Course talk:LFS350/Projects/2014W1/T8/Proposal

So we are now entering the home stretch!

Over the past week we completed the data analysis for both of our surveys (current CSF members and potential CSF members). We conducted surveys of potential CSF members at both Whole Foods on Cambie and Save-On-Foods on the UBC campus; individuals completed our online survey using an iPad. We are still hoping to send out the online survey (of potential CSF members) through the UBC Farm newsletter on December 1. Although we won't be able to include this data in our report, we will give the raw data to Skipper's and they can use it to supplement the data that we've analyzed.

We delivered our final presentation on November 26 and were happy that Emma Holmes from Skipper's was able to attend. Skipper Otto's has been a fantastic community partner and we have really enjoyed working with them.

We are currently finishing up our final report and working on revising the existing script for an informational video about Skipper Otto's.

Tasks completed: 1) Analysis of in person survey's and survey monkey data continued 2) New idea to gather more data by doing an in person survey's at Whole Foods on Saturday morning while shoppers are entering the store 3) Continued work on the final project and presentation for next week. 4) Decision to renew survey monkey for one more month to get more data to give to Skipper's

Problems encountered: UBC newsletter went out without the link to our survey. We are not sure if there is another newsletter coming out this season, we may have missed the opportunity to get more results for our survey monkey.

Upcoming: 1) Analyze the Whole Foods in person survey results 2) continue working on presentation and final project

Tasks completed: 1) we analysed the in-person surveys 2) we started the introduction part and method part for the final report

Problems encountered: big concern about the survey monkey for the UBC farm email list, the UBC farm newsletter sent out on November 17th without our survey monkey link attached to it

Things need to be discussed: 1)should we wait for the survey to be sending out to the UBC farm email list, then change the method section? 2) what other sections should we start on while we are waiting for the online survey?

Overview of this week's progress:

• finalized the online survey.
• sending out the finalized survey to UBC Farm and Living Oceans today.
• continuing collecting data for the in person survey of CSF members every Thursday.
• changed project background description in the survey.
• confirmation to put skippers ottos and CSF link on the thank you page of the survey.

Problems encountered:

• UBC farm sent out their weekly update email earlier in the week than planned, hopefully they also send out an additional email this week containing our survey!

Overview of completed work:

• This week has been important in finalizing our plans to start collecting data for research project
• We have confirmed that we can send our survey out in the UBC Farm newsletter which will hopefully give us a large pool of data
• Continued to perform our in person surveys
• Finalized our project proposal and submitted it
• We have also now made the final changes to our online survey so that it can be sent out this week

The main problem we encountered this week was deciding the best format for our survey. Due to the feedback from our test subjects we decided that some our questions needed to be formatted differently to make them clearer.

Considering the progress we have made this week, before our next meeting our objectives are:

• Final testing for the online survey to make sure it is ready to be sent out
• Choose tasks to complete on the timeline, meet with partners for group tasks
• Confirm that the survey is going well as it will run for a week starting on the 6th of November and close on the 12th of November

Over the past week we have made good progress with our project! Here is a short overview of some of the work we have done:

• Our in-person interview questions for current CSF members were approved by our CP! Because of this, we tested the questions for the first time this week at the Thursday night fish pickup at Fisherman's Wharf. We believe the questions were worded properly and that the survey was the right length, although we only got five responses because it was a 'slow' night at the fish pickup.
• We've heard back from both of our contacts regarding sending our online surveys. Also, the UBC Farm has agreed to send out the survey with their weekly newsletter! We are planning to send it out next week.
• Volunteering at the fish pickups has proven to be an awesome opportunity to learn more about our community partner, especially things we wouldn't event think to ask about!
• After lots of discussion over the past week, as well as guidance from Kieran during our Wednesday tutorial session, we now have a working version of our online survey! We are testing it out this weekend to see if it is worded properly and if it makes sense for other people too.

