There is one serious oversight in the otherwise good report by Milan Rai on the Coventry International Symposium in April, ‘Overcoming the Barrier of Fear’, namely that there was no mention of one of the principal organisers of the event, Carol Rank. She, along with the other key organisers, who were mentioned in the report, did an excellent job in ensuring the success of the event.
The symposium format provided an ideal opportunity for participants to get to know each other and to engage in informal discussions. It came close, indeed, to a symposium in its original sense, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a convivial meeting for drinking, conversation, and intellectual entertainment’.
It was also in this case, as Milan says, an inspiring event where one was able to meet people from different parts of the world and learn of their courageous activities in face of danger and repression.
Thank you Michael, for pointing out this horrible omission. I’m very sorry not to have recognised Carol Rank’s contribution as an organiser of the Coventry international symposium, and as host (she is associate director at Coventry University’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies). Please accept my apologies! - Milan Rai, co-editor