Our three-day Takeoff Meeting in Vopovlje near Ljubljana, Slovenia, went very much as planned (see Programme and Agenda). Out of a group of 32 people, participant colleagues, faculty, staff and partners, four people were unable to join us. Milos, Nevila, Vasilika and Vladimir, you were missed!

Day 1, morning session. After Irena's brief recount of the project's history and goals and the overall plan, we broke up into 4 groups discussions on topics identified in the general debate that needed some clarifications. These themes were: impact of our project work on local academic settings; broader public engagement of our project members; transfer of our work to academic curricula; and the general output plan of our three years work. In the ensuing joint discussion, we first heard the reports of the groups' moderators and reporters, discussed them, and then identified the themes that needed to be clarified towards the end of our meeting.

Day 1, afternoon session. This session turned to the contents of our work, with the essays on the 12 pieces of literature (basic literature) serving as a starting point for our discussions in 3 groups corresponding to our original study groups that have discussed the literature in the November and December 2003 MSN sessions. These separate sessions were audio recorded and will be distributed on CD-roms to all. At the concluding joint meeting of the day, the resource faculty presented their views on the content of our project.

Day 2 sessions started as planned with a more detailed presentation of each faculty member's professional work and intended contribution to our joint project, and was geared towards formulating two basic modes of our joint work that should be maintained throughout our three year plan: the personal projects; and the ongoing joint epistemology-pedagogical transfer debate. The personal projects of participant colleagues were spelled out in some detail according to their respective current or planned research and teaching. Each participant described their theme in some detail and then named those members of the resource faculty that he/she wished to begin working with. These groups (see: Personal projects) will remain in operation until Summer School 1; it is still our intent that each participant colleague should have the opportunity to work with each member of the resource faculty. During the entire day, and during the third day, participant colleagues met with their resource faculty members in order to discuss their themes, their modes and pace of work, and detailed plans of cooperation that should, in principle, result in a goal-oriented production: a publishable paper, a well-thought over syllabus, etc. This mode of grouping and cooperation is designed to provide the participant colleagues with help, guidance and collegial criticism on the work they are doing; it goes without saying that their selected themes of research and teaching are all highly relevant to the field of post-socialism studies as it is currently understood.

Here is the picture:

On the evening of Saturday, January 10, we visited Ljubljana as guests of the ISH – Graduate School of the Humanities.

All in all, we were into some serious fun, and will report exhaustively on it. Stay tuned!