Problems encountered:

• One of the mailing lists for our online survey might be too small to collect data from, so we are hoping to send the survey out to a different membership list that has more people.
• We would really like to know how many people overall (both mailing lists) will be receiving our online survey, so we can estimate how many responses we will get, and know if this is enough data for our project.
• Because we have already made two surveys (in-person CSF member & online prospective member), and will have to not only collect data for the in-person member surveys, but also analyze data from both of them, we have concluded that doing in-person non-member surveys is not realistic, given our timeframe. However, because these surveys were initially suggested, we will be discussing this with our CP to get this approved.

In light of what we have done over the past week, our objectives over the weekend are:

• get the online survey tested by friends and family
• finish final edits on the proposal
• send edits to Kieran and CP for approval

That's all for now and our next meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 29.

Tasks completed:

1) We worked on fixing up the online survey questions.

• Edited and deleted questions
• Reworded them

2) We came up with a timeline for the surveys.

• Start in person surveys Oct. 23 - Nov. 6 (add an additional week if not enough respondents)
• Send out online survey through UBC farm email list by the latest Oct. 30 (hopefully Oct. 23)
• Give respondents a week to respond
• Have the online survey ready for editing and feedback from the TA and community partner on Monday (Oct. 20)

3) Emailed UBC farms to ask about sending out the online survey

4) Decided on who will be the second person to go to Thursday pick-ups to conduct in person surveys

5) Discussed our feedback from Kieran about our proposal

Problems encountered:

• Waiting for feedback from the community partner
• Coming up with concise and relevant choices and questions to our survey
• Understanding how the approval of the wiki works (sending it to TA and community partner)

Things discussed for upcoming meeting:

• Meeting on Monday (Oct. 20) to finalize survey questions
• Send updates to group members and have them look over the survey questions
• Can work on the proposal and make the changes based on the TA feedback if there's time

EMAIL RECEIVED FROM SONIA OCTOBER 1, 2014:

Hi Allison!

Mostly, we'd like you to focus on non-members rather than our own members. We send out several surveys to our members and don't want to spam them. Another email survey will frustrate our members and probably not yield many replies anyway. Also, the people we are most interested in are those who aren't currently members but could become members. We want to know what are the barriers to joining the CSF. Is it confusing? Do they not "get" the model? How could we help them "get it." Do they not have freezer space?

Some people to target are people at

- the False Creek Fisherman's Wharf/ Go Fish Restaurant/ Granville Island

- Farmer's Markets, - at CSA pick-ups - at wild salmon and seafood events, - through the Living Ocean's Society's mailing list (they surveyed prospective CSF members and have a list of people who were interested in joining a potential CSF.

This survey doesn't need to focus on workshop related questions, more on the barriers to joining. We are surveying our members right now and have asked them questions related to workshops.

One thing I just thought of today that might be a useful way to get data from existing members would be to survey members in person at a pick-up. If you could come up with a short list of questions which would take roughly 5 minutes for members to address in person, I'd feel comfortable with you hanging around and approaching members at pick-ups or markets and asking them in person rather than emailing or calling them. I'd like you to make clear you who you are -- that you are students in this specific program doing a research project -- and then ask them just roughly 3-4 very specific questions about what things they found confusing before they became members, what are reasons that they think are barriers for their friend to join. I don't want this to target ways they want to see us improve their CSF experience, but rather for them, as CSF members, to think back to the time before they joined and try to remember what was confusing to them, what were reasons they were perhaps not going to join, what information or what materials helped them make the decision to join, what would have helped at that time when they were trying to understand how the CSF worked and trying to make the decision about joining. I think it might be challenging to get this kind of data from non-members as they may not understand how the CSF works, but that is also a useful resource if we can get them to understand it and then get them to articulate what are/ were barriers to joining?

