As we live in times when most people spend their leisure time watching serials or listening to podcasts, we want to go against this stream by organizing (online) gatherings called
ERL STROKES
General regularity : ERL STROKES take place on a monthly basis on every 4th THURSDAY of the month at 4.00 PM (CET). Each month we choose a different THEME.
Forthcoming gathering: 26 OCTOBER 2023 “BRAIN & INTELLECT” (duration: 4 mins x number of “stroke-tellers”; we expect roughly 15 contributors, so the gathering should take only about 1 hour then)
The aim: to exchange 2-minute “strokes” between nations, professions, races, or ages, and in this way foster interpersonal communication and good (but nearly forgotten) old practices of telling:
STORIES based on facts, not known to many but interesting
JOKES without offence, respecting cultures and personalities
RIDDLES worth promoting, developing logic or any other mental skills
DISCOVERIES meaningful to many, be it impressive findings or personal explorations
Each stroke will be followed by a few comments from the listeners, taking about 2 minutes, too.
The procedure: the simplest possible, without any time-consuming registration.
Step 1: you send an email to michal.daszkiewicz@ug.edu.pl saying that you’re interested
Step 2: you get a link to the spreadsheet with the timetable, names and titles
Step 3: you choose your 4-minute slot, put the title of your stroke and say who you are
Step 4: .. sorry – there’s no Step 4, that’s it J – after that we just meet online (Zoom) for our international exchange of strokes
As a result, we build up together an international collection of “strokes” ready for your use during any social occasions. So, when deciding on your stroke, please choose one potentially usable by others (by, for example, using names for characters appearing in your short story). The sound will be recorded for private repetitionsJ And although ERL Strokes will be run under auspices of scientifically ERL Association, the gathering is meant to be non-scientific and non-academic, highly dynamic, socially-oriented, free-of-charge, and bringing us all down to earthJ
Do not hesitate but think of your stroke and join!
* The term ‘strokes’ comes from Eric Berne’s theory, where they are defined as fundamental units of social action (see: https://study.com/academy/lesson/transactional-analysis-theory-strokes-and-the-stroke-economy.html). In our gathering, though, we use it with respect to different types of “verbal pieces” which have something educational or entertaining in them and which can be easily be passed from mouth to mouth (and exploit ERL – the educational role of language).