Centenary Commission on Adult Education: Research Circle on fostering community, democracy and dialogue - May 9th 2025, 10.00 to 12.30 Free online event
Spaces and place of diverse arts, and the cultural imagination in lifelong and life wide dialogical learning. The contemporary and historical Potteries: a case study
The Research Circle on fostering community democracy and dialogue emerged from the work of the Centenary Commission on Adult Education, which reported on the current state of British adult education in 2019 and made recommendations for its reconstruction. Since 2020 the Research Circle has been motivated by the need for democratic and community-based egalitarian lifelong education as part of, and in association with, a range of working class and social movements in Britain and globally.
In our event on Stoke-on-Trent we engage with its recent history, inspirational historic role in the development of adult education, and contemporary experiences of culture and the arts. The event combines presentations from Professor Linden West and Clare White, members of the Research Circle, with discussion groups on making change and re-imagining lifelong learning. We will ask: ‘How do different forms of the arts – music, film and videomaking, photography, literary and poetic expression, storytelling, dance, drama, painting, sculpture, including their expression in the digital world - enrich the possibilities of lifelong and life wide learning?’ ‘What are the spaces and places – actual and desired - for these different forms of practice?’
To book a place please reply to iain_jones@icloud.com
The event will combine presentations from Professor Linden West and Clare White, members of the Research Circle, with discussion groups on making change and re-imagining lifelong learning.
Professor Linden West: Centenary thoughts: distress in a city, culture is ordinary and a democratic education.
Linden was born in Stoke, is Professor Emeritus at Canterbury Christ Church University, and author of Distress in the city, racism, fundamentalism and a democratic education. Linden is an award-winning international writer and researcher
Clare White with Centre Space Arts: A City in Distress? Life, Work and Culture in Times of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity (VUCA); 2015 to 2025
Clare has been an educator and research-practitioner since 2008 when she joined the Workers’ Educational Association following a career in journalism. Having grown up in and around Keele University and the Potteries, she returned to the city from London in 2005. She has a degree in History from UCL and an MBA in Educational Management & Leadership from Anglia Ruskin. Since September 2024, she has been combining her different areas of interest and specialisms into a freelance career which includes work with Centre Space Arts.
Centre Space Arts have been creating disruptive, innovative cultural projects in Stoke-on-Trent, and sometimes further afield, since 2013. The core team work with a dynamic collection of Associate Artists that bring their varied skills and global experience to a “slightly chaotic, endlessly creative family; a group that thrives on creating without boundaries or box-ticking.”
Space for discussion group/s
On May 9th we will bring groups together to identify resources of hope, for diverse forms of the arts and inclusive cultures, in radical lifelong and lifewide learning.
We hope you can join us
Sharon Clancy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: ‘Culture is Ordinary’: space and place for the arts in radical lifelong learning’.
Time: May 9, 2025 09:30 AM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86734368781?pwd=aDEGHsLVUY3dbhnjaOXicai9qmJeQz.1
Meeting ID: 867 3436 8781
Passcode: 896993
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Early Bird Tickets £9.50 -£19.50
For more information and to book
A uniquely immersive experience – in the company of guest speakers - visiting locations related to the life and works of Raymond Williams
About this event
Introduction
In the centenary year of his birth the Raymond Williams Centenary bus tour will offer a uniquely immersive experience – in the company of guest speakers and prominent writers – of biographical locations in south east Wales related to Williams whom philosopher and social critic Cornel West describes as:
“the last of the great European male revolutionary socialist intellectuals”
The Raymond Williams Centenary bus tour takes place on:
Saturday 15 October 2022
09.30-17.30
Format
The tour will start in Abergavenny and end in Cardiff at St Fagans Museum of Welsh History and transport will be provided. In between it will visit Williams’ birthplace Pandy and the crucible of industrial Wales, Merthyr Tydfil, stopping off at each.
Lunch will be provided.
The tone of the tour will be accessible, informal and non-academic. Reduced price tickets are available for students, unwaged, those aged 16-18 years, and recipients of Universal Credit.
The tour will call at Cardiff Central and Abergavenny stations at the end of the day for people to catch homebound trains.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship opportunities are available for organisations in all sectors who wish to express their support for Raymond Williams' influence . More details here. Contact Valleys Ale Trails on 07749 279481 or post@valleysaletrails.wales to discuss further.
Speakers
Speakers from the world of literature, media and politics will discuss in an accessible and non-academic way how Williams’ teachings and influence have shaped their work, and will invite those on the tour to consider Williams' teachings in the context of their own lives: their work and workplaces, cultural activity, community organising, and politics.
Writer, Guardian columnist and broadcaster Jude Rogers
Writer and teacher Darren Chetty
Former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood
More speakers will be announced
RECORDINGs OF THE ONLINE EVENT held on 17 May 2022
DIALOGUES FOR DEMOCRACY: CULTURES AND ECOLOGIES IN CRISIS’ - HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN COMMUNITIES: WHAT IS THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY ADULT EDUCATION?
DIALOGUES FOR DEMOCRACY: CULTURES AND ECOLOGIES IN CRISIS’ - HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN COMMUNITIES: WHAT IS THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY ADULT EDUCATION? took place on 17th May, 2022 from 1pm to 4pm. It was chaired by Professor Marjorie Mayo, Emeritus Professor in Community Development at Goldsmiths, University of London and featured a keynote from Professor Sir Michael G. Marmot, FRCP, Director of the University College London, Institute of Health Equity entitled ‘Build Back Fairer’. Following a Q and A session, this was followed by a presentation from Professor Helen Chatterjee, Professor of Biology, in University College London Biosciences and UCL Arts & Sciences, entitled ‘The role of cultural, community and natural assets in addressing societal and structural health inequalities in the UK’.
The final presentation was by Dr Ana Cruz, Professor of Education, St. Louis Community College, Meramec, U.S.A. Social & Behavioural Sciences Dept, Teacher Education Programme; Chair of 3rd International Conference Paulo Freire: The Global Legacy who spoke on ‘Paulo Freire's Political-Pedagogical Approach to Education: Questioning Inequalities Through Dialogue’. The event concluded with a discussion session. The videos are of each of the speakers’ presentations.
It is part of the activities of The Research Circle on ‘fostering community, democracy and dialogue’ which emerged from a key chapter in the CENTENARY COMMISSION REPORT ON ADULT EDUCATION (2019) on the importance of community-based, ‘popular’ adult education and social activism. It is the first of 3 events in 2022.
A RECORDING OF THE ONLINE EVENT held on 31 Aug 2021
A Celebration Of the Life and Work of Raymond Williams on his centenary - an RWF production
This is a recording of an online event by the RWF to celebrate the life of Raymond Williams on the centenary of his birth, 31st August 2021. Hear from a range of people who will contribute readings from his work, covering the key themes Williams explored in his life’s work, including culture and community, democracy, literature, ecology and education. Readers include - Colin Thomas, Film Director, Rhiam E Jones - broadcaster, Rhiannon White - Common Wealth Theatre Co, David Anderson - Amgueddfa Cymru/ National Museums Wales Sarah Lowndes - writer, curator, lecturer, Madawc Williams - Creator of 'Long Revolution - Twenty First Century Socialism' website and son of Raymond Williams, Prof Mary Joannou - Emerita Professor at Anglia Ruskin University