As we look back on the past 12 months, we’re finishing the year on something of a high.
We’ve gone from meeting at the Gladstone, to meeting at CSI, to now convening at The Drake Hotel. Attendance numbers are rising every so slightly each time and the reach of our newsletter is growing. We supported #hohoto (the summer edition) by donating to the Daily Bread Food Bank, and raised $400 for War Child at the Refresh Summer Social. We’ve held two workshops, and have recently announced a third. And finally, we were fortunate enough to be part of Net Change Week.
But with all these great moments and accomplishments…
We haven’t stayed true to our word.
Refresh Events started as a community for web designers and developers. For front-line workers in the digital media industry. For those that work in the trenches. Looking back at the programming we’ve offered, we didn’t stay true to our vision. We instead opted to offer content that wasn’t part of our mandate in order to fill rooms. I always believed in quality over quantity; I sacrificed that in order to get as many people as possible into a room. That won’t happen in 2010.
Does that mean we won’t ever talk about social media or entrepreneurship ever again? No, of course not. But we are going to focus less on these topics. There are plenty of great organizations that provide this type of programming already, and we certainly don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.
What we are interested in focusing on is those topics that we set out to cover: web design, application development, information architecture, accessibility and other topics of this nature.
So, what’s next?
Over the holidays, we are taking a look at Refresh Events from a number of perspectives, including whether or not there exists provincial/federal funding or grants programs that we can apply for to keep the organization going.
I’m confident that we’ll emerge in 2010 stronger, and with a clearer vision for the future of this organization and the community.
We’ll see you in the new year.
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