The second  Memory Workshops will be held at The Ray Bradfield Room in Castlemaine, Victoria, on Saturday 26th of August, 2017.

The practical workshops will be led by Paul Allen and Alice Steel, with Dr Lynne Kelly attending as our guest assistant.

You do NOT need to do two workshops, but are welcome to come morning or afternoon only.

Morning: 10 AM to 1 PM  $60 per workshop.
Memory Palaces (Tea / Coffee / Biscuits provided)

Afternoon: 2 PM to 5 PM  $65 per workshop (materials included).
Memory Boards (Tea / Coffee / Biscuits provided)

Make your bookings here

Memory Palaces (also known as the method of loci or memory trails)
Paul Allen will lead this workshop, which requires no materials other than a list of information attendees may wish to memorise on the day. The memory palace consists of a sequence of locations in which information is stored by linking it to the physical properties of the location. It is the single most effective memory system known, used by all indigenous cultures (such as Australian Aboriginal songlines and Native American pilgrimage trails). They are best known from the orators of the ancient Greeks from Homer to Cicero. All contemporary memory champions use this method.

Paul will teach the method using the example of the countries of the world in population order. The workshop will then adjust to working with participants to encode the information of their choice to the outdoor memory palace in Victory Park, Castlemaine.

Memory Boards
Memory boards are incredibly effective portable devices and found in various forms right across indigenous cultures, from the songboards and birchbark scrolls of Native Americans to the tjuringa of Australian Aboriginal elders. We will model our memory boards on the well-documented West African lukasa of the Luba people.  In its simplest form, the lukasa consists of beads and shells attached to a piece of wood, just the right size to hold comfortably – which we will call a TOC-lukasa. A personal TOC-lukasa is a gorgeous object which is hugely practical as well.

Alice Steel will run this workshop, where participants will encode information of their choosing and design their memory boards accordingly. Please bring information for any topic with you. We will also have examples of suitable information on offer. The TOC-lukasa at right is encoded with an entire field guide to the birds of Victoria.

A charge of $5 will cover all materials needed. The workshop will be lead by Alice Steel from 2 PM to 5 PM.