1st Fundraising Day in Fulda
1st Fundraising day in Fulda. Today was the day of the long workshop. They went from 10 to 4:30. Kind of incredible given the American experience of conference workshops that are always 1 hour long.
I was responsible for assisting the presenters in two rooms. Once everything was prepared I could attend one of them. My choices were: Virusmarketing and Creative techniques. Both sounded completely idiotic and the latter which I attended turned out to be so. The presenter was a woman from Koln, very proud to be from Koln. She talked about creativity, creativity and creativity. It was more creativity for idiots. She had us do some idiotic diagram exercises which I may explain later, went through simplistic right/left brain explanations and then proceeded to describe a brainstorming process. This process could perhaps be helpful for people who have never experienced such a session. She played music sometimes to put us in the creative mood and at the end she closed her eyes and chanted, yes, she chanted. Incredible.
She then had people conduct a brainstorming session following her method which she specifically said I could not participate in because I was not a full participant. Incredibly rude! I readily agreed and ended up leaving the room several times.
One interesting thing though that happened today was meeting an American presenter from SoCal. He gave a workshop on Budget Planning and one of the attendees in his workshop spoke to him about the lack of experienced fundraisers in Germany. The SoCal guy told him about me and later in the day I met him personally and did the old card exchange. Maybe the networking will lead to a job of sorts which would be great. (There are several Americans here giving presentations. I think they were contacted through the Center on Philanthropy in Indianapolis, Indiana. Several are from Indiana. So, if you want, you could register your willingness to talk about fundraising with the Center and maybe be hired by the German Fundraising Association.)
Besides this the hotel setup is similar to what you see in the States for fundraising conferences. Overpriced, too plush, a large room with tables of all the sponsors, giving away freebies, candy, fruit, etc. Another area with even more tables. Lots of suits milling around giving each other face time. Too much food, which wasn't really all that good. Tomorrow evening is the big party which I will report on. What fun!
I was responsible for assisting the presenters in two rooms. Once everything was prepared I could attend one of them. My choices were: Virusmarketing and Creative techniques. Both sounded completely idiotic and the latter which I attended turned out to be so. The presenter was a woman from Koln, very proud to be from Koln. She talked about creativity, creativity and creativity. It was more creativity for idiots. She had us do some idiotic diagram exercises which I may explain later, went through simplistic right/left brain explanations and then proceeded to describe a brainstorming process. This process could perhaps be helpful for people who have never experienced such a session. She played music sometimes to put us in the creative mood and at the end she closed her eyes and chanted, yes, she chanted. Incredible.
She then had people conduct a brainstorming session following her method which she specifically said I could not participate in because I was not a full participant. Incredibly rude! I readily agreed and ended up leaving the room several times.
One interesting thing though that happened today was meeting an American presenter from SoCal. He gave a workshop on Budget Planning and one of the attendees in his workshop spoke to him about the lack of experienced fundraisers in Germany. The SoCal guy told him about me and later in the day I met him personally and did the old card exchange. Maybe the networking will lead to a job of sorts which would be great. (There are several Americans here giving presentations. I think they were contacted through the Center on Philanthropy in Indianapolis, Indiana. Several are from Indiana. So, if you want, you could register your willingness to talk about fundraising with the Center and maybe be hired by the German Fundraising Association.)
Besides this the hotel setup is similar to what you see in the States for fundraising conferences. Overpriced, too plush, a large room with tables of all the sponsors, giving away freebies, candy, fruit, etc. Another area with even more tables. Lots of suits milling around giving each other face time. Too much food, which wasn't really all that good. Tomorrow evening is the big party which I will report on. What fun!
posted by paulmediaeye at 8:10 AM
1 Comments:
You should present a session on jackassery in fundraising and invite the creative person from Koln as your special guest example.
I remember when I didn't understand how to brainstorm. Then, I advanced to the 2nd grade and it was all clear.
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