SAMPLE FIELD NOTES (names changed)
FIELD NOTES FOR MEETING #1
We had great success today! I went into the meeting hoping to do some sort of environmental project
since it’s summer quarter . I thought a project outdoors would be nice. I ended up not even suggesting
this since Susie brought up Children’s hospital. She mentioned that the kids didn’t have many toys in
their toy box and the ones they did have were not the greatest. I immediately loved where she was
going with the idea. How could you not want to help put a smile on a child’s face who is facing an
illnesses or injury and going through some pretty scary stuff? After a balanced discussion between the
four of us, we came up with the following plan and weekly goals:
Week 2: Amanda will draft a corporate letter for us to give to businesses we would like to ask to donate
toys. June will draft a personal letter for us to give to friends and family asking for their contributions.
Samantha and I will offer input and help edit the letters. All four of us (soon to be five as soon as we fill
our absent teammate in on the plan) will compile a list of 5 businesses and unlimited friends and family
to donate toys to Children’s. We will also all create a Skype account this week since we will meet online
every other week.
Week 3: Meet on Skype to check in and adjust goals. We will compare lists to make sure there are no
duplicate businesses. We will finalize and compile our letters and get ready to hand them out.
Week 4: Meet in person. Check in with how handing out letters went. Begin compiling a list of toys
collected and addresses for thank you notes. Reassess goals and set new ones.
Week 5: Meet on Skype. Agenda TBD depending on whether we are on course with our plan or need to
make adjustments.
Week 6: Meet at Children’s hospital to present toys. Kayleigh, our talented photographer, will take
photos of the toy bin before and after for our power point presentation and for thank you cards. And
possibly take photos of the kids with the toys (if permissible). I will then create thanks you notes for all
donors including one or some of our photos.
Week 7: Create power point presentation. I think we are planning to collaboratively work on this
throughout the quarter so we are not overwhelmed at the end. We set our deadline for submission this
week to give us some time for glitches and adjustments.
Agenda questions and observations as group communicators:
We spent the first fifteen minutes or so getting to know each other by asking/reminding each other of
what we are going to school for and what we currently do. We found out that we have a lot in common
and are interested in health/helping professions. I have no doubt or concern in trusting this group.
Everyone contributed and demonstrated passion for doing our best work and displayed sincere
openness to all ideas.
Our group norms are to meet once a week on Monday afternoons (alternating in-person and on
Skype). We exchanged emails and opened ourselves up to correspondence throughout the
week to bounce ideas/drafts/questions/concerns off of each other.
I think “roles” are still to be determined since we have only met once and haven’t really fallen
into roles yet. We did assign tasks but I felt like we all evenly participated. Susie has kind of
fallen into a leader role since she works at Children’s and will organize our delivery.
7/11/2011
FIELD NOTES MEETING #2
(week 3)
Today was our first online group meeting. We decided to use Skype and for the most part it worked out.
We had couple of connection issues, but despite those, we had a successful meeting and got everything
accomplished within the hour. We met our new group member Bridgette and filled her in on our
project idea.
We did end up adjusting our weekly goals since we realized that the businesses might want something
they can use for a tax break from their donations. Samantha looked into and found out that she needs
to fill out a form to get a code for us to hand to businesses. Because of this, we decided to concentrate
on handing out only our personal letters this week and waiting until we have the tax info to approach
businesses.
During this meeting, we also compared our list of businesses to be sure we weren’t doubling up on any.
Finally, we talked a little about our Individual Member profiles and decided to share them with each
other through email thinking this might be a good way to get to know each other better.
FIELD NOTES MEETING #3
(week 4)
Today we met again in person and checked in to see how the toy collecting was going with our friends
and families. It seemed like we all had similar results. Lots of people said they’d be happy to get some
gently used toys off of their hands and help us and Children’s Hospital out. It seems like we are going to
end up with a lot of toys…maybe more than we need. We discussed what to do with extra toys if this
happens. We also talked about a strategy for getting the toys to Children’s and where and how we will
all meet. The last thing we talked about was our power point presentation layout and decided to assign
sections of the power point to each member of the group. Our rough layout will be: Introduction of the
group and how we chose our project (Samantha) Descriptions of the experience of collection and how
they differed between personal and businesses (Bridgette) , Drop off day (June), Results and conclusion
(Amanda). Susie will be responsible for piecing it all together.
