When it comes to the crunch

"Mid- summer" by Susie Mallett, 2004

I have been reading with interest Andrew Sutton’s recent postings encouraging people not only to attend conferences but also to present papers or poster boards, or simply to advertise themselves on a stand.

I too get very exasperated because people in Conductive Education just don’t go.

Then I suddenly realised that I am one of those people who don’t go, but I have tried and I will keep doing so.

Only six days ago I described how I had submitted a proposal to a conference in Finland.

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2009/05/revealing-soul-and-magic-will-simply.html

(You can also see there what I wanted to say. I believe that it is important.)

I was prepared to pay some of the costs myself but I certainly could not afford all of it. I thought that I had found some financial help but this fell through and now I am well past the closing date anyway.

I wonder how many other conductors are actually trying to put themselves about, to attend conferences and spread the word, but are just not managing to get there.

When it comes down to it, if anyone from the conductive world goes to these things then most of the people who are able to make it are not conductors.

So where does this leave us with the development of our work and our knowledge?

We are probably not going to be doing it by way of conferences.

PS

Maybe this is especially a problem now because of the “credit crunch”. I can see that it must be very difficult for people to promise that they will be able to afford to fund me in a few months' time. But I can also see that people who are arranging conferences have to know well in advance whether enough participants will be able to pay to be there.

None of this of course is my problem, at least not directly, except that I am stuck in the middle and don’t get to go!