Time for an online Fellows’ Forum

Would you like to be part of an RSA online forum trial? By mid-March, the Fellowship Council plan to launch an online experimental forum focused on a handful of RSA related themes.

World-wide, there are 28,000 RSA Fellows but only a handful of places where there is sufficient critical mass to sustain successful face to face networks. We are a scattered Fellowship and we know that things happen when people can get together. But online forums have been tried in the past and have not been sustainable.

We want to support Fellows to make a significant contribution to the Society’s mission and so we must find a way of making online Forums work. Technology is not the barrier that it once was and so we will focus on finding ways to establish and nurture a forum. RSA staff are currently working on technology options and welcome our focus on the facilitation process.

The aim of the trial is to show that an online Fellows’ Forum can work, to test and develop the method, and to show that it can enable productive discussion and strengthen the network.

We are now looking for active Fellows who want to a make a difference in their field of interest. If you volunteer, you will join a small group who would nurture the forum as a whole with an emphasis on your chosen theme. It will take up to three hours a week, usually in small chunks of a few moments at a time. We have a methodology based upon experience and can provide training and support. We have produced a presentation to show an overview of the plan:

This is a very important development for Fellowship and I do hope you will be able to support us. If you would like to volunteer, please email Judy Rees who is leading the project by 2 February 2017. 

Rod Hyde, Chair of the Fellowship Council