September started at turbo speed; do you feel the same? At the ELIA office, we are preparing for several events at the same time while also working on our new strategy with the Executive Group and staying alert to developments in Brussels (there have been a few, read more about it in this newsletter). The Leadership Symposium coming up in Manchester in October has been on my mind a lot because we are experimenting with several new formats.  

 

Our gathering in Manchester will be very strategic, and together with all participants and the wonderful staff and students from the Manchester Metropolitan University’ Creative Writing School, we will be working towards an actual conference outcome. This will be called the ‘Manchester Provocation’ and participants at the Symposium will be able to actively contribute to this outcome in whatever form they like (prose, poetry, painting, digital art, photography, performance). We are excited to be collecting this input from those in Manchester. 

 

We are also intensely aware of the many voices that we won’t hear in this creative process. Anyone who can’t travel to Manchester and who simply couldn’t register because we have been sold out for weeks, might be left out. We felt that this could be different and that is why we invited ELIA members around the world to host so-called ELIA Leadership Symposium Satellite Events. These will be online sessions featuring some of the same provocations that participants will listen to in Manchester, in pre-recorded form. The sessions will take place in the same time frame as the Leadership Symposium (18 – 20 October), but in different time zones, many of them while we sleep in Manchester. All ELIA members are welcome to join these sessions (launched today) and the clue is: the input from these gatherings will be relayed to Manchester almost directly following the satellite events, to be taken into the Manchester provocation as well.

 

We extend a huge thank you to the six members willing to try this out with us, hailing from Hong Kong, Singapore, Cairo, Bogota, Montreal and Boston. A seventh event will be hosted by Maabara Atelier, taking place in Takaye Village Malindi in Kenya, in the form of a Drum Circle on the theme of ‘The Beginning of Now’, the theme of the Leadership Symposium.  

 

It will be so interesting and valuable to add all these global perspectives to our conversation directly and we welcome all ELIA members to be part of it (find out more and register here). Join us!