New Great Cambridge Crash Course Events for November 2023

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

Following the success of the pilot event on 30 September, combined with requests to explore specific issues in more depth, I’ve scheduled another set of events at Rock Road Library.

For those of you who want to get an idea of some of the things you might cover (because the conversations are led by the questions you throw at me and to each other), have a look at this video I made earlier this year.

So far trying to book other venues hasn’t been as easy as my local library that’s in walking distance from where I live. (A serious consideration given my disabilities). Given my desire to keep that momentum going along with the next round of Greater Cambridge Partnership public meetings coming up at the end of November / beginning of December (see the County Council’s meeting calendar here), I’ve put these together:

Upcoming events:

NEW SUBJECTS: The Government, and Urban Planning

Both the relationship between central and local government, and anything involving town planning (houses and buildings) and transport planning (roads, rail, cycleways) are inherently complex. There will only be so much we can cover in each workshop, hence I will try to keep them in the context of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire’s past, present, and future.

One thing I forgot to ask at the end of the last event was to invite everyone to commit to one small one-off action (eg if they’d not done it before, email their councillor about a local issue), or one small one-off behaviour change (e.g. committing to reading the local politics section of the Cambridge Independent every week to register what’s going on) as a result of participation.

The bigger picture – is Cambridge a learning city for those not in full time education, full time research or who working in STEM fields?

The previous blogposts relevant to this are:

The broad concept of continuing learning beyond our time in school/college/university – and doing so in a social environment is one that all of the above explore.

Gothenburg – city of lifelong learning – 1992

This paper from the above-mentioned congress in 1992 may be of interest

The chapter headings hint at some of the things Cambridge and Cambridgeshire could be doing better.

In particular, the recommendations from the report ask a series of questions (listed and expanded from p42 of the pdf document here). These are:

  1. Does your city effectively bring together all actors with an interest in lifelong learning? (i.e. not just vocational education for adults)
  2. How can learning for work, leisure, and personal development and for intellectual interest be better integrated?
  3. Can learning at different stages of the life cycle be better co-ordinated?
  4. Does learning reinforce or reduce inequality within the city?
  5. Is the public well-informed about the range of learning on offer in the city?
  6. Finally, are there ways in which your city can learn to influence its future? (“Greater participation in learning activities based around community development [Governance, and town / transport planning?] might increase the ability of a city’s inhabitants to plan their own destiny“)

Some of you may wish to compare what’s in that paper and follow that up with discussions with your county councillors, MPs (https://www.writetothem.com/) and even MP-candidates now that more of them are being announced.

Food for thought?

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:

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