Klausurtagung

My Silsdeners are surely wondering what that is. It means a closed door/session meeting. I went to one yesterday. It was a two day event organised by my local SPD. We have this event each year at the Bildungszentrum in Erkner. What's that and where is Erkner - I can hear you asking yourself!

Erkner is a very nice small(ish) town east of Berlin. It is also the end station on my local S-Bahn line and I can be there in 22 minutes. I have always enjoyed going there. It has a couple of nice lakes plus river and streams. In summer I go there to start bicycle rides to explore local villages and countryside. You can also pick up regional trains to the Polish border. I really like going there for lunch!

Bildungszentrum means a training centre. It is part of a larger hotel-restaurant complex. It is only 10 minutes walk from the S-Bahn/Train station and close to a lake. A very nice, quiet and restful area. I registered for the main session on Saturday. Many delegates/members had booked for the Friday evening meetings. This included a session with Berlin's Mayor, who just happens to be a SPD member!

I arrived in time to have breakfast with members of my local branch before we all settled into a conference room. A Berlin government senator was present and noted all the members comments about the recent bad election results and how the party should react. After lunch there were two sessions for members to propose changes and generally give their views about how to expand membership and win back voters.

I got home late, had a couple of nice telephone calls, nodded off watching the news on TV then 'hit the sack'. I slept late this morning and woke to a blue sky and sunshine. I decided to go on a bicycle ride, but then the weather changed so I did exciting things like ironing the washing. As I did that I turned on BBC Radio 3 and was surprised at what I heard.

A 6 hour programme called 'Sacred River'. Here is some of the blurb I picked up on the website. It is a presenter less celebration of the spiritual side of life encountered through music, regardless of faith or tradition. A 'slow radio' flow. Music spans all periods and concepts, such as the following.

Creation and the cosmos, darkness and light, nature, the concept of love, ritual, contemplation and meditation, the joyous and ecstatic, life - death - eternity, mortality and beliefs about the world to come. Phew, but is that a range! I'm sure Alan and Lynne will have tuned in when they returned from church in Casland and are enjoying it, just as I am while writing these words :-))