We ran the Survey Monkey poll of how we are doing as a support group. It is very gratifying to report that there was a good response to this. We would like to disseminate a summary of the findings revealed by the answers you gave us. Before we get into it, we would like to thank all those who responded. Your responses, opinions and comments help us enormously in shaping the Foundation of the future.
We asked: If the services we provide meet the needs of your family
You said: “They do” with an average of 3.8 on a scale 1-5. The highest percentage (36%) gave the strongest “agree” rating of 5, with a 4 rating second at 30%
We will: Continue to speak to you all to see how we can improve this
We asked: If conferences are useful and informative
You said: Nearly 50% of you strongly agreed that they are, with only 4% disagreeing
We will: Continually look at the weekend format for improvements
We asked: How often do you attend conferences?
You said: 36% said when in your local area, 25% every few years. 10% have never attended
We will: Fine tune the rotation of areas to try and increase frequency for each area. Interestingly, we reviewed where conference delegates come from and found that actually, a lot of people will travel outside their local area
We asked: What are the most important facilities we offer at conference?
You said: Far and away, the most important were, Doctor Consults, Doctor Presentations, Workshops, Childcare, Socialising and the Cost of the weekends. It was also very clear that everything – and every delegate being all in the same venue is paramount
We will: Revise our criteria in searching for suitable hotels, think outside the box on catering, treat aspects like spa facilities, location and proximity to airports as less important which we hope will broaden our choices
We asked: Your preferred means of getting information
You said: 86% of you specified our website with our magazine Reaching Out close behind. The Facebook page was a strong third. Of course, the Office was named strongly
We will: We are already embarked on a revamp of the website but this will be a long term project. The new Treatment Guidelines are something that will probably appear before any redesign/restructure but they are coming
Other questions about contacting us, paying a conference registration fee and how much showed that there are no problems in these areas. Almost unanimous in reaching us easily and happy to pay at the level we have pretty much already set. The questions that required specific comments were not, by and large, responded to anything like as much. What comments we received were virtually all positive.
Our thanks go to all who took part. This feedback is very useful in helping to shape the Foundation of the future.