End of year greetings

Hello everybody,

As many of you know by now, our beloved Claire Oldmeadow passed away on the night of the 15th November last, after a terrible fight against cancer that was only diagnosed once she was in hospital following a devastating stroke that left her almost totally paralysed.

Some of us were lucky enough to have visited her in hospital, then for her final days in a palliative clinic, and were able to comfort and, we hope, reassure her.

The legacy of her work for English trainers in France is marked by the selflessness she showed time and again, whether in getting admin and legal advice for members, finding missions for us when work was thin on the ground, organising informal drinks and webinars, as well as the huge work involved in getting the annual forum together.

Throughout all of this, she never seemed to get impatient or complain, and was always there with a smile, though sometimes a hint of sheer exhaustion was discernible behind her brave face. She will be sorely missed by us all.

For all these reasons, we feel it’s essential that The Language Network (TLN) continues to thrive in Claire’s honour, and that we continue to develop the vision and initiative that she founded over 20 years ago. 

It's a daunting task, with so much paperwork to understand, people to contact, and organising to do. On top of TLN being a trainers' network with a website (the TLN Blog), setting up regular events and webinars and keeping a job ad service, it also manages the BEST language tests under licence of the Franco-British CCI, and still maintains some commercial activity managing English training with schools and corporate clients.

As some of you probably know, Claire also set up Training People (TP) back in 2020, which is now the training company that unites freelance trainers under a single banner to offer a unique training opportunity available to those of all walks and means. This entity is continuing business with the trainers as usual, with Sue, Stuart and Mark handling the administrative responsibilities.

As you can see, there's a lot to do. We shall be calling an annual meeting for all the members in January to share progress with you and discuss the changes that could be made. We'll be sending out a call-for-projects very shortly, so if you have any ideas for the coming year, please contribute in any way you feel fitting.

In the meantime, we wish you all, loyal members, friends, colleagues, a fine end to the year and look forward to seeing you all very soon!

Mark Bayhurst, Greg Williams and Ian Bailey