Matthew and I have been doing some work with a food coop; helping voluntary team leaders review and add to their conflict management tools. We’ll shortly be running our third workshop. Here’s what we work with people on – Aims To develop the understanding and application of appropriate states of mind (consensual, non-judgemental, solution focussed) […]
Dwight Towers has been envisioning more participatory formats for events s/he’s attended. The latest reads well and suggests some easily achievable tweaks to the usual ‘sage on the stage’/ ‘chalk and talk’ events we still attend and invite others to attend. We’d love to hear your forays into formats new. What worked? What obstacles (internal […]
Conflict. It sees to be the thread that’s connecting most of the work I’ve done this year so far. I seem to be naturally adept at getting into conflict. Less so at getting back out of it. So facilitating conflict has always been something I’ve simultaneously been anxious about, and something I’ve been keen to […]
On Thursday I got an early train to Manchester to meet with Adam, Kathryn and Lucy – my ‘Facilitating Change’ co-facilitators before travelling to Wales together the following day. On Monday evening I got the train back from the event – a little battered and bruised from the experience, oddly exhilarated too, and very tired. […]
I spent a stimulating day at the Common Cause Assembly in London on Friday discussing the case for working with values and what this might mean in practice. Common Cause is an initiative led by the Public Interest Research Centre that grew out of a report published by a coalition of NGOs in 2010 that makes the […]
Tomorrow I head to Manchester to meet up with my 3 co-facilitators for the Facilitating Change event. Facilitating Change is an exploration of the values that underpin and support effective facilitation. It’s an antidote to the view of facilitation that’s all “tools and techniques”. For a while the event had a nickname – a working […]
It’s been a busy week. The last 8 days have seen me working with Hannah co-facilitating a days training for Greenpeace volunteer Greenspeakers – building their skills and confidence in their role as public speakers. A few days later I spent an afternoon with Warwick University students helping them prepare for nonviolent direct action on […]
A few Saturdays ago, Maria and I were at the Springhill Cohousing community facilitating a day on consensus decision-making. One issue arose a few times in both full group and small group sessions. And I don’t think we addressed it adequately. Other issues dominated – more on those another time, perhaps. And the issue? How […]
I sat up late chatting to Nick Osborne last night. Nick’s recently become a certified practitioner in Holacracy and I wanted to get a better sense of the Holacracy model and ethos. According to holacracy.org: “Holacracy is a real-world-tested social technology for purposeful organization. It radically changes how an organization is structured, how decisions are […]
If you’re part of a group or organisation Rhizome works with, the chances are that you identify yourself as part of the Green Movement in its broadest form. If you’re a trainer or facilitator who read this blog, the chances are that you do a lot, if not all, of their work for that same […]
