Debriefing of June 17-19 Arts Conference in Paris

This afternoon Jim Beise, Jono Bevan, Beth Maynard, Mark Dirksen, and I met to debrief about the recent arts conference in Paris. All in all, we were all pleased with the conference, especially
-the depth of Colin Harbinson's talks. (Earlier blog entries contain summaries of a couple of them).
-the excellent translation into French by Perrine Dufoix.
-the wonderful Saturday night meal prepared by Jono and served by some volunteers from Wheaton College and others and the opportunity that this meal and the Sunday lunch provided for fellowship between the artists.
-the beautiful milieu, the Reformed Church of the Marais in Paris and the support of its pastor Gilles Boucomont and the 3 British interns there.
-the fairly high number of professional artists who attended
-how God seemed to be moving in and through the conference, even without us necessarily feeling it at the time. Feedback has been positive.
-the beautiful weather that we had that weekend.

Areas for improvement for the future events are
-communication of the schedule (perhaps more precision on the web site of the events).
-the sound.
-decoration of the site.
-transportation and housing coordination.
-more interaction between the speaker and the participants.
-more French involvement in the conference organization and planning.

These are all areas where we need more people helping in the future. Fortunately, God brought Mark, Beth, the British interns at the church, and the Wheaton students just at the right time. God knew what we needed. I am amazed that our skeleten crew team was able to pull off a conference for 120+ participants. This was definitely a God-thing.

This type of teaching weekend is something that we would like to do again. This past one was like a stake in the ground for other weekends.

We plan on having a 5 week series of Thursday night Fonderie meetings beginning October 13. There also are a couple of other meetings for artists that are in the works, but under wrap for the time being. It should be an exciting year coming up.