Life Less Literary

I took part in my first ever focus group tonight. I’m a Friend of Sheffield Galleries and Museums, and they chose about ten of us at random to come in and talk about the galleries and the friends’ scheme.

I’ve always been fashionably cynical about focus groups, but tonight was actually a really great experience in many ways. Firstly, it was nice that everyone else there was more-or-less in agreement with me on a wide range of topics, many of which I’d assumed represented just my own peculiar views (for example that the Mappin Gallery, now closed, was so much better than the horrendously over-hyped Millennium Galleries; that the cheap-and-cheerful café at the Graves Gallery is likewise better than the trying-to-be-modern-but-not-putting-in-enough-effort restaurant at the Millennium Galleries; that the members’ events are over-priced and elitist; and much much more). Secondly, it was just really nice chatting about this stuff in an open environment. And finally, and most importantly, it felt like tonight we really made a difference: we brought to light many things which hadn’t been considered; our consensus opinion made it clear that we needed to be listened to; and the proposed new membership scheme, which seems to have been the raison d’etre for this focus group, is a terrible idea which will only serve to increase the elitism and keep more members from attending special events. It certainly felt like our views were taken on board, and as a result any future changes to the membership scheme are likely to be radically different from the ones they had been planning. (Famous last words…)