October 8 Group members met up and created survey questions according to Sonia's suggestions/guidance:

We started our survey questions:
1. for CSF members
2. for potential CFS members

Problems we encountered:
-wording
-questions that link to our purpose
-creating concise and clear questions
-ordering of the questions
-plans to finish up and revise our questions and sending it back to Sonia for approval

Things discussed today for the upcoming meetings:
-next meeting time (next Wednesday: Oct 15)
-discussing feedback we receive from Sonia regarding the survey questions
-determining who will be going to the Thursday pick-ups to conduct survey question (Min: 2 people at a time)

On October 1, following our proposal presentation, we received feedback on our proposal from Sonia Strobel, Managing Director of Skipper Otto's CSF (see e-mail below). We therefore needed to modify our proposal based on Sonia's suggestions.

From: Sonia Strobel <sonia@skipperotto.ca>
Date: October 1, 2014 at 3:31:58 PM PDT
To: amartin52001@yahoo.ca
Cc: Emma Holmes <emma@skipperotto.ca>
Subject: Re: Proposal

Hi Allison,

Thanks for the link to your proposal! We enjoyed reading it and we're really impressed with the work you've done! We're excited to work with your group. I have some big picture feedback, as well as some minor little edits to your proposal.

We didn't realize until the meeting with you how research based the project should be. When we spoke with the coordinator, we initially talked about an education based project where you would make some online resources for us. We understand now that this doesn't fit in with your program, and although your project to research food based workshops in Vancouver sounds interesting, it's not super relevant for our needs.

Through a grant from UBC, we were able to run a workshop program this past spring and summer where we gained a lot of information about cost, duration, and timing for workshops. Both what is realistic for us, and what our members want. The problem is that, in order for workshops to economically viable for us, we need to charge more than our members want to pay. So, for us, it would be more relevant if you would focus your project on the second research question.

Mostly, we'd like you to focus on non-members rather than our own members. We send out several surveys to our members and don't want to spam them. Another email survey will frustrate our members and probably not yield many replies anyway. Also, the people we are most interested in are those who aren't currently members but could become members. We want to know what are the barriers to joining the CSF. Is it confusing? Do they not "get" the model? How could we help them "get it." Do they not have freezer space?

Some people to target are people at
- the False Creek Fisherman's Wharf/ Go Fish Restaurant/ Granville Island
- Farmer's Markets,
- at CSA pick-ups
- at wild salmon and seafood events,
- through the Living Ocean's Society's mailing list (they surveyed prospective CSF members and have a list of people who were interested in joining a potential CSF.

This survey doesn't need to focus on workshop related questions, more on the barriers to joining. We are surveying our members right now and have asked them questions related to workshops.

One thing I just thought of today that might be a useful way to get data from existing members would be to survey members in person at a pick-up. If you could come up with a short list of questions which would take roughly 5 minutes for members to address in person, I'd feel comfortable with you hanging around and approaching members at pick-ups or markets and asking them in person rather than emailing or calling them. I'd like you to make clear you who you are -- that you are students in this specific program doing a research project -- and then ask them just roughly 3-4 very specific questions about what things they found confusing before they became members, what are reasons that they think are barriers for their friend to join. I don't want this to target ways they want to see us improve their CSF experience, but rather for them, as CSF members, to think back to the time before they joined and try to remember what was confusing to them, what were reasons they were perhaps not going to join, what information or what materials helped them make the decision to join, what would have helped at that time when they were trying to understand how the CSF worked and trying to make the decision about joining. I think it might be challenging to get this kind of data from non-members as they may not understand how the CSF works, but that is also a useful resource if we can get them to understand it and then get them to articulate what are/ were barriers to joining?

Some minor details:

"They are transforming the way in which seafood is produced, consumed, and valued by creating a direct connection between local fishermen, and consumers" is quoted as Will Valley, but he got it from some of our own copy, so it is actually our quote. Please attribute it to Skipper Otto's CSF.

We aren't in Manitoba - only as far as Alberta and Saskatchewan.

I hope this feedback is helpful and please let us know how things continue to unfold!

Sonia