The Affinity Group experience was intended to be the central and most important part of the Inward Bound experience. Consequently, it was given more time (over a full day of the 2.5 day event) than any other activity. It was in this context that students were to hopefully get their most direct, experiential taste of spirituality/self-exploration/self-honesty and spiritual community.

Below is a brief summary of the results of the survey on the Affinity Groups. Click here for the full report.

Question 1: What was the most memorable or most valuable aspect of your experience with your Affinity Group?

The responses generally fell into a few major categories. People found the following, in the following proportions, to be their most memorable or most valuable experience.

Depth/Authenticity/Honesty/Intensity—47 comments (36%)
Community—43 comments (33%)
Exposure to New Ideas/People—23 (18%)
Facilitator—9 (7%)
Negative—4 (3%)

More detailed explanations and examples of the items above are in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Conclusion
The person who first evaluated these surveys created the categories above based on the most common responses he found. What he didn't know—but we were excited to discover later—was that these categories almost directly parallel the original goals for the Inward Bound experience, and the Affinity Group experience in particular. These two goals for Inward Bound map very closely to the top-two categories above (Depth/Authenticity/ Honesty/Intensity and Community). More detailed explanations are in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Question 2: In terms of your Affinity Group, please rate your facilitator:

Ineffective	Somewhat effective	Effective	Very effective	Mind-blowing
1	2	3	4	5

Number of responses: 125
Avg Response: 3.82 (nearly "Very Effective")

Question 3: General comments about your facilitator:

Statistics
Positive: 67 comments (68%)
Mixed, but generally good: 18 comments (18%)
Negative: 13 comments (13%)

Total comments: 98

Full breakdown with sample quotes available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Conclusion: Overall, students rated their facilitators highly. Even the "Mixed" comments were on the positive side. Although a small minority had a negative experience according to the surveys we received, some of those who did have them tended to be vehemently unhappy and this is something to seriously analyze and consider. Our goal with Inward Bound was to reach everyone and give them a positive experience. Although the majority of people seemed to have a very positive experience, it is highly important for us to find a way to address the strongly negative reactions that a few people had.

Question 4: In terms of your Affinity Group, please rate the openness and honesty of your Affinity Group colleagues:

Closed off	Mildly open	Open and honest	Very open and honest	Open throttle
1	2	3	4	5

Number of responses: 121
Avg Response: 3.95 ("Very Open and honest")

Question 5: General comments about your Affinity Group colleagues:

Stats Positive: 64 comments (71%)
Negative: 11 comments (12%)
Mixed: 9 comments (10%)
Statements: 6 comments (7%)

Total: 90 comments

Positive
These were a significant majority of the responses and they tended to be gushing. Some common ones: great, fantastic, awesome, Genuine, open, honest, best thing about conference.

And also some notable ones:

• I was so impressed with the honesty and beauty of the group—many things came up that no one had imagined.
• They are a terrific set of people and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch.
• At first we didn't work well together...we didn't even finish the mission statement. Yesterday and today we were laughing, crying, meditating, singing in silence together.
• very different backgrounds and beliefs—but all open-minded and accepting and b/c of that, we were all able to open up and get to the bottom of our issues (which is why we came here). Most of them were outstanding.
• It was like a family
• More quotes available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

• 4 comments were on group structure (too large, too similar, no ground rules, etc)
• 3 comments were about disappointment that group didn't get deep / open enough
• 3 comments were about being unhappy with other group members (1 about not being comfortable opening up to their group and another about the group being "closeminded, biased, and ignorant" and 1 thought the conference was "anti-catholic" and found his group "trite and ungrounded" and the whole conference to be a sham)
• More quotes available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Interesting Some of the comments were just interesting. You can see them in…you guessed it…the Full Eval Survey Report.

Conclusion: On the whole, the comments were exceedingly positive. Many of those that were negative or mixed were out of disappointment that the group didn't get deeper or didn't have more time together.