by Kym Witney-Soanes, Senior Consultant

Being a first timer at the AES conference my goal was simple - to immerse myself in the bath of evaluation! I participated for one full day and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I took the opportunity to just chat with anyone who was nearby and met some very interesting and diverse people. People worked in very different fields, but all were there to learn more about evaluation. This expanded network may prove useful to me in the future.

Through the sessions I enjoyed learning about the use of photographs in conducting evaluations in foreign countries and giving a voice to children; a historical perspective of the Federal government’s attitude to evaluation (not as boring as it sounds I confess); conducting evaluations with Indigenous participants; social network analysis (still not too sure about this approach); and finally planning to set up an evaluation framework for the ‘enormous beast’ that is CSIRO. After spending what remained of the day bonding with colleagues and the key note speaker about the stereotypical native fauna of Australia and the USA, I certainly slept well that night! A full day lived indeed….