7/25/2011
Field Notes
Meeting #4
(week 5)
Today our group met on Skype to check in and share our experiences with approaching businesses
about toy donations. I had to miss the meeting because of a work conflict but was brought up to speed
through email. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been handing out letters to local toys stores and
explaining our project. I’ve gone to Top Ten Toys, Ibizza toys in Wallingford, Dragon Box in the Market,
and Kids on 45th. So far two stores have donated and the other two said they may not have toys ready
by this Sunday. (Our drop off is planned for Monday) This has been my first obstacle with the
businesses. I decided to tell them that this Sunday would be ideal but I understand if that is unrealistic
and would still accept them at a later day. I’m thinking I can just make another trip to Children’s as soon
as get them. Our group also discussed the meeting time and place for Monday.
8/1/2011
Field Notes
Meeting #5
(week 6)
Today we loaded our cars with all the toys we had collected (mine looked like Santa’s sleigh) and met up
at Children’s to drop the toys off. We definitely had more than could fit into the toybox! It was a really
fun experience going through all the toys as a group and with the staff members. We also learned that
they take some of the stuffed animals and actually amputate a leg to give to the kids who have to go
through amputations themselves. They also have a Dora doll that they use to put stitches in to show
the kids that it’s not so bad. We got a Diego doll to go with Dora so that was pretty funny. We
wandered around the hospital for a bit taking photos and checking things out. It was nice bonding time
for our group. At the end of the meeting, we reviewed our plan to each make a power point slide or two
explaining our project. We will get together next Monday to put all the slides together, revise and add
pictures. We discussed getting together over the next week or two to create thank you notes for
everyone who donated toys and helped aide in a successful project and a community need.
8/8/2011
FIELD NOTES
MEETING #6
(WEEK 7)
Today we met in person to put together our power point presentation. Last week we assigned sections
of the power point and we all brought them to the meeting. We integrated all of our photos from
Children’s Hospital and our ideas and put the power point together. We tried to clearly express both
how we met a community need and also noting the aspects of working together as a small group
contributed to our success. We noted that meeting in person every other week was instrumental in
getting to know each other and build trust. We set weekly goals. We respected each other by letting all
voices be heard by listening and taking turns. We shared our experiences while collecting the toys and
decided to all contribute a personal statement about something we learned or that moved us during the
process for the power point.
Today the girls also provided me with names and addresses of companies and friends who donated toys
and stuffed animals. I put together thank you notes for them and sent them out.
Field Notes #7
(Week Eight)
Over the weekend, we all created a short personal reflection about our group project and the
experience to add to the power point. We met today at 2:30pm via Skype to go over the final power
point together. Unfortunately, we ran into some obstacles. The file was too big to send to each of us
and would have taken hours to download. We put our heads together to brainstorm solutions. We
thought about maybe removing the pictures and then reattaching them once we all received it. But we
still couldn’t figure out how we could submit it for the rest of the class to read. Another idea we tried
was to send the power point in sections of six slides. None of these options were working for us so
Amanda suggested it could be the specific computer’s issue. She offered to have Leigh send it to her
w/out the pictures, reattach them, then try to send it to all of us from a different computer. This is the
biggest obstacle we have had to face as a group and the thing that constantly worries me. We spent so
much time putting together a creative and thorough power point presentation and technology is holding
us back. It’s frustrating, but we are still staying calm and just trying to figure something out. We
decided meet again tonight on Skype at 8:30pm to see if a different computer will help and if not, figure
something else out.
Susie was able to miraculously figure out a way to get the power point to us! We are all very relieved
and decided that we no longer needed to have second meeting since the crisis had been averted. We all
went over the completed power point, loved it, thanked June and wished each other the best of luck
with future endeavors. I had a great experience with these girls. I admire them and feel like I learned
new things about communicating, about myself in a group dynamic of strangers, about hard work and
about computers. I am happy to have met them and worked with them.