Mary Emery from Lewis and Clark College and Dick Gardner from a Community Service Organization also helped with the facilitation.

While each team discussed the difficulties of meeting the attendance requirements, the overwhelming response to the workshop series was positive. Most teams mentioned that the first trainer/facilitator had a very heavy accent and was difficult to understand but still offered a worthwhile presentation. Once again, the Weippe team expressed more dissatisfaction than did the others and would have preferred using local trainers rather than outsiders. The remaining five teams, however, were pleased at the resource that the trainer represented.

According to one member of the Bovil team, the topic of Volunteer Recruitment had the most impact on her team and her community. "There was information presented in that workshop that we can use in every single community project from now on," she said.

Asset mapping was another workshop topic mentioned and the teams used a variety of methods to actually map or list the assets of their communities. Some held special work sessions back home, others brought in other community members to help or, in one case, some of the time and efforts of JTP A-funded youth workers were applied to the task of asset mapping and video-taping the workshops.

The Idaho Cluster brought several trainers back more than once. This made good sense for topics like Asset Mapping when the same trainer presented Part One and Two. Another pair of trainers returned for second workshops, too, and many team members commented positively on this. They felt that seeing the same trainer again was useful and that the match of trainer and their entire Cluster was a good one. The Steering Committee also made the decision that the last two workshops-for which they could choose the topics-would consist of only one presenter and one topic but presented for a longer session, and the team members also viewed this positively.

Technology demonstrations were uneven and many of them encountered difficulties with equipment or telephone connections; this was viewed with good humor by the participants but did take away from the impact of the demonstrations. In most cases, these demonstrations were offered as a precursor to the workshop and were not well attended.

Criticisms of the workshop series were mainly focused on this type of problem with the technology demonstrations or with the facilities in some way. A few team members were critical of the attendance requirement, but for the most part, agreed that a core group was necessary for project momentum. Some Steering Committee members discussed the attendance requirement in vague terms that might suggest some manipulation of the attendance documentation.

Evaluation Process

Master copies of evaluation forms were delivered to the Cluster evaluation representative. Copies were distributed to all participants at each Cluster meeting. Participants were asked to answer questions regarding arrangements, technology demonstration sessions, and primary sessions delivered by MIRA trainers.

Forms were returned to the Heartland Center for Leadership Development for processing. Numerical data were scanned and mechanically tabulated using specialized computer software. Written commentary was evaluated thematically, summarized and reported.

Participants in the Idaho Cluster of Community Teams were very friendly and helpful with the evaluation efforts. From the beginning when a Steering Committee member was named as the evaluation representative, communication was an easy task.

During the site visits, each team was very pleased to have Heartland Center staff in their towns and included tours along with sharing opinions and experiences. The teams were generally thoughtful when asked to consider their own team and how the group process worked. Several teams did ask for ideas about how to improve after identifying aproblem area.

The Steering Committee was less reflective about group process or structure. As a group, the Steering Committee was characterized by its great emphasis on task rather than maintenance.

The responsibilities of the workshops and timelines, at least for the first several months, took priority over any discussions about learning from group dynamics or improving group organization. However, as the workshops continued and became somewhat more routine, the Steering Committee was more willing to talk about itself as a group and to discuss ways to improve.

The Steering Committee did incorporate the evaluator's suggestions and that was to end each meeting with the question, how can we make our next meeting better? This was suggested as a means of making the Steering Committee more self-aware and open to improvements.

When asked to contribute questions for the evaluation, the Steering Committee engaged in a lively discussion about how to find out what teams were learning and how they might apply that new information to community problems. This session with the Steering Committee and several follow-up telephone calls helped to develop a series of questions that were appropriate to interviews with teams. While the Steering Committee did consult on the evaluation, none of the suggestions really differed from the content of the original proposed interview protocol. However, their help was very useful in developing the wording and timing of questions.

One aspect of the evaluation that was also useful to the Steering Committee was the summary of the on-site participant evaluations of the workshops. The subcommittees that worked on facilities and trainer selection found this information very helpful. For example, the first workshop did not include a microphone to support the trainer, who not only had a soft voice but an accent that many participants found difficult to understand. The AV support was never again a problem because of the feedback on the workshop evaluations.

It should be noted, however, that the workshop evaluations of the trainers were somewhat at odds with some of the comments from interviews. Trainers who had received excellent ratings were sometimes discussed in the interview setting with much more candor. Probing questions revealed some level of dissatisfaction that was not included in the written evaluation. Another puzzling factor was that the same trainer that was declared the best in the series by one team, was described as the worst by another team.

Within the evaluation interviews, very few criticisms of the MIRA project emerged. There were some suggestions for the next round such as support for participant travel and comments on the attendance requirement as too rigorous. But overall, the teams were appreciative of the innovative aspects of MIRA and many mentioned the importance of learning from Round 1 experiences.