Monday afternoon

The meeting was due to start after lunch on Monday, and I managed to find a convenient train that only involved one change, in Birmingham. FESC promised a bus from the train station in Bristol to take us to the college at 12 noon. I arrived with an hour to spare, and spent the time looking at the other men and women lounging in the area, wondering how many of them were waiting for the same thing I was.

One man in particular caught my eye. He was wearing a bright orange sports jacket - and seemed to stand out rather like a sore thumb. He was obviously full of himself, I thought, and he started to chat with some of the others waiting near him. I rather hoped he wasn’t one of our group, but when the bus finally arrived, he and perhaps 20 others got on the bus with me. I sat next to a young woman who was very friendly, and we talked of nothing very important for the twenty or so minutes before we arrived at the college. Blagdon, itself, is a very small village, Axbridge being the nearest large town, - with just the odd store and pub, and the college is set apart - up in the Mendip hills.

We were given keys to our rooms, and told where the cafeteria was. After a pleasant lunch with 3 other women, we were directed to a large auditorium, with chairs placed in a huge circle. Our mentor for the week was rather famous, Peter Forrest. I had read many articles that he had written regarding adult education policy so I was greatly looking forward to the start of the conference.

Our first activity was to introduce ourselves to the person on either side of us. Then we had to introduce the person on our right to the person on our left - all very complicated and leading to much laughter. We then were going to have a gigantic mixing game. First of all - everyone with blue eyes was to go to one end of the room, and those with brown to the other, with hazel in the middle. Peter seemed surprised that we were mostly brown eyed. Then we went into groups of other types - married on one side - single on the other; black shoes or brown shoes; those who taught in colleges and those who were involved directly with their County Council; those who worked part time and those who worked full time; those who smoked and those who didn’t.

He then divided us into the 12 groups of the Zodiac, and we were supposed to see if we had anything in common with the others in our grouping. I was standing next to a woman who had the same colour blouse and trousers as me, the same colour eyes and hair, the same sort of height and weight - and wearing glasses, as I do.

After we were thoroughly ice-broken, Peter went on to tell us the plan of the week. We would be doing various activities, in various types of groups, each meant to help us to be better at some aspect of interpersonal relationships. We would have to do listening sessions; interviewing; bringing out someone by asking the right sort of questions. There would be games to help us reveal our darkest secrets. He warned us that we were expected to keep everything said and done at the conference in the strictest secrecy - and said that he was sure it would be a very emotional week for most of us. Later in the week we would have a day long session on Transcendental Analysis, and we would have a half day off for a visit to Cheddar Gorge. And for the end product of the week, we, in our groups that we were soon to form, would perform a short skit, written by us, for the rest of the assembly for the Thursday evening session.

So at the end of Monday afternoon, we were told to put ourselves into groups of 6 - with the stipulation being that you couldn’t be in a group with anyone you knew, and each group had to have some of each sex. And that is how our little group came into being - the man with the orange jacket, who I found out was called Ben; a tall bespeckled older man, Ed, a slight pale man called Bill, a very young twitchy man called Bob, a trendy woman called Carole and me. When I saw the orange jacket approaching, I nearly decided to quickly opt out for another group, but then remembered that my objective for the week was to get along with all sorts of men - so coexisting with orange jacket could be my challenge.

We broke for the evening meal (the food was wonderful) and we were told that when we reassembled at 8 that evening, each small group would be assigned a private room, where we could introduce ourselves and start the bonding process that was going to have to take place for each group to become a cohesive unit.

Monday evening

Our group was about as mismatched a bunch as you could wish to find. It came as no surprise to anyone that Orange Jacket Ben (although he no longer wore it) took the role of leader and started the session off.

“I’m Ben, aged 38, from Surrey, and I am a senior lecturer in fashion design. I think we should all add why we have come to this meeting. Personally, I have come to gain the credits necessary to progress in my master’s degree. It seemed the easiest and most pleasant way to do it. Now let’s go around the room.”

“Hi, my name is Ed and I’m in my late 50’s. I am the senior manager of Adult Education for our college in Mansfield. I already have my masters, and have progressed about as far as I can go, but I thought it might be a fun week, so that is why I am here. You can never learn too much.”

“My name is Bill, and I’m 35, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at South Hampton College. I am also chasing a master’s - and this fitted well into my schedule.”

“Well, I guess I am here for more or less the same reason - seemed the best way to get the necessary credits for promotion. My name is Carole, I’m 35, I’m from Bromley and I teach in the Business Studies Department.”

“My name is Jean. I’m in my mid 40’s and am a middle manager in Adult Education for Cheshire County Council, working in the Macclesfield District. My reason for coming is to find out why I don’t get along well with my male colleagues, and to find out if I can do something about it.”

There was a stunned silence for a few minutes.

Ben said, “Well, okay. I guess that maybe if you have a problem that this is the place to come to sort it out. And what about you, guy on the end?”

“I didn’t want to come. They said I had to. I really don’t know why.”

“Do you mind telling us your name, and where you are from?”

“Bob, my name is Bob and I come from Northumberland, but I really don’t want to be here.”

“How old are you? The rest of us told our ages.”

“I’m 30,” said Bill.

“Right,” said Ken. “Well we now know why most of us chose to be here and one of us doesn’t want to be here, but I guess that we will just have to put up with that. Now we have to have some sort of organisation to our group. I have stepped forward to be leader, mainly because nobody else seemed ready to do it. Are you all okay with that?”

There was a general nodding.

“Now, my plan is that at each of our sessions we should say how the day’s events affected us, and how we feel we have benefited or otherwise from the sessions. Does that sound like a good way forward?”

There was more general nodding.

“Now it seems important to me,” he continued, “that we should all concentrate on putting our points of view to the group in a method which would mean the most in terms of the principles which are being taught. All agreed? Good.

“Okay, well, nothing much happened so far, so we don’t really have much to say about what we learned so far. Does anybody want to add anything?”

There was a general shaking of heads.

“Right, well, why don’t we go off and be the first ones at the bar?”

So we happily left the room - not having accomplished much at all, wondering why all this was happening and whether any of the other groups had been more successful in gelling. I heard Ken say as we left the room, “I think maybe I will see if I can change groups. This bunch seem losers from the word go.”

So, we went back into the bar area and spent the rest of the evening, mixing with whomever. I met up again with the women I had had lunch with, and we just chatted and enjoyed our drinks, but soon everyone felt it was time for an early night.