Question 6: Please rate the Affinity Group as the core community for your experience at Inward Bound:

Poor	OK	Good	Very good	Outstanding
1	2	3	4	5

Number of responses: 123
Avg Response: 3.86 (quite close to “Very Good”)

Question 7: Please rate the Cup of Trembling as a theme/conversation starter:

Bad choice	OK choice	Good choice	Very good choice	Home run
1	2	3	4	5

Number of responses: 123
Avg Response: 3.25 ( slightly better than “Good choice”)

Question 8: General comments about The Cup of Trembling:

Stats
Positive: 27 comments (31%)
Negative: 27 comments (31%)
Mixed: 27 comments (31%)
Info: 7 comments (9%)

Total: 88 comments

Positive
It’s quite hard to find a pattern here. A list of some of the most interesting / extraordinary things said can be found in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Negative
Most of these comments related to being bothered/offended by the religious/Christian context of the article. Of the remainder, most just didn’t think it was the best, most clear article choice or that it was too ambitious in one weekend. Full breakdown with examples available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Mixed
Full breakdown of mixed responses available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Conclusion: The Cup of Trembling article, although framed in an explicitly Judeo/Christian context, was not chosen for this reason. Rather, it was felt that this article was outstanding because it spoke to universal human themes that would apply to anyone on a path to greater self-understanding, deliberate living, and spirituality. However, it’s quite clear that this could have been better and more consistently addressed. Even better, an article which touched on the same points but which avoided placing itself in the context of a particular religious tradition would have solved more problems than it created. The majority of respondents ultimately had positive experiences based on the discussions inspired by the Cup of Trembling article, though some were in spite of the article rather than because of it. Very useful feedback for future activities.

Question 9: General feedback on the overall Affinity Group experience:

Stats
Positive: 53 comments (61.5%)
Negative: 12 comments (14%)
Info: 11 comments (13%)
Mixed: 10 comments (11.5%)

Total: 86 comments

Positive
The only thing to say about this is that the positive comments were extremely positive. Some representative examples:

• best part of conference
• It was INCREDIBLE...WOW!!
• I loved it and felt extremely fortunate to be a part of this group
• Great, the most meaningful self-discoveries came out of it
• Awesome, awe-inspiring
• could not have been better
• More examples available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Of the negative comments,

• 4 felt the groups would’ve worked better had they been smaller
• 2 were abjectly negative (e.g. “unrewarding and a waste of my time” or saying facilitator tried to manipulate them, was very ineffective, “and I am very appalled”)
• 2 felt uncomfortable, unwelcomed, marginalized
• More examples available in the Full Eval Survey Report.

Conclusion: Overall, people rated the affinity groups quite highly. The positive comments tended to be superlative, and the negative comments were partly about group size being too large. On the other hand, there were also a few very unhappy people. The info category reiterated concerns about group size and the Mixed category was just that; a mixed bag of qualifiers for folks who generally acknowledged that it was overall a good experience.