What's a cultural asset? - collecting POVs of the local decision-makers in Armidale-Uralla

As the first stage of the research in Armidale-Uralla we are surveying local residents from September to November on local cultural assets - that is, what they themselves make, buy and value and also what they 'show-off' to visitors.

I have designed, tested, re-designed etc... a questionnaire for the past few months - until people most recently filling it in for pre-testing began to report that they both understood the questions and that they could complete it in around 10 minutes. One or two even said it was "fun to fill in".

It was ready.

At our research team meeting last week, Tom O'Connor, General Manager of Uralla Shire, had a great idea: why don't we survey the local "decision-makers" (Councillors, senior local gov management, and other key individuals in cultural policy/planning decisions) separately so we can compare their 'shopping list' of local cultural assets to the list from the 'General Public' (aka, the common people).

So we are doing it. Started on Monday.

And through (what Jim Walmsley called) the "not very high-tech but very tried and true social research method" of a questionnaire photocopied on different coloured paper (pink, we agreed).

What will we find? Will the lists be similar?

What do you think?