The Dinner Party.

On Thursday evening I attended an Inspiring Women’s Dinner organised by Carole Pluckrose, Artistic Director at Arc Theatre. It was inspired by Judy Chicago’s piece called The Dinner Party which represents 1,038 women in history.
There were around 70 women who attended the wonderful dinner ranging in age from 15 to 84! The 15 year old was Eliza Rebeiro who founded Lives not Knives in 2007 and has recently been awared Croydon Community Champion. The 84 year old was Helen Bamber who has worked tirelessly in human rights for over 60 years.
Helen Bamber (www.helenbamber.org ) was the speaker for the evening and was incredibly inspiring and humble. She shared stories of her both her recent work and her time in Belsen afer the liberation of the concentration camp. I was moved by the lessons that Helen had learnt in Belsen about courage, resilience, humanity and cruelty. One very vivid image was of a Belsen survivor who very near to death had held on to Helen’s arm and said “tell, tell, tell”. Helen said this taught her how important it was to people that their stories were heard and told and how important it was to bear withness to the pain of others. www.livesnotknives.com

Revived UK Facilitator’s Network

“On Friday, a regeneration meeting was held for the UK Facilitator’s network to explore in what way a ‘community of practice’ for Facilitators based in the UK would be of value and if yes, in what format, style etc. This meeting was attended by nearly 30 UK based Facilitators and there were at least another 30 who wanted to come but could not make the date.

It was an interesting and fruitful day, where a number of processes were worked through to identify what was required of such a network, what style and format it might take, what was needed in this day and age to support UK Facilitators.

This event was hosted by Keith Warren-Price at the Pinpoint Centre in Chalgrove, Oxon and all present were looked after with extraordinary care, right down to the small tin of food and refreshments we were each given for the journey home; much appreciated and a great touch!

The day was organised and designed by our Gary, and the process itself allowed for two content/process sharing sessions, one facilitated by Keith Warren-Price drawing on the well established Pinpoint technique and the other by Gary who ran a poetry based introduction exercise.

The good news is there are people now on board, willing to help design and shape the UK Facilitator’s network of the future, watch this space for more details as it unfolds”.

A big thanks to Etc venues

Our group size up at the last minute and the booked client site room shifted overnight from workable to inappropriate physical proximity of participants (let alone the ideas than would have been demoralised and crushed)…we were able to use Etc Venues www.etcvenues.co.uk space (Prospero House) close to Borough tube at very short notice. Even though it’s on a busy main road the first floor rooms overlooked a tree or two and lots of natural light came through to support the nicely sized and well-equipped room. The staff were fantastically responsive and a good supply of both fruit and biscuits next to an ever-flowing drinks machine made for happy brain-working conditions…

Meeting Magic’s Medicine

Last night we headed into the Institute of Directors to share in the celebration at the launch of The Meeting Magