Tom, Karl,

"Too formal" no, agreed, that would be bad, but having no visible
structure is not all good either.

Freedom is defined by its limits / rules / signposts.
"Loose-Tight" structures are what we need.

I need to read Karl's specifics .... before I can say more.
Ian

On 10/10/06, Thomas Clough Daffern <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> re formal structures etc.
>
> can I also suggest we avoid becoming too formal structure
>
> let us rather follow Heraclitus's wise advise
>
> THE HIDDEN HARMONY IS BEST
>
> that way wisdom is free to flow unimpeded where it wills...
>
> the network is the best idea
>
> but we could become a bnetworking of networks
>
> eg things like the scientific and medical network already exist
>
> and there are thousands more
>
> our website should contain links to them etc.
>
> best wishes to everyone
>
> thomas daffern
>
>
>
> Karl Rogers writes:
>
> > Dear Nick,
> >
> >   I am having another one of my insomnia nights, but my children are quietly asleep and so, I would like to share some thoughts with you about our progress on the FOW.
> >
> >   It seems that we now have two "irons in the fire": the conference and the journal.
> >
> >   (1) FOW Conference 2008:
> >
> >   It has been suggested that FOW becomes a charity or a society with fee paying membership in order to pay for things such as conferences. That would be one solution. However, I do not think that it is a good idea for the following practical reason:
> >
> >   If the FOW becomes a charity or a society with fee paying membership then it will need to hire the services of an administrator, an accountant, and a solicitor, as well as having to provide yearly accounts to donators, members, and the inland revenue. This will not only add a level of complication and expense, but I do not think that FOW has sufficient membership to warrant it, at least, not to date.
> >
> >   Of course, should you and other members decide to form FOW into a charity or society then I will happily contribute a modest donation and (providing the membership fee is reasonable) also become one of the fee paying members.
> >
> >   But, I do not think that this is the right way to go. I suggest that FOW remains a free association, based on voluntary contributions, as and when members see fit.
> >
> >   It seems that there is some consensus that London would be the best venue and, so far, I have not seen any objection to this. As soon as anyone volunteers to organise the hiring of a lecture theatre at one of the London universities or colleges and can let us know how much it will cost and if members could give some indication of whether they would be willing to attend, then I am sure that we will be able to calculate the per head cost of attendance. It shouldn't be too much, certainly not in comparison to travel and accommodation! Once we know this, it will simply be a matter of individual members sending their money to the organiser to book and hire the venue and then fending for themselves for travel and accommodation costs (even though it would be very helpful if one of the London based members volunteered to provide a list of clean budget hotels for prospective conference attendees.)
> >
> >   I would volunteer to organise the hiring of the venue but for two reasons. I will probably be back in South America next year and it would be impractical to organise hiring a London venue from there. And, I also do not think that it is a good idea for conference advance fees to be handled by someone "living somewhere in South America" -- it just will not look good!
> >
> >   But, I would be delighted to volunteer to help with publicity, arranging speakers,
> >   reviewing contributions, and the program, as well as helping FOW to publish a collection of papers from the conference.
> >
> >   I think that it is a good idea to arrange for the publication of a book presenting papers from the conference, but, as I have said in previous post, I think that it would be a good idea if you were to take the lead on editing it, at least in name, given that you are the well known academic and that will greatly help with finding a publisher. Do you agree? I will happily co-edit on that book and do all the work, including finding a publisher, if no one else wishes to do it. Does anyone else want to do that? There is plenty of time for anyone to volunteer, but if no one does, then I'll do it, as long as you are on board with the idea.
> >
> >   How many members on this list are interested in attending a FOW conference in London, 2008? I know that it is early days and our conference will be a small one and easy to organise, but, as I am sure you know, it is better to start planning sooner rather than later for conferences.
> >
> >   Obviously, you should be the top billing speaker and I presume that is okay with you.
> >
> >   (2) Journal:
> > I think that the journal or magazine is an excellent idea. This will take quite a moderate amount of work to do and members need to discuss it. It will be quite expensive too and we need to work out how to pay for that.
> >
> >   In the meantime, may I suggest an email newsletter, containing contributions from members, some book reviews, updates on the conference, etc. Unless someone else wants to do it, I will happily edit this newsletter, probably bringing out two editions as a pdf next year, and then the same the following, if the journal or magazine hasn't got off the ground yet.
> >
> > I would also like to suggest a third idea and put another iron in the fire:
> >
> >   (3) The Virtual University:
> >
> >   The FOW could start a virtual university. This would be a free access internet site within which members of the FOW could have their own pages to offer courses to students or anyone else interested in studying ideas and fields that tend to be ignored or marginalised in mainstream universities.
> >
> >   Its purpose would not be to provide qualifications, but, instead, to offer exactly the sort of wisdom-inquiry and education that members on this list have been calling for. Some people may wish to offer courses that directly discuss wisdom and education, or wisdom and knowledge, the history of wisdom, or wisdom-inquiry, while other members may wish to offer other courses, in order to provide a diverse and pluralistic range, allowing students to explore ideas, philosophies, theories, practices, that they otherwise would not be able to. For example, while you might wish to provide courses that directly deal with the ideas and problems that you have raised, some members may well wish to relate their courses to yours, others may well wish to run courses on something else, such as Zen Buddhism, crop circles, pragmatism, inclusionality, etc.
> >   The combination would be most interesting and members could both run courses and be students on the courses of other members.
> >
> >   For example, I would quite like to run a couple of courses that would be peripheral to the main body of courses on wisdom-inquiry, but I think that are related and would be of interest to some students.
> >
> >   One would be on The History and Philosophy of Anarchism. I would provide archives of classic texts, essays on those texts, including my some of my own, some links to other archives, and, run the course by posting essays on the classic texts, receiving and critically discussing students essay submissions about those essays and putting the better ones in the archive of essays. This would in many respects take the quite standard form of a correspondence course, but rapidly would generate a dialectical life of its own. Another course I would like to offer would be on the Theory and Practice of Permaculture. This would take the form of a workshop where I would post an archive of theoretical and practical information, but, for a number of years, I have been planning to start my own permaculture project and, all going to plan, I shall be able to when I go back to South America next year. A core part of the course would be an ongoing journal -- a practical diary -- discussing !
the
> >  growth, problems, and solutions involved in this project, especially if other people involved in other permaculture projects also joined the workshop. I think that it would attract interest and would help me too.
> >
> >   Judging from the diverse interests of contributors on this site, I think that we would be able to rapidly offer a very interesting set of course for an internet based virtual university. Only members of FOW should be allowed to run courses and post anything on the site (just to stop people who are just browsing posting nonsense or offfensive material on the site), but this would not be prohibitive or elitist because anyone could become a member and submit a course. You could then give it a once over, to check that it is not some neo-nazi crap or pornography or something else of that kind, and then give it the okay for posting. Within a couple of years, this could be a very exciting project.
> >
> >   What do you think?
> >
> >   Karl.
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> >  Now you can scan emails quickly with a reading pane. Get the new Yahoo! Mail.
>
>
> May peace and wisdom and blessings be ours now and always under the
> protection of the Muses
>