Performing a useful task and at the same time learning hands-on about European diversity - that is my key experience from participating in InfoNet for more than four years. It certainly will be a pity if the article data base, the cross European network and the competencies in writing for a European audience disintegrate.

Almost five years ago a colleague from another Nordic adult education association introduced me to InfoNet. He strongly urged me to join, and a little cautiously I made contact with the coordinator.

Very soon I received a very friendly reply and an invitation to meet other InfoNet participants. By coincidence one of many working groups was just about to meet in the Danish city of Odense.

A few weeks later I joined five women from Germany, Hungary, Finland, Belgium and Denmark at the cafe of The Museum of Hans Christian Andersen.

The open and friendly atmosphere at this informal meeting to introduce me to InfoNet was to be characteristic for all the rest of the meetings and communications as a participant of InfoNet.

Firsthand knowledge

Having a good time together with other people is nice, of course, but not really enough for a big Grundtvig project supported by the European Commission with a big amount of money. It is both significant and noteworthy, though, that the open and friendly character of InfoNet was an important precondition for really learning about Europe.

For me it paved the way for a learning process about different ways of organising seminars, planning working meetings, decision making and so on. In other words: through working together to accomplish the tasks of InfoNet I got a firsthand knowledge about cultural differences between European countries – and similarities, too.

Adult education in Europe

Of course four and a half years of writing for InfoNet, reading InfoNet articles, editing articles and discussing in conferences and at working group meetings also expanded my knowledge and understanding of the way adult education is performed in different European countries. Also for the first time I realised the role of the EU in this field.

On the basis of InfoNet I was able to introduce the adult education people in Denmark to some of the experiences that their fellow educators in other European countries have made. Sometimes by translating InfoNet articles, sometimes by summarizing the information from a whole thematic issue of InfoLetter.

Ever improving

Still my own learning could not be the primary purpose of participating in InfoNet. This could only be really fulfilling through accomplishing an important task and producing a result that is useful for others.

I did that by participating in the editorial work which first and foremost had the aim of improving the quality of articles and the relevance and quality of each InfoLetter.

An especially important part of this task was done through collective effort to develop a way of writing that took into consideration that the correspondents did not write for an audience of their own country with all the necessary background knowledge. Writing for a European audience was a repeating theme of all discussions, a developmental task that will never finish.

Related to this we had interesting discussions on the concept of a European consciousness. A special working group produced working papers. For me a central conclusion from this was to accept and strengthen the diversity of European people and nations – instead of homogenizing.

Important results

Without boasting of the efforts of myself and all my InfoNet friends I do think that we came a long way in producing important information for the adult education stakeholders of Europe, in building a solid and viable European network, and in developing a concept of writing for a European audience.

This work ought to continue in some way. It would be extremely counterproductive if the next attempt in this direction would start from scratch instead of building directly on the results of the two first periods of InfoNet.

Preparing for the next step, whatever organisational forms it will take, in my mind should take into consideration:

- The ongoing need to improve the quality, relevance and accessibility of each article

-  The need of partners to take on a bigger part of the responsibility and the workload

-  A more even balance between countries in the partnership

-  A still more transparent, democratic and inclusive way of working and of decision making