We can’t see, hear, and be everywhere during the retreat.

The best way to gather real and honest feedback is to have your women fill out a survey at the end of the retreat.

Having collected information at the retreat and after the retreat, I can tell you from experience you’ll get more responses if you can find a way to do your survey at the retreat.

As I mentioned in How to End Your Retreat, you may want to give your women time to reflect and complete a retreat survey at the end of your last retreat session.

The best retreat surveys are:

• Short and sweet
• Give women the opportunity to comment

I’ve included copy of one of the surveys we used below. Click to open the free PDF file.  Feel free to take and use what it helpful.

Fall Retreat Survey Sample

I also have a post on Seven Super Survey Questions that you may find helpful.

When offering a survey I want to find out:

• What worked well
• What we should do again
• What didn’t work
• What needs to be tweaked

Build your survey in a way that you’ll gather the information you are after.

Let’s be honest, shall we? Surveys open the door to hurting our feelings and the feelings of our team members. There’s a good chance you’ll get some feedback that may be hurtful, too honest, or just downright ugly.

Pray before you read through the responses. Ask God for wisdom to know which responses warrant your attention. Let your team weigh in and help you decide what adjustments should be made for the next retreat.

Can I suggest that you be careful not to discard comments you only received once? Some of your women aren’t going to say anything negative. If one person said they had a hard time hearing, you can almost be certain others did too. If one person felt the teaching sessions were too long, talk with your team about the length and decide together if in fact they were too long. Sometimes those comments come from your most insightful women.

I know you all want your women to have a wonderful retreat experience.

The only way to find out if your women had a great retreat experience is to ask and give them the opportunity to respond anonymously.

What other tips do you have for offering a retreat survey?