the times now and let the trainees know that Sunday is now a full day too. And Jay will handle the Sunday lunch.”
“Thanks, Vic. There’s only 350 TouchVoyant new residents. I think giving Sharon the week to plan whatever is manageable, though she’ll want to get started planning right away. You have the list of new TouchVoyants, correct Prof? We’ll need to send out an invite for Saturday morning social ASAP.”
“Yes, we have the list. I’ll talk to her about it when I get home so she can begin working right away. What about the other categories and gardening, though, Gray?”
“Good, idea. I’ll let the Council know that we TouchVoyants are planning an event Saturday morning in the community garden. They can do their thing later Saturday or anytime Sunday if they wish to. Since our new resident group isn’t too large, we might be able to have another group join us. I’ll give them Sharon’s information so she can coordinate, if that’s okay. They know that we have police Psycept case training this weekend, so should be good with us calling dibs.”
“I just texted Sharon to grab a Saturday morning spot on the community garden calendar.”
“Great, thank you. Is that it from the Q&A questions? Was it okay to have just four people in the sessions when one of you came to help me in orientation? I want to make sure everything was adequately covered.”
“Vic, Jay and I were in the Q&A sessions the whole time. I didn’t notice any hardships when Libby or Professor Biobaku left the room. What about you, Jay?”
“Tiko’s right, it went pretty well. It wasn’t difficult, just a little more walking when we were down by a person.”
“Great. Is there anything else you want to cover? I’m about to give Wendy the hand-off call, then provide feedback to the Council. The surveys have been collected and will be scanned and collated tomorrow. I’ll have that information Wednesday if you want to read the comments. Otherwise, I’ll see you Saturday morning.”
Our group breaks up as I call Wendy. I give her a few suggestions about the orientation sessions as well as our tidbits of advice regarding Q&A time. It’s a brief call as we both still have things to do, me to wrap up and Wendy to finalize details with her people for the next day.
After the
