WORLD RELIGIONS 101

At lunchtime today walking through Welford Place, I bump into Chris Minter (photo above), Head of Service for Leicester City Council Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS). We worked together recently on Leicester Speaks (AKA Local Democracy Week). Our quick chat (it's much too cold to stand and talk outside for long) moves from Leicester Speaks to National Inter Faith Week and our Highcross exhibition, thence to something that I've been nursing for ages: the possibility of the Council of Faiths offering a "World Religions 101" course, as part of the Adult Skills and Learning programme, in a popular venue such as the Adult Education College in Wellington Street. This wouldn't be like the sort of post-grad course offered by St Philip's Centre, or what we've been discussing at Leicester University Institute of Lifelong Learning, but a beginners' guide for interested members of the general public. I've roughed out versions of just such a course, which could be offered in 10, 16 or 32 sessions in one of my little black books. Chris likes the sound of the idea, asks me to drop him a line and he'll pass it on to his colleagues in Curriculum. Nice!

When I mention to Chris that Leicester City Council gave zero recognition or support to National Inter Faith Week just gone by, he tells me that it sounds like the sort of thing that the Adult Skills and Learning Service should be getting behind and that we should think of ways of working together to promote it in 2011.