I’ve been thinking about the concept of orbits recently.  The idea of people circulating a topic or group, not engaging, always watching. Occasionally these orbits collide and you have a great experience – less of an eclipse, more of an alignment. So, I’ve decided to take some action  and not just an excuse to squeeze in my favourite Billy Bragg tune onto the blog (the title is a line from the track).

I experienced this alignment recently with the #lpitweetup. If you don’t know what happened, a group of L&D professionals took the opportunity to meet and greet one of our colleagues from Australia, Helen Blunden. Helen has written the event up on her blog and it tells a great story of what happened.

After the event I was mulling over how I could develop this further, particularly because I think I have a few planets which are orbited; there’s Learning and Development, Local Government, Technology, Comms, School Governance and Social Media – all areas where orbits collide but usually fleetingly in a RTd tweet, a link in a forum, a comment on a blog.

While I was thinking about this Mary McKenna got in touch. Mary is a collector of people – she has extensive networks that she nurtures, We were talking and decided that we should do something together and #learncamp was born.

Our thinking behind  #learncamp is simple:

 What we want it be is a regular meeting space for L&D people (or anyone interested in L&D) to meet, chat and learn from each other informally.

Eagle eyed readers will have seen there’s a new #learncamp page on this blog. Details of the first session are there and we want to invite you. It’s really important that we get the point across this isn’t about our organisations; it’s about connecting people with an interest in learning.

People are welcome from any of the worlds above; people are welcome from any of our networks; people are welcome to just sit and orbit, deciding to join in when they feel it’s right. All we want to do is help people connect, whether it be from online to real life, or from the first time of meeting. If we can have a bit of fun and interesting conversation while we do it, then all the better for it.

We’d thought the sessions will operate in a barcamp style but will be short and sharp – no more than 90 minutes or so – and will focus on one topic per session – someone speaks, another follows, conversation about the topic ensues. That is, of course, if you think that’s the right way forward.

We’ll be at the Royal Festival Hall on October 3rd from 4.30 to try this out. If you want to come along, just turn up. If you want to suggest a topic, please let us know. If you want to lead a session, you’re more than welcome.

We look forward to seeing you there.