Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

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The GW phones for Hope Campaign kicked off on October 20th, in Columbian Square near George Washington University. Hundreds of students were spotted in the square along with Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Also seen were former model Christy Turlington Burns and journalist Juju Chang. Together they were at the square to host the GW + phones= Hope.

The Clinton Global Initiative is the creation of Former President Bill Clinton and his aide, Doug Band. The GW Phones for Hope campaign is part of that initiative and is meant to bring about change to the world through donations to action. In the case of Phones for Hope, the goal is to collect old phones and other electronics that will help to benefit health programs, mainly maternal health issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nepal.

According to Christy Turlington Burns, a host for the event and the campaign, “the best way to address child survival is to invest in a mom”, and it is the goal of GW to make a commitment by donating at least 20,000 used cell phones. The ending date for this is March of 2012. In this case, electronics and cell phones will be recycled and built into medical communication devices that will help to make stronger, healthier families in these foreign countries.

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is made up of a large group of non-profits, corporate businesses and organizations The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) are all from differing agencies yet all think alike when it comes to healthcare, poverty, climate change and education. Members of CGI are asked to help make the world a better place with “Commitments to Action.” These are usually in the form of specific and important actions that those involved can start.

And a lot of what the CGI does relates directly to sustainability – They objectives in climate change, including that of IRRI Rice Project and their Route Opitimization Technology, are very clear cut, and do a great job of supporting a more sustainable world.

The Clinton Health Access Initiatives (CHAI) is another franchise of the CGI and was also created by Former President Bill Clinton and Doug Band. The Clinton Health Access Initiatives has a focus set on creating and funding new programs to help to treat and cure HIV/AIDS. CHAI works with new health systems worldwide.

Programs such as GW Phones for Hope are a part of campaigns that are meant to implement new and positive change in the world. The hope is that the actions, effects, and outcomes of the projects will make a difference with commitment. Phones for Hope is a benefit for the United States in that it helps consumers to be able to recycle phones and electronics that could harm the environment and use them for a greater use in Africa and Nepal to help families become healthier.

This tip tips sheet is also available for download in the Resources section.

Could this mean an era of hyper local provision, delivered within walking/public transport distance? (This presupposes that public transport is underwritten but the government)
Could this mean an increase in organising from home?
Could this mean that administration is decentralised and undertaken from administrators’ homes?
Could this mean that tutors will not travel to teach?
Could this mean that learners will not travel to sessions?
Could this mean a serious transfer to online learning, either virtual learning environments (asynchronous learning) or video conferencing (synchronous learning) ?
Could this mean an end to face to face meetings as no one could afford to travel to meet?
Could this mean less paperwork because postage will become prohibitively expensive – (The UK postage charges go up on Monday 6th April 2011)
Could this mean that 12 learners on a register would become a thing of the past? – More like 50 learners engaged in e-learning of some kind?

Who knows? Fuel prices are creeping up. The picture above will evolve and not pop up ready formed. We will adapt and survive. One thing is for certain, when fuel is £400 per litre the world will be a very different place to what we see when we look out of the window, and judging from the road works I can hear as I write this, it will sound different too.

Of course, there was no petrol in common use in 1903!

As there were a couple of economists in our midst, the economic discussion did get a little in-depth. However, with such sharp brains before the maths was added up we had already realised that, well the maths didn’t add up. Someone who knew about how we our funded pointed out that the WEA had been about for 107 years, and that there are people in The City whose job it was to look after WEA funds, therefore we are not going to disappear any time soon due to economic unsustainablity.

The economic sphere provoked at lot of debate, about what type of environmental message the WEA can give out to the public, members and staff. There was a lot of debate surrounding attitude, and the perception that one of the barriers in the environmental sphere is “Well it’s always been done like this” and the printing off documents “just in case”. With the built environment discussion it was voiced that the WEA could put their money where their mouth is and get electricity from renewable suppliers.

Attending the workshop were two indomitable volunteers from Mansfield. Mansfield has bucked the WEA trend and has opened a branch after it being closed after 50 years. These two amazing women were a force to be recognised and inspirational. With a mixture of pavement pounding, networking, and sheer force of will the Mansfield branch is going great guns. Anyone within travel distance of Mansfield try an attend a branch meeting to find out what a buzz they have created there. This is the essence of what was said in the social discussion, we the membership of the WEA need to play a greater part in the social sustainability of the WEA. Yes those of us who are involved are greatly committed, but apparently there is 40 thousand members signed up, and the question was asked “What are they all doing?” Another hot topic was that although these workshops are happening at grass roots, what about the executive, shouldn’t they be involved in these workshop as well and look at providing strong leadership. All this brought back to the democratic nature of the WEA, and the fact that if you don’t like what is going on in the WEA, you have the power to change it.

