This year, the Yui Team started off with 10 members. In preparation for this year’s WS, we began by doing research on collecting thoughts and comments from the participants of the “Yui’s Pottery Project” last year and the year before last.
As we now have more people, we split up into 2 teams and visited some of the participants’ homes, telephoned those that had moved out of Tsukuba, or had them come over to the university during the CR classes. We conducted our research and also enjoyed talking to them. While we were glad to hear that the participants enjoyed the WS last year and the year before last, some said that they would have rather made the dishes with someone they knew than they didn’t and giving the dishes away as a gift was a burden. Hearing directly these various opinions led us to feel the need to make improvements. At the same time, as 4 years have passed since the catastrophic earthquake, we found out that there have been changes or added complications in their individual lives and circumstances.
Along with the research, the members of the Yui Team actually carried out the “Yui’s Pottery” WS as a trial. Because we are a newly formed team, we were at first a little tense, but through the WS, we got the conversation going and had a good time making the Yui’s pottery.
As a result, we have decided on the new theme, which is “Creating a soft atmosphere — A dish that can’t be made alone.” We would like to continue discussing and decide on actual dates and details of the WS and how we would go about publicizing it. (Yoshida, 2nd Year at College of Agro-Biological Resource Science)