Welcome back,
To update you on what we have been up to here is our Weekly Objectives and Achievements:
January 30, 2017
This week began with a bit of a bump in the road. Our group had just begun to discuss formulating our proposal, when we were alerted to the fact that our first blog post had received an extremely low grade. Now both our proposal and our revised first blog post needed attention. We ended up splitting the work load down the middle, with half the group going back to fix up our blog and the other half working on our proposal.
We had a lot of objectives for this week:
1. Complete edits on blog post 1.
2. Visit our community partner (the Richmond Food Bank) for the first time and meet with our contacts to ask some questions and gain more direction for our project.
3. Create a rough draft of our proposal for next week.
February 6, 2017
The meeting with the Richmond Food Bank (RFB) went very well, and our group decided upon conducting a food utilization survey of the RFB’s clients.
Our first blog post had been revised and we were eagerly awaiting our new mark.
We handed in our completed proposal rough draft and received some feedback. We experienced a great deal of uncertainty while reviewing the proposal and the feedback we received, but discussed it at length, and decided upon some revisions.
We agreed that it would be best to avoid a survey, and instead settled on a more interpersonal approach of conducting interviews where clients could express more of an opinion.
The main objective for this week was to complete the revisions of our proposal and submit it by the due date. Here is a PDF of the Final Project Proposal.
February 13, 2017
This week we had a flexible learning session, so our group primarily communicated online. We received some great news in that our first blog post mark had been raised to good standing.
We had submitted our proposal on time and everything was going smoothly, so we turned our attention to formulating our interview questions which was this week’s objective.
February 20, 2017
We achieved the previous week’s objective and have a rough draft of interview questions to show to our contacts at the RFB.
This week our objective is to complete blog post 2, and next our group will meet to discuss when we should go to the RFB to conduct some interviews.
Although we had some bumpy beginnings, this week we are all feeling positive and are eager to continue our work on this project.
With this look into our past we can use Rolfe et al.’s (2001) reflective model to prepare for the future:
What
The greatest moment of significance so far with our group was our first meeting with our community parter, the Richmond Food Bank (RFB). Three members of our group were able to go to their main distribution location and meet with our contact to discuss the goals and expectations of our project. We came prepared with questions about how the Food Bank functions, their clientele, and some of the challenges they face.
So What
This meeting was very significant to us, not only because of all the information we were able to obtain, but also because it was our first in person interaction with the community partner at their location. We discovered that they were particularly concerned about the utilization of the food they were giving out, and their demographic. They said this was important to them as they wanted to make sure that the foods they are giving are appropriate for their target population in that they are able to incorporate them easily into their diet. Through this meeting, we were also able to communicate to RFB our specific goals for the project and highlight our group’s interest in nutrition and food justice. With this new found focus, we were able to brainstorm question ideas with our community partner, and discuss the best approach for interviewing the clients. Lastly, this was a significant experience because it was the first time that 2 of our group members had been to the RBF distribution location. Being able to see exactly how the food is given out and the RFB environment is crucial to guide our questions and prepare us for interacting with the clientele.
Now What
Both the information and experience of this meeting will affect our actions throughout the project. Having a solid direction and a sample of interview questions will help us create a final template for the client interviews. Additionally, receiving tips about how to conduct the research means that we will go into the interview process and be more successful. An example of this is that we are now planning to make baked goods to compensate the interviewees for their time, which is something that we hadn’t planned to do earlier. After meeting with the RFB, we also came up with a few more questions to fill in any gaps regarding ethics, and daily operations. This information will guide us the create a suitable set of questions and conduct the interviews in an ethical manner. Most importantly, from this meeting, we now have a real relationship with our community partner and feel comfortable communicating our concerns, questions, and ideas. This new relationship and quest for more information will hopefully lead us to gain all the information necessary for a successful project.
Our near future objectives & strategies to achieve them:
We are currently in the works to make a proper interview format. A google document is open to all group members to review proposed questions and suggest edits. Also, a weekly e-mail is sent to RFB to ensure that our edits to the document is appropriate.
References