ABOUT:

Thirty or forty years ago, a few of us faculty at Avondale College (Now Avondale University) were at a social gathering and the discussion of marriage came up. 

Interestingly, we discovered, during the course of the discussion, that almost all of us had benefitted from marriage counselling with Dr Hartley who managed a Family-Life Clinic nearby. 

The discussion then moved to discuss Dr Hartley himself, and we learned that he had been instrumental in a number of initiatives such as fundraising projects,  designing and building safe playground equipment at the community pre-school, setting up kiddie-safe playground and weekly playgroup  at his home, founding the first ever Morisset Community Markets and editing/publishing the Market-Day News, providing innovated and cost-saving solutions when told about mechanical problems at the College Farm, promoting the Church School and Community Carols-by-Candlelight via video medium and ghost-writing research papers for the newly established EG White Centre. 

So we bandied together to form The Friends of Lionel to publicly acknowledge his contribution to society, his church, and his family (immediate and extended). 

The membership of our informal group has changed over the years, most of the founding group have passed to their rest, and after thirty or forty years, nothing has been done to further our goal. 

Finally, when we heard that Lionel had retired, the three or four of us remaining from the original group were motivated enough to organise ourselves sufficiently to carry out our original aim.

Although frustratingly very reluctant at first, Lionel has generously agreed to share more of himself than we were able to glean from his friends, his various websites or his published writings.

As The Friends of Lionel is informal, there is no need to join to support our aim, just subscribe to our blog (friendsoflionel.blogspot.com) or his 'hartleyonline' blog (hartleyonline.blogspot.com), or visit his website (lrhartley.com), read any of his hundred-or-so books (all free), listen to his podcasts, share his material through running his seminars (all resources free from his website) or gleaning from his journals or blog for editorials or newsletter snippits/fillers.

Disclaimer: We remain anonymous for several reasons. Firstly, we were not the first to suggest this initiative. Secondly, we do not wish to have to explain why we chose Lionel Hartley over the hundreds of other worthies that receive no recognition, and thirdly,  this is not about us, but him.

Dr Hartley does not manage this website and cannot be contacted via these pages. All contact with him needs to be made via his website (www.lrhartley.com).