After Dinner Speakers: Michael Young, John Francome, George Melly

What can one say about someone who, at 85, goes and establishes a school for social entrepreneurs in London’s East End after having already received national acclaim for setting up the Consumers’ Association and the Which? and the Where? magazines; the Social Science Research Council; the College of Health; the Advisory Centre for Education; International Alert (a pressure group concerned with preventing genocide); the National Association for the Education of Sick Children; the Open College of the Arts; the National Extension College; and the originator of an idea called the Open University, a long time before it became a reality under Wilson’s Labour Government? There are many more things one can say about Michael Young, but suffice to say this man who is reputed to have founded some 49 charities is probably among the greatest of social engineers of our time. He devoted most of his life to achieving social justice for the poor and the under-privileged, the dispossessed and the disaffected. A doer, an innovator, an energetic fund raiser for his causes, a passionate and an incomparable educator, he has done more than many of his time to bring a respect and a purpose for open and distance learning. Mr. Chairman, for his lifetime work in support of open and distance learning, I invite you to confer the award of Honorary Fellow of The Commonwealth of Learning on Michael Young