Forum Serendipity

[David Richardson]

I thought I'd start this topic to see if anyone else has experienced any serendipitous effects of participating in the Forum.

Through contributing to the Forum, I was invited to Gothenburg in September to participate in an E-HELP meeting. Whilst I was there I met Terry Hayden, and Terry put me in touch with Alex Savage, a teacher in the UK who's been looking for international contacts for the county he works in (Norfolk).

Alex and I had our first successful studio video conference (Polycom) on Friday, and now we're actively looking to start new links, such as including his sixth-formers in the Partnership Programme we have with Central Missouri State University, which focusses on composition. I'll also be visiting my daughter's head teacher soon to see if we can put learners of French, German and Spanish in her school and Alex's in direct contact with each other. There are also potential spin-offs in other subject areas too.

This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't started reading the Forum …

… has anything like this happened to other people too?

[Guest]

I thought I'd start this topic to see if anyone else has experienced any serendipitous effects of participating in the Forum.

Through contributing to the Forum, I was invited to Gothenburg in September to participate in an E-HELP meeting. Whilst I was there I met Terry Hayden, and Terry put me in touch with Alex Savage, a teacher in the UK who's been looking for international contacts for the county he works in (Norfolk).

Alex and I had our first successful studio video conference (Polycom) on Friday, and now we're actively looking to start new links, such as including his sixth-formers in the Partnership Programme we have with Central Missouri State University, which focusses on composition. I'll also be visiting my daughter's head teacher soon to see if we can put learners of French, German and Spanish in her school and Alex's in direct contact with each other. There are also potential spin-offs in other subject areas too.

This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't started reading the Forum …

… has anything like this happened to other people too?

Several threats of legal action have come my way

I am very glad to hear that your use of the forum has led to such positive things however David and will watch this thread with interest

[Graham Davies]

David asks:

I thought I'd start this topic to see if anyone else has experienced any serendipitous effects of participating in the Forum.

Yes! In one of the threads in this Forum I mentioned the name of my grandfather and a part that he played during the General Strike in South Wales, specifically as one of the right-hand men of Arthur Horner, the militant miners’ leader who later became president of the NUM. A second cousin of mine, whom I didn’t know about, picked up my contribution via a search engine and wrote to me via the Forum’s mailing system.

Since then, we have been regularly in touch by email and by telephone. It emerged that we have a common interest in tracing our family history and that we have both gathered a lot of information from public records, etc. I was able to introduce my second cousin to my only surviving aunt in Wales, who is now 95. He did not know that she was still alive, but now he has visited her and discovered what a wonderful memory she has and this has helped fill in a few blanks in our family history. By pooling our efforts we now have a clearer picture of who our common ancestors were, dating back to the late 1800s – and a huge family tree!