Power of Imagination - Petra and Stephan from Cologne

Hello everyone,

both, Stephan Geffers and Petra Eickhoff, are looking forward meeting you in Porto.

My name is Petra.
I have my degree in business management. I was born in East Gemany, lived, studied and worked there on different places. Nowadays I live in Cologne.
I´m the Managing board of an association for processes of democratic future creation. Skilled as a systemic coach I have experience on several issues like: women return to work, also young people without graduation getting in work.
I train and facilitate seminars and trainings with several methodologies of participation.

I´ll bring a task to porto: How to arrange art in participation processes beetween elder and young people as contribution to significant results. I want to organise (still a dream) a Meeting of all Generations working together in the setting of "Power of Imagination Studio".

Both, Stephan and I, work together with one focus: the future workshop concept. Have a look at www.future-workshops.eu

Here I am. Stephan.

I work as freelance facilitator for municipalities and non-profit organisations, consult processes of urban development and change in organisations.
I have my degree in computer science and live in Cologne, my hometown.
Experience with children, young people and senior people. I prefer to participate those who are said to be marginal and who thinkabout themselves having no future.

In the DIAL-UP-workshop I wand to explore new insights to basic structures of intergenerational communication.

If you would be here (in Cologne) you should take part of our FufureCafé this afternoon.
But no panic we´ll bring documents and our Power to porto and if you want a presentation following the future workshop concept.

Best regards and see you soon

Petra and Stephan

4 days to go!

Hi everyone!

I don't know about all of you, but I'm getting a bit excited after reading all of Teresa's schedules, its not long now and I've not started packing yet!

This is only my 2nd day back in work after my holidays and I'm looking forward to meeting you all and getting on with this workshop next week!

Teresa, I hear that the Cellars district where they blend Port wine are well worth a visit (and a tasting or two) from a friend who hails from Porto - I hope that your an expert in this field also?

Ciao
Darren

Hotel, Weather and Weekend Informations

Dear Friends

Thank you for your participation and enthusiastic words!

To those of you that already thinking about practical aspects of your trip, here are some useful information’s:

Weather: I will give you an updated Weather report Friday 4th of September. But so far the weather it’s quite unpredictable. This week we have some rain, 27 degrees of temperature and some “regular days”, that means sunshine and 27 degrees of temperature. The Portuguese forecaster can be accessed here: www.meteo.pt

Hotel: The Hotel Amadeos is a nice 3 starts hotel. placed in Matosinhos: Conde Alto Mearim, 1229 - Matosinhos. The Metro stop it’s in the other side of the street and it’s very easy to get anywhere. They don’t have website but you can see pictures at: eurobookings.com http://www.eurobookings.com/matosinhos-hotels-pt/hotel-amadeos.pt.html?SID=840549994694487b0054fc730bab1d8b&label=gg_en_bh_40604-portugal-matosinhos-hotel-amadeos&filter_offset=1&gclid=CMWTveqCwpwCFc0B4wod318WnA&form_type=remember

The Hotel has wireless internet connection, free. I only need to bring the PC or similar device. Friends from UK, please don’t forget to bring the electricity adapter.

Weekend (12-13th September): Those are free days, and Porto is hosting the Red Bull Air race www.redbullairrace.com and the city will be crowded: last year they receive 800.000 participants. Id you not fans of this kind of activities we advice for some other less stressful activities.

Tomorrow I will sent you the pré-programm of the workshop.

Kind regards
Teresa

Greetings from Bulgaria

Dear ALL,

My name is Vanya and I come from Sofia, Bulgaria. I am happy and grateful to do my first intensive steps with all of you in a sphere of work that is relatively new for me. Being an oral history trainer for both young people, teachers and adults, Intergenerational dialogue is important for me but I have never explored it deeper up to now. I am curious to learn and link it with what I already have as experiences.

The last five years I have worked for the regional office of dvv-international in South Easter Europe (SEE), based first in Sofia, Bulgaria and after that in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I was managing a History project ( http://www.historyproject.dvv-international.org ). The project inspires for better understanding and reconciliation in SEE through teacher trainings in interactive methods of handling the recent history of the Balkans.

I present and I am a member of the Association "Historian Club - Veliko Turnovo", this is the ogranization of the history teachers in the beutiful city of Veliko Turnovo. This group consists of highly reflective teachers doing innovative history teaching based on interdiciplinary approach and multiperspectivity approach.

Passionate about finding out more about making meaningful conncetions among people, generally the process of learning and how the past affects the present, I am eager to contribute to bringing the generations closer together as one of the keys for prosperous lives.

Wishing you joyful summer days and see you soon,

Vanya

Greetings from Hungary

Dear Colleges,

My name is Judit Farago from Budapest, Hungary. I am very glad to join this international working group.

I work for a non profit organization (Inforum) dealing with closing the digital gap between social groups such as age groups. We have been running an intergenerational project, the Grandparents-Grandchild Competition of Informatics since 2003. The owner of the project idea is my partner (both in work and private life) Gabor Dombi who is also attending to the workshop.

I look forward to meeting all of you soon!
Judit

Introduction to Helena Gillis

Thank you to all the other delegates for providing some information on their work, as background to attending the conference - it has been good to hear from you all. Here is a little introduction to myself: I am Helena Gillis, and I work for Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS), which is a membership organisation for more than 340 museums in Scotland. As a Learning and Access Manager at MGS I support members to provide access and learning opportunities for a wide range of audiences, including inter-generational groups.

Museum collections really come to life, and the stories about the objects and associated people are discovered, when intergenerational groups are involved in working with them. I hope to bring to the workshop my knowledge of some of the intergenerational learning work in which MGS members have been involved. This has included the TPYF (their past your future) project which is a national project, through which reminiscences from war veterans are being collected on a dedicated website, for use as a classroom learning resource (http://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/the-programmes-2/tpyf-scotland-phase-2/). Another project is the Borders Textile Towerhouse film project (http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/pdf/25187.pdf) which has included a film project by high school students to film ex-textile mill workers, to enable them to understand more about their textile past, and to encourage students to participate in the local textile industry. The films are now accessible through the Hawick archive, and a sample are on permanent display in the Towerhouse museum.

I hope to bring to the workshop my knowledge of intergenerational work involving museums in Scotland. I am also keen to learn from the experience of other delegates. This is my first ever blog, so I hope it has worked.

Greetings from Scotland

I'm Andrew, from Scotland, and I am very much looking forward to meeting everyone and participating in this excellent workshop. My thanks also to Teresa for all the hard work she has put into the organisation, never an easy task.

My background is in Widening Access for adults through the Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAPWest), a forerunner of the European Lifelong Learning Programme and I have been involved in Access Programme management for several years.

I hope to learn a lot from our host and all the participants in facilitating engagement strategies and activities for our older learners and will share with everyone our experience through SWAPWest.
I did like the suggestion of individual presentations and I will be happy to give one.

As a footnote I will be on holiday 21-30 August followed immediately with a conference 31 August - 5 September but I hope to be accessing my emails whenever possible.
Best wishes to everyone and will see you all soon.
Andrew