This was a feisty group to end this week of the Sustainability Road show, and it was fitting that this group brought the whole subject back to brass tacks; if you don’t like it, you can change it!

Definition: I think of sustainability as the ability of the planet to sustain a healthy reproductive biodiversity. I don’t imagine that the human race will be part of it for much longer (in the realm of hundreds rather than millions of years). I think we’re at war with the planet and ourselves. Plenty of research studies show that the planet is experiencing a rapid decline of biodiversity.

SPHERES and arrows

As you may guess from my definition, I see the environment as the beating heart of sustainability. Imagine a (beating) heart – now imagine 3 arrows breaching that heart: economic, political and social. I can also see one coronary bypass surgeon, struggling on her own to staunch this bleeding heart – community. I’ll call them all spheres for the purposes of this blog.

For me the Economic sphere is hugely important. Our ideological commitment to growth is not sustainable since the planet’s resources are finite. Steady state economics is preferable to growth. But it’s not a solution. There is an elephant in the room: capitalism. It’s a shame that any questioning of capitalism, however mild, is so difficult – our fanatical devotion to this economic model, which is deeply unsustainable on so many fronts, appears to prevent any real dialogue about this sphere. Personally I think that the income-cost analysis relating to the sustainability of the WEA is irrelevant to the debate. WEA is an (adult education!) institution that reflects our society’s values and priorities, so WEA is part of the problem, not part of the solution. WEA does nothing to tackle the underlying causes of our deeply troubling, unsustainable economic sphere. Unless you really believe that saving paper and switching off light bulbs (which genuinely addresses a very small % of the symptoms of climate change) counts?

I’d like to introduce to you another elephant: her name is politics. The political sphere is perhaps the biggest, fattest and greyest one of all. We are living the politics of unsustainablility. Power and influence dictate all the other spheres, so without political change we are – sorry folks – doomed. I like the idea that the masses that demonstrate in London on 26th March will set up camp, stay for days and weeks and create the kind of people’s uprising that we’ve seen recently across north Africa the Arab states.

The social sphere, for me, is about the way we acquire status in our society; through the accumulation of wealth (consume!), through the work ethic and associated struggle for 2 weeks’ holiday abroad twice a year (or in my case, 3 return flights to Ireland and between 2 and 4 flights to Spain every year. Sorry bout that). Our society is destroying itself because our value systems are inherently unsustainable.

The community sphere includes a mix of the good, bad and ugly. The good includes organisations such as Groundwork, the Green movement, Conservation Trust, Transition Towns network, car share schemes, allotment societies, and so on.

Here are a few tentative questions relating to WEA and sustainability that I feel need to be addressed:

1. What % provision has any reference of any kind to sustainability? And what % doesn’t?
2. What impact will (for example) increasing class sizes have on the environment?
3. How flexible and adaptable is the WEA? How will/does WEA respond to change?
4. For example, how would WEA look when petrol costs £400 a litre?
5.  What partnerships does WEA have with organisations/groups committed to a sustainability agenda? What could WEA do to nurture such partnerships?
6.  In what ways is WEA actively engaged in developing a sustainability agenda and curriculum?

Shared by Martin Hyams mhyams@wea.org.uk

To be honest, because some management was there, the group cheated a bit with costings for our bread and butter 20 hour 12 learner course. They knew quite a lot of the costs anyway so we rattled through fairly quickly. Even so some of the cost of things even surprised me because I thought that volunteers were a plus for economics, but of course they need support and training like we all do, and could you think of a WEA without volunteers? I can’t.

By the environmental sphere, we had all woken up a bit, and the areas of group discussion centred round energy saving, the old chestnut of paper and IT equipment. With the energy saving group the main thrust was visibility of what we use. Yes we can turn things off and turn down heating etc.. But if we can see what we are using we can then take steps to not using it, so a nice simple step that they came up with is to put a smart metre on an appliance for a day/week so we can be aware of what is used. A frightening figure that someone came up with was 40p per kettle boil! can you imagine the WEA with no tea and coffee?! With paper, Nottingham does run a tight ship and are already measure to save paper and making things more electronic.  IT equipment, again there is some smart practice by the WEA including Frankenstein Machines where broken machines are used for spares. For people who have to go hither and dither it was suggested that more flexible technology would work better.

It was agreed that the WEA is the MI5 of adult education and that we need to get our name out there more because we do the necessary and brilliant job! We discussed a variety of approaches to improving regional publicity. An idea that came up was to do a “The WEA recommends…. if you enjoyed that course why not try this one?” have a look at e-learning to have a go.

