Übersetzer/Translator:

WORLD EDUCATION FELLOWSHIP INTERNATIONAL

: To Section Representatives of the Guiding Committee

From Christine Wykes (Chair)

24th March 2014

Greetings to you all. I am writing to outline some proposals for the international aspects of WEF. This comes after a difficult 18 months. After the enforced curtailment of the Japan International Conference not surprisingly things were subdued taking account of the hard work and expense which had gone into planning and arranging the conference. Our hearts went out to our friends in Japan. However other events followed which had a direct impact on the working of the Guiding Committee. Our General Secretary, Lupita Turner, had an illness and was unable to carry out any WEF business; Dr. Klaus Neuberg who has been such a staunch and helpful supporter through the years was ill and sadly died in November 2012; Professor David Turner, our Treasurer and Electronic Secretary retired and spent months working in China. With these key people out of action it was not possible to move ahead over that period.

Thankfully matters are beginning to be resolved and I have held weekly meetings with Lupita and David in the past month. It was very good that at the first meeting Dr. Priti Sachdev from India and Beth Rankin from Australia were in London and were able to join us at the home of Annie Neuberg.

Those of you who have been associated with WEF over many years know of the good times of fellowship we have enjoyed and its value to educational thinking. In our recent meetings we have tried to put together proposals for moving forward international aspects and influences. We bear in mind that the backbone of WEF is its sections. These have declined in number over the years and several are currently in recess. However some strong or moderately strong sections exist and remain committed to international linkage. The Guiding Committee (GC) comprises one representative from each section and four co-opted members plus the office holders. The GC is the linkage to the sections whilst at the same time relies on information flow from the sections.

PROPOSALS

We propose that a quarterly newsletter from the GC would help this information flow, keep us up to date on what is happening and encourage working between sections.

The international conferences have long been a successful tool for our international work. We propose that we should initiate again a biennial conference holding the next one in say 15 months. As usual the GC would offer financial support to a section for taking on the task of hosting the conference. This funding could then be partially returned for future use from conference fees.

We propose that we institute discussions on educational topics on the WEB. David Turner is already working with Adda Macchich and has set up a blog on the WEF-international website. We hope to establish a discussion about topics that have been of historic interest in WEF, but in a way that will be open to discussants from outside and hopefully attract new people in. We hope to establish a first strand about the role of play in education. The success of this project will depend on making a start and getting contributions. (Have a look at Blog ) If you wish to see other strands added to the blog, let us know what would appeal to you, and what you think might attract in people who have yet to know about us.

A further suggestion is that we might identify books for reading groups across sections and have inter-section collaboration on these.

Do please consider these proposals, perhaps add to them and give feed-back. We shall arrange for a GC in July and an AGM on the same day.

With very best wishes,

Christine Wykes

Chairman - The World Education Fellowship

P.S. sent by Guadalupe G de TURNER (Lupita), General Secretary,

Please pay attention to Christine and David to new emails: