New Ways of Working Alan Noble, LCN, Jan Eldred, NIACE. The event programme then focused in on what "Adult and Community Learning" might mean, looking at recent developments in delivery of learning that present opportunities for better tailoring and targeting. If non-learners are to be brought into learning, new attitudes and new practices will have to be developed by the providers of learning opportunities. Providers must recognise that reaching new learners is unlikely to succeed if they are required to attend colleges (of which they are deeply nervous)within certain defined times and to learn in certain defined ways. In a recent survey, learners listed their preferred learning locations in the following order: at home at work in libraries in community settings in colleges in church. Providers of learning must develop a new flexibility which recognises these preferences. They do not need to start from scratch. There are already a number of learning initiatives already in existence which can provide the stimulus - and in some cases the means - to reach the heard to reach. Think of the opportunities that follow from: UK online learndirect the Moser Report leading to the Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit ILAs Discounted fees for disadvantaged learners European funding supporting diverse initiatives aimed at building skills and capacity Family Learning Older and Bolder Learners Mobile Learning - releasing people from being committed to time and place Lifestyle Learning - going where the people are. We know from often repeated experience how effective, and how moving, it can be to use such initiatives to help people to overcome barriers and learn their way to a better life. We could also spare some sympathy for providers, who suffer barriers of their own: the variety of different funding arrangements for different people and different schemes the proliferation of regulations the abundance of new initiatives. They all mean that energy which should be spent on the prime task of creating relevant and accessible learning opportunities, is dissipated on bureaucratic complexities. We need to achieve new ways of working by thinking in new ways, seizing new opportunities, enjoying the challenges and, at all times, having as our watchword, ‘think of the learners’.

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