Let us first refresh memory of what the Grundtvig Project is all about.

The consortium represents the European Network around Appreciative Inquiry and Strength Based Change and seeks to strengthen the work already carried out in this network as well as ensure the dissemination and exploitation of the learning and development beyond the network – specifically aiming at adult education.

Through... conferences ... best practices will be discussed, methods shared and linked to theoretical approaches. Along side with these conferences three educational teams will work in close cooperation, focusing on collecting the outcomes of the conferences and creating each their product to disseminate and exploit the results of the conferences......

As the network consists of over 500 people working with adult education the impact will be wide. These people will gain new knowledge, insight, and capacities and be empowered to take the methods further in their work in the adult education field and will pass on tools to other adult educators."

Read a more thorough description of the project and programme in this earlier post

Last weekend the Grundtvig project partners met in Manchester, to get the project going again.  The purpose of the meeting was threefold.

First of all, we had to reconnect after our first project meeting, last January, in Apeldoorn, Netherland. The many technical requirements of the European Commission and the illness of one of the partners caused a rescheduling of all the activities of the project, and the partners thus had to agree how to proceed.

Secondly, the first big event of the project had to be connected to the next European network meeting in Manchester, beginning of November.

Thirdly, two of the projects so-called development teams had to start drafting their plans for the project. Ideas had to be worked out for a digital learning environment and for the projects’ main publication.   

The meeting laid a strong trust base in the team and many ideas were further worked out:

• A rough sketch for a publication, online and as a book, which will be a sort of toolkit for AI and strength based approaches for adult education organisations and practitioners
• Tools and structures for the digital learning environment that will add functionality to the European network home page (these two will be interlinked)
• The projects web site, with information about aims, objectives, activities, partners, etc.
• How the project website and the network site will be connected
• The preparation for the next network meeting in Manchester Nove 2-4, which is the first big conference of the project
• How to select 30 practitioners for the conference, which will get their travel and stay covered by the projects funding
• Decision making in the project team
• Monitoring and evaluation of the project progress and final results
• And much more 

During July a project website will be launched and the network will be noticed when this happens.

The site will contain a project blog and access to ongoing project information, and will enable dialogue.  If you have any questions until then, feel free to contact the project team.

The partners are

P1 TNO Management Consultants, Netherlands (Lead Partner) - Annet van de Wetering wetering@tmc.tno.nl
P2 InDialogue, Netherlands - Yvor Broer ybroer@in-dialogue.org
P3 IEDC Bled School of Management, Slovenia - Nadya Zhexembayeva  - Nadya.Zhexembayeva@iedc.si
P4 Brain Team Consulting, Italy - Mario Gastaldi mario.gastaldi@gmail.com
P5 Serendipity, Greece - Harris Vallasaglou, Aristofanis Tzallas tzallas@serendipityltd.eu
P6 MetaSpace, Sweden - Leif Josefsson leif.josefsson@gmail.com
P8 Manchester Business School, England - Ann Shacklady Smith - Ann.shacklady.smith@gmail.com
P9 Vejle Kommune, Denmark - Peter Sepstrup - PEKSE@vejle.dk