Newsletter, August the 9^th 2026

We are very pleased to announce that  the preparations for Stafford Beer’s centenary celebration are going very well indeed.

The Festschrift book has 23 chapters and thanks to all the authors and the three editors is proving to be an extraordinary publication.  It is currently at the proofreading stage and will be ready to be launched at the centenary conference in the  Alliance Manchester Business School, September 17^th-19^th 2026.  We are planning a digital version  - an epub – which we are intending to distribute free of charge. The hardback version should be available on a print-on-demand basis for the cost of the printing.

Supported by Boyan Angelov we have created a 100 Years of Stafford Beer's Digital Museum, where we are sharing tributes from people who wanted to share their views on Stafford, and  digital artifacts from Stafford including pictures, paintings, and poems. There are also songs and videos produced with artificial intelligence, and teasers of video documentaries produced by members of our community.

Over the last few months we have been interviewing cyberneticians who have continued developing Stafford’s theories, consultants who have had important impact in businesses around the world, relatives and close friends whose lives and destinies were highly influenced by him. We have created a playlist in our YouTube channel - 100 Years of Stafford Beer - where we are progressively uploading these interviews. (see youtube@metaphorum playlists)

We are working with Liverpool John Moore’s university to obtain funding to do a full video documentary on Stafford, but this is taking more time than expected, so we will be launching at  the conference both the digital museum and a few short video documentaries honouring Stafford’s life.

Conference Update

We have got more than sixty very interesting submissions for the conference from authors, consultants and practitioners around the world. All together they demonstrate how Organisational Cybernetics is more alive and relevant than ever and producing the sort of innovative research that is more relevant for the challenges we are living now.

There will also be creative workshops including games, educational innovations, and collective thinking about the future of organisational cybernetics.

There has been significantly more interest in this year’s conference than in previous years:  it looks like we’ll have twice as many people as usual.  While we are delighted with the response, it means the number of available places is filling up rapidly.  

The maximum number of places for the Gala dinner has now been reached, and we have had to close registrations.   There are still places left for the conference, but we are monitoring this closely and they may run out in the near future. 

You can find out about the conference and register here:

https://voluble-dango-6f9eee.netlify.app/

We will close registrations for the conference on September the 2^nd, as this is our deadline from the venue to  finalise the number of people attending the conference, particularly for the catering.

Any questions please emails us at: conference2026@metaphorum.org

The Conference Organising Committee

Metaphorum Cooperative Board Positions

During the Annual General Meeting,  the members voted for and appointed the new board of directors who have appointed Angela Espinosa as the President,  Allenna Leonard as Emeritus President and Jon Walker and John Waters as the team responsible for the duties of the treasurer and secretary.

Looking forward to seeing lots of you in Manchester.

We will announce the webinars series starting in September 2026 in the near future.