Additional information about this project

The Farset Community Think Tanks Project has resulted in the publication of over 100 pamphlets on a wide range of subjects by different sections of the Northern Ireland community. The process of compiling a pamphlet involves bringing together a small group of people – reflecting different opinions on a particular issue – who undertake a series of recorded discussions. A summary of these discussions is then prepared for publication as a pamphlet by the Project Co-ordinator (Michael Hall). At all stages, control of the process remains in the hands of the participants, with the Co-ordinator acting as editor, not as censor.
The process of facilitated discussions, where people share their individual experiences, brings this project into the remit of story-telling. However, the original recordings are destroyed as part of the process and the quotes in the published pamphets are anomynous, so the individual stories cannot be catalogued in Accounts of the Archive. Nevertheless, the pamphlets represent an important source of information and this is why the collection has been catalogued. Many of the pamplets are available at the CAIN site, as well as a full list of the pamplets published.