The Limerick Lifelong Learning Festival is now in its tenth year, and for its first time will be a virtual one this year! It will also celebrate 10 years of the festival and Limerick as a UNESCO Learning City-Region. The festival will be held from Monday 28th September to Sunday 4th October 2020 and the theme is ‘Celebrating and Building Learning Communities‘.
The festival marks a celebration of lifelong learning and promotes learning in Limerick through a wide variety of creative, enjoyable and informative events. The festival provides a timely opportunity to reflect on the many contexts in which we are learning – in the home, with friends and neighbours, in formal educational settings, in the workplace etc – as well as exploring new ways and opportunities for learning.
For event organisers, this represents an opportunity to engage directly with the public and potential attendees on courses or new members and to be part of an event which shows Limerick in a positive light!
Here are some examples of how we think our first Virtual Festival might look, and ideas for interactive events and activities that may be provided virtually. The types of presentations/activities may include, but is not limited to, online interactive information sessions; live presentations /broadcasts via zoom/YouTube channel/Facebook streaming, short films, pre-recorded events/activities, debates/discussions, information sessions and live chats.
Just some activities that can be presented interactively online may include the following:
- Cooking – simple recipe of bread/scones
- Dancing, yoga, keep fit
- Health and Wellness
- How to use Twitter/Facebook /Instagram
- Learning how to grow your own food
- Learning Sign Language
- Learning to knit/crochet/sew
- Local history
- Panel discussions and webinars
- Physics/Chemistry experiments
- Presenting art projects, competitions
- Presenting research
- Virtual awards ceremonies
The Learning Limerick Steering Group provided online training sessions on the top tips and tricks for running online events for our event organisers on 8th and 9th July in collaboration with the Carmichael Centre and Alice PR and Events, Dublin. The slides and recordings from this training are now available for all event organisers to view.
As part of the festival, there will be a seminar held by Learning Limerick on Tuesday 29th September 10am– 11am ‘Lifelong Learning during COVID – the Business Community Response’. In this seminar, we bring together speakers from a number of different local business sectors in the Limerick Region to present and discuss how they have responded to the challenges presented by Covid-19. The Seminar provides an exciting opportunity to hear experiences from diverse sectors and to explore the commonalities in learning for all. Skills and talent development and empowering staff during the crisis and thoughts for the future will also be explored.
Also during the week, the Irish Network of UNESCO Learning Cities will be hosting a collaborative Learning Day for Ireland on 30th September 2020. As well as the events hosted by Learning Limerick, Cork, Belfast, Dublin and Derry Strabane Learning Cities will all be holding events on the day and we look forward to attending events hosted by all five of the Learning Cites!
We are really looking forward to this year’s festival. Contact Yvonne at ylane@paulpartnership.ie without delay to register your interest in hosting an event and to be a part of a wonderfully positive week for our region!
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