Belmont: Enjoy Learning founder steps down as he retires - again

Tom Smith, who founded Enjoy Learning in 2006 after retiring from his role as the programme manager for visual and performing arts at Bolton College, is stepping down at the age of 76.

He had been at Bolton College for 30 years after which he wanted to fill a gap in the adult learning sector

Mr Smith set up the not-for-profit organisation to provide adult classes in areas such as art and languages. The courses were run in community buildings.

Mr Smith said: “This is my second retirement; I ran a big department at Bolton College the visual and performing arts department for many years and I first retired around 2006 and at the time adult education funding was disappearing.

“So, I thought well we can do this without the funding and provide quite a good service and so I came out of retirement and set it up and I have been doing that now for around 17 years until I said I have to retire now.

“Enjoy Learning was set up to provide adult classes and we thought we could provide classes such as arts and languages from church halls and it was set up at the end of 2006 with about three classes running at the time.

Tom Smith is retiring at 76 (Image: Aisha Momoniat)“In 2007 it went up to about 15 classes and it then expanded right up until the Covid pandemic when we had about 40 classes across the town.

“The pandemic hit us a little bit, but we were fairly well-resourced, and we managed to overcome it and since then we have been picking back up and it is time for someone else to look at expansion for the future.

“Each year we have had about 1,000 enrolments over the course of 17 years that is quite a lot of people we have made a difference to.

“I am leaving but there is a future to Enjoy Learning with new classes and new experiences for people to join in the future.”

Mr Smith added: “I am 76 now and I am doing other things as well, I have set up a group in Belmont and I have other interests too, I enjoy art and I am learning Italian, and I want to try some of the classes that Enjoy Learning run, for myself.

“I paint semi-professionally, I exhibit work and so it seems the right time to retire as I have got more time to focus on my art now I hope.

“I also need to spend more time with my grandchildren and my daughter lives in London so I would like to go and visit her more.

“My family are all very surprised that I have retired.”

Tom Smith (Image: Aisha Momoniat)Tom said he would describe his career as ‘interesting, varied and enjoyable’.

He said: “It has just been a pleasure, I have been extremely lucky in my 54 years of teaching, I have had some really great students.

"My career has been interesting, varied and very enjoyable, it has been quite hard work but very enjoyable.

“The real pleasure has been running the classes, I really enjoyed being in the company of the people who attended the classes.

“I started working many years ago and fell into education by accident and I just got the bug for working with people who were interested in adult learning.

“I have worked in many different areas within education, but I was always interested in the adult education side of things with people coming back to learning because they wanted to and seeing it as a social activity as well as an education activity."

To find out more about Enjoy Learning, go to: https://www.enjoy-learning.org.uk/

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