Feb 25th

[joel lazarus]

Dear all,

The free university network national meeting is less than a month away.
I think the need to agree an agenda for the day is growing.

I think I need others to really take the lead here for two main reasons. First, there are people with incomparably greater knowledge and experience of alternative higher education than me. Second, my wife is due to give birth any day so my world is just about to go from a 'just about managing' level of busy to a level significantly higher than that!

All I felt personally able to do was to see if there was demand for a national meeting and to provide the impetus to get people connected and talking about it. My motivation was to try to help build networks of communication and interaction between people participating in and interested in free universities/alternative higher education because I want the movement to grow and, from a practical perspective, I want people to share and learn from their ideas and experiences so we can make the learning/development curve steeper and avoid duplicating efforts and mistakes.
Therefore, all I'd personally say with regard to the day's agenda is that I'd like to see perhaps an opportunity for all groups represented  to tell others about themselves and their experiences and for all participants to pick out and discuss/debate the common themes.
A second element would be a discussion on how to build a national network/movement and some kind of document of shared principles and objectives.

Thanks
Joel