During the past months we have been sending a little anonymous survey to gather your thoughts and try to make Laneway Learning better for everyone. As before, we were amazed by the quantity and thoughtfulness of your replies! We are so grateful to everyone that took the time to give us a little bit of feedback, a suggestion for a class, offer to volunteer or a tip to make our venue better… we got so many fantastic ideas and it makes us very grateful to have such an amazing community. You are very generous and kind.
Some of your comments about why you keep coming made us cry happy tears… we are a very small team behind Laneway (it’s pretty much 2 staff with the help of our admin superstar and board) so we work hard to make everything happen. To have this ongoing encouragement from you just makes our hearts soar.
Of all the wonderful comments regarding your favourite moments with us, this one in particular stood out to us as it embodies what Laneway Learning is about: sharing knowledge and passions with others and learning while also spending time with family, old pals or new friends:
” Wow, really difficult to choose! When my sons were younger I would book them into classes that aligned with their interests e.g. F1 racing, roller coasters. Now that they’re older & working part time & studying we’ve attended Investing for Everyone. And plan to attend the songwriting class with my younger son if it is re-offered! I have also attended an origami wrapping class w my God daughter! I can therefore not single out one class. I am always in awe of the presenters incredible generosity in sharing their wisdom, knowledge & passion with us! ”
Thank you!
Now that we have had time to organise the replies, it’s our turn to buckle down and get to work! Here are some areas we are working on:
More suburb classes
We are looking into re-opening St Kilda or starting Footscray as per your suggestions.
Venues
We are looking at what venues suit you best and how to make them even more Laneway. We love you suggestion of having music while waiting so we will look into that. We are also working on better heating and lighting for all our venues and have sewn some more “lap blankies” for everyone at LL Central.
Booking system
We are working on bettering our online booking system following your ideas. Some of the features we hope to unveil soon will be booking several classes on one go, reducing emails, more payment options and improved usability.
Class topic suggestions
Regarding class suggestions you’d like to learn with us, there were so many and so varied we were truly amazed. Some, as much as we would love to, are a bit complicated for us to run such as parallel parking (maybe with toy cars?) but here is just a sample of the many things you’d like to learn about: Bread-making, glass bead making, pottery ceramic, sporty classes such as cricket, democratic participation, clothing alterations, music-related things, “adulting” classes, how to fix basic things on a bicycle or car, self sufficiency, cinematography, woodworking, house decoration/design, ethnic cooking classes, Australian history, passive house principles, how to curate a wardrobe, how to make a straw hat, wicker baskets, larger resin projects, marbling, leather goods, wok cooking, bird identification, bonsai, permaculture, Medieval and Renaissance history/ literature, power, presence, authority, head scarves and various ways to wear them, board game “Go”…
We’ll get going trying to find teachers but if you know anyone that could teach any of these, tell them to get in touch!
If you have more suggestions or feedback and you want to let us know, Maria our general manager is always keen to have a chat. You can email her here.