'Occupy'
The following email exchanges have been made with Tent City at St Pauls....
Dear Tent City University Friends, Colleagues and Comrades,
Greetings, congratulations, admiration and support from the Raymond Williams Foundation.
You may, perhaps, have noticed our contributions to the some of the discussions you organised recently when you occupied the Guardian’s Comment is free site. The RWF website explains a bit about who we are and where we are coming from in relation to extending broadly-defined forms of educational debate and discussion in order to enhance democracy and inform forms of emancipatory education. Many of us involved in RWF have worked in areas of adult education with an explicit social and political purpose. The url is: http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/
As you will see from the website, we have been deliberately involved in developing newer / alternative forms of educational discussion through open democracy discussions circles, philosophy in pubs, the SciBar movement. In these ways – outside the formal educational institutions – we believe passionately in the sorts of open and accessible critical debates and discussions which you have been developing so spectacularly. We are interested, therefore, in exploring ways in which we can build common cause between our respective concerns.
In particular and very immediately, we will be holding a residential event near Sheffield next week (23 – 25 November) under the broad heading of ‘Politics and Philosophy Today’. Details are available on the RWF website and I also attach here the provisional timetable for the sessions we will be running, together with some of the notes we will be using for many of those sessions. It is worth stressing that these are not formal academic lectures or seminars; all sessions will be organised collaboratively and the issues raised in the discussion notes will be no more than a broad framework for those involved to make their own sense (individually and as a group) of the issues and the debates. In this sense everything is facilitative to enable those involved to access and develop ideas which are meaningful to them
in their own community contexts. We aim to anchor all ‘formal knowledge’ in the concerns and practices of those seeking to develop, in whatever way they can, a more just and democratic social and political economy.
Our approach is, we trust, very much line with your own approach to learning at Tent City University. Indeed, your own endeavours over recent weeks clearly set a major context in which we need to shape our own discussions and the over-arching agenda for everyone involved in these forms of social learning.
We would be interested to explore with you whether there are ways in which we can make some links between our discussions at our residential next and your programme of discussions at Occupy LSX / Tent City University.
a) We are very happy for you to take any / all of our discussion notes / topics and use them as a focus for discussions which you may facilitate over next week.
b) We would also welcome any input you feel you could make to our own consideration of how these forms of socially engaged discussion can develop. How can these sorts of networks be extended and sustained? In what ways can the political / educational traditions and values we have relate to the experienced and practice that you have about embedding these issues in practical actions for much-needed social / political / ideological change. It would be wonderful, for example, if we could find a way to effect some sort of dialogue / exchange of ideas and concerns, between the RWF residential and Tent City University next Weds through to Friday.
c) If there is an interest in trying to use such an opportunity to widen our respective debates beyond those immediately present at our respective events, how can that commitment to common cause be enabled in practice. Specifically, would you be interested in trying to set up some form of online forum / chat room next week, which we can all access, as a space for doing this sort of sharing next week, not just on specific topics, but also on what we see as the options for taking forward our various commitments in the broadly-defined educational arena? I doubt whether full, synchronous tele-conferencing is an option. But with a bit of web creativity, we may be able to set up some sort of asynchronous facility where we can
share ideas as they emerge and explore overlaps in our respective discussions. Would it be feasible for such a common space to be created on / through Tent City University?We do appreciate that you have a whole host of pressing issues to engage with, and we do not wish in any way to muscle in our hi-jack your agenda. It is more a case of exploring, in the light of our own endeavours in alternative forms of learning for democracy, how your own experience can be supported and extended.
If any of this strikes a chord, do please get in touch. For ease of initial communication, it may be best to reply to me, but do please cc all the others who will receive this email – not least because Bob and Patrick are our own online wizards, and Derek is a pivotal colleague in so many of these issues.
With all our very best wishes,
We look forward to hearing from you
In full solidarity,
Julian (Batsleer)
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: DAVID WHALLEY <davidp.whalley@btinternet.com>
To: Tent City University <tentcityuniversity@gmail.com>
Cc: Derek Tatton <derektatton@btinternet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 8 November, 2011 15:15:23
Subject: Fw: Event Submission Form [#59]
From: DAVID WHALLEY <davidp.whalley@btinternet.com>
To: Tent City University <tentcityuniversity@gmail.com>
Cc: Derek Tatton <derektatton@btinternet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 8 November, 2011 15:15:23
Subject: Fw: Event Submission Form [#59]
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