Peter Kearns and Denise have kindly written extensive notes on discussions that they had in Germany, Canada and Hong Kong during the period of June to September.  The discussions were focussed on mainly:

• The Learning Region  Network, and Learning on Place  Programs in Germany;

• Work of the Canadian  Council on Learning, and  Vancouver and Victoria Learning Cities in  Canada.

• The Vancouver Learning  City (VLC) provides a good  example of a strategy in a city of some  size.  The potential exists to bring Vancouver into PIE   development;

• The current focus of  the VLC on "learning around  issues of going concern", p.19, is  interesting and relevant to discussions in PASCAL initiated by Chris  on using Web2 technologies for dialogue on  significant issues such  as these;

• The strong performance  of the NORDIC countries on  the ELLI Index assessments for lifelong  learning (as well as on other  assessments such as PISA) points to  the value of a broad approach that  builds up a learning culture over  time;

• Australian and Canadian  Learning Communities have  much in common with opportunities for  dialogue, but we need to engage some  larger Australian cities, like  Vancouver and Victoria.