It was really good to listen to the discussion at the end of the workshop because the group talked together bouncing ideas off each other. With such dynamic people in Nottingham, I think that it will not be long before some exciting developments emerge from this region of the WEA .

This works in two spheres the economic and the environmental. By letting us know the cost of a copy then there is more likelihood that we will think twice when make copies of stuff. This would save paper-environment, and of course economic.

Is there any other examples of little nudges that could make us more sustainable? Got any bright ideas, send them in.

• Greater use of the internet
• How to keep the enterprise going without exhausting resources both human and material inc learners
• Working with partners
• Become self financing
• Fees – Who can pay fees, many learners are on low or fixed incomes. Fund raising to support learner’s fees for those on low incomes
• Take advantage of feed in tariffs and invest in PV panels on WEA offices.
• Encourage less travel and greater use of cycles
• Use of resources i.e. mileage, power, paper etc.
• Financial
• True need of society (Big Society)
• Volunteers – how are volunteers found, appointed? Has anyone ever competed for a place on the committee?

2. Economic Sustainability

• Online & Telephone enrolment would save time and cancellation costs
• Treasurer’s role is difficult to get volunteers for.
• Could out source admin.
• Use the internet, email and read documents on screen.
• Do not send/use colour copies of documents
• Form filling takes up too much time
• Enrolment forms provide data which equals funding. Can it be done more simply? Why can’t a WEA leaner have a number when they join a class and this is used to print a form so a new one doesn’t have to be done each year.
• Collaborative work with partners i.e. CCCU partnership reduces costs
• Use Amazon approach i.e. you might be interested in.
• WEA needs to be explained better, WEA needs to distinguish itself from other Adult Ed classes. U3A, as a significant competitor, is very variable and no assurance of quality learning.

3. Environmental Sustainability

• Less paper use emails more
• Online pre-enrolment linked to registers.
• Offices- use of electricity.
• Have a Green travel policy
• Use video conferencing and teleconferences
• WEA provides courses in local communities for local people, close to public transport. Could encourage use of public transport by including this into flyers, brochure, website etc.

4. Social Sustainability

• Communities are developed through courses
• Helping people to develop qualifications from courses
• Problems are experienced by Branches to fill committee roles.
• Branches could re-group or collaborate to survive and develop support mechanisms.
• There could have a different structure. Do we need a committee; is there another framework for Branches?
• To join the WEA you do not need qualifications just experience and an interest or passion for topic/learning.
• Why WEA and not U3A? WEA has a different offer. A high standard and quality courses.
• WEA has good tutors who are well prepared, deliver a high quality learning experience. A guaranteed standard
• Social and learning
• Mentoring:
  • Provide a timetable for planning tasks and a checklist of what needs to be done to set up a course or other tasks undertaken by volunteer members.
  • Records from previous committee members handed over
  • Attend meetings
  • New volunteers- support with a good handover and ongoing support.
  • Outgoing committee member should continue to support new volunteer

This report has been shared by Pearl Ryall

WEA Chesterfield has a lease on a whole building complete with original features and nice garden it is a lovely place. However, lovely is not always practical, and they knew that it cost a lot to run and maintain the building, that along side the fact that it is in a conservation area meant that they felt their hands were tied. But that did give them more of an idea about costing, and ideas to make the WEA more economically sustainable including an inspired idea to pay tutors more(!) to maintain quality. they consensus in the room was that the WEA could not carry on the way it was going.

The environmental sphere threw up some interesting topics. The main one was making their building more environmentally-and cheaper- to run. We did agree that although it could be preferable to knock it down and re-build it, that this was not practicable. What could be done however was to get an energy audit done so that they had facts and figures to try and get some funding to make it more efficient. And our old friend paper came up again. Again it was the brochure that was felt not to be pulling its weight. Questions such as; who gets it ? does anyone new get it? does it get read? what does it say about the WEA? isn’t it time for a revamp? couldn’t this be put on-line? Although, there is a general move towards more e-mails and electronic communication, one person came up with the idea of balance. Yes we would be saving paper, but what about the amount of electric and resources using in computers. Also someone suggested doing a paper audit to see what get used where so we can be clearer on this topic.

Chesterfield seems to run a pretty tight ship, they put up posters and brochures all over the town and still they feel and no-one knows about the WEA. They see this as a shame because they have actually seen peoples lives been turned round by the organisation and they retold some inspiring stories.  What they thought was that the history of the WEA is important, but where as organisations which sprang from the Edwardian labour movement such as the Labour Party and The Co-op continue to develop their relevance to the 21st century the WEA has not done this. So one of the keys they saw to social sustainability is to be more relevant. With enthusiastic people like these at Chesterfield, I am sure they will find a way.