Last evening I led a session for the Minnesota Chapter of the International Coach Federation. My mission was to help a small group of coaches learn more about planning meetings.
The meeting was held at The Marsh in The Dragon Room.
As I entered the building, I walked by two exercise studios that had group exercise classes in session. I sat in the lobby for a few minutes because I arrived early. I noticed how nice the place smelled. No sweaty, workout stench hung in the air at The Marsh. I wish it would smell this good at the Y, where I work out.
The room was good size, perhaps even a bit large for the number of people who were present. It was square with high ceilings and exposed beams. There was plenty of open wall space for hanging flip chart paper. It was a beautiful room.
It was a good room for a meeting, with once exception. The room’s acoustics were mushy. As I listened to the group take care of some business prior to my presentation, I noticed people’s voices were really hard to understand. It wasn’t that the volume didn’t carry, but rather voices just seemed muddled.
With participants divided between 4 round tables and a plan to do a lot of interaction, I was suddenly concerned that people wouldn’t be able to understand what someone from another table had said. And as for myself, I paid attention to my enunciation.
Somewhere in that high ceiling there was sound scrambler. It would be interesting to know if anyone else noticed it.
On my way out, I grabbed a cookie for the ride home. It was good one, allowing my concerns about acoustics to fade with the setting sun over the adjacent marsh.
Overall, The Marsh provided a pleasant meeting environment, but came up shy on this one functional detail.