I was somehow aware of HE just after I had Davies - so 5 years ago - when I got all active on parenting sites and newsgroups. I considered it briefly while in that newborn babymoon phase where you cannot imagine ever being parted from your child and then quickly wrote it off as something I would *never* do.

I came back to it again when Davies was hating daycare nursery aged 2 and started to look into it properly. I already *knew* Alison and June through UKPP newsgroup (and Chris/Helen too although had not associated them with HE) and they directed me to muddlepuddle.

The first people I met IRL were those at London last Sept (Jax, Alison, Layla, Barbara, Jan, Sarah, sorry if I’ve missed anyone out, it was a bit of a blur!) and then everyone at Melrose. I had met Jenny a couple of times before we started up our local group and also met Ros through that before Melrose. Through local stuff and blogging have also met Ali IRL although I now consider most of these friendships to be ‘real life’ ones rather than Home Ed ones.

I think I only heard of HESFES when everyone stopped blogging last May because they were there. I probably had few preconceptions about what HE folk would be like before we started and have even less now! HESFES was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. All I was worried about came true and all I was looking forward to also came true. I think it is very inaccurate to describe it as ‘the’ HE event, a good way to start or anything other than what it is.

I do value my RL HE friendships very much but I would have happily gone along to HESFES even knowing no one if I had stumbled across it given the way it is refered to. I am glad that was not the case as I think I may have run screaming from the field I spent the second half of last year working very hard to ensure that me and the children had a network of HE friends - locally and nationally - to give us that resource and I think it has paid off. I would hate to be a shy or retiring person trying to HE, I think it would be pretty hard as there is a lot of putting yourself into the middle of a ’strange’ group of people and trying to find your place. Much worse than the first day of school IMHO!

So while HESFES would not have been an introduction to HE, it would indeed have been our chance to meet many more home-educators than we do here.

As for the FES becoming more important than the HES - tbh, I suspect that other similarly-sized FESes are probably much better-organised than HESFES, at least in terms of the facilities.

The only thing that really put me off HESFES this year was the wet, the mud, the cold and the utter lack of interest in providing santation for people. It was so clearly only a FES, as Alison says, and as a FES, the crap toilets and bad conditions were somehow supposed to be justifiable. But if you say you are providing a place for Home Educators then that ought to be something safe and accessible for most people who’ll come, not something only really geared up for people who want to listen to bands and can manage to rough it. If its going to become a teenfes or an ex-he fes, fine - say so. It’d be understandable. Will i still be doing muddlepuddle camps when Josie goes past 8? Probably not.

If its going to be warmer in June, i’ll probably give it a go again, i’d gone the previous two years and struggled but felt rewarded the first time, loved it the second. Third time i was less annoyed by the reality than i was by the disregard for peoples’ needs once reality struck. That goes for Robin and organisers. They “could” have hired in toilets, they’d done it before.

I only know of 2 other people from my local area who go and to say its where everything to do with HE happens and where people meet is a bit laughable. I can’t think of more than a tiny handful of people who i think of as epitomised by HESFES. I can think of loads of people who do it but only “because” and loads who wouldn’t even consider it. My first year i made friends with 2 couples dead opposite me, one of whom i’ve seen once since and Alison. I’d have died on my posterior without Alison to help me but i only got to know her because she was persistant enough to keep being friendly when i was feeling shy and overawed. I’d never have found her if she’s felt like i did.

And i’m in imminent danger of battering the 15 year old on HESCHAT!

Met some online people, and also talked to several brand new people. Tbh, I think that the more people I’ve known there (especially the last two years when I’ve camped with MP people), the more people I’ve met there, and to some extent, the more I’ve got out of *Hesfes*, rather than enjoying myself having a holiday with people I know, if that makes sense.

I do think that the *HE* bit of Hesfes is waning in importance as the *FES* bit waxes … but we’ll be there in 2006 for our 6th visit anyway, the kids wouldn’t have it any other way

In our local group only one woman raves about HESFES but we’ve got another family who spend most the summer immersed in one folk festival after another but are totally uninterested in HESFES on the grounds of the organisational apathy.

This year was crap too and one afternoon S made an attempt to help P do some of the stuff on offer but it was either over-crowded, cancelled or not as billed. She enjoyed the social thing but much prefered MotB where you socialize but also *do* activities. I suppose it depends upon who you are and what you like really.

I think a fair proportion of the HE “community” would run for their lives from HESFES. I’m joining them

Our local HE group contains some of the kind of HEers one might expect to go to HESFES, but they don’t go, and I also know some Christian HEers who don’t go, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me to think of it as the be-all and end-all (that phrase looks really odd written)

If there are, as some people estimate, 150,000 children being HEd in the UK, that’s an awful lot who have nothing at all to do with HESFES.

It’s not the people, it’s the Alone-with-2-children-and-no-walls thing that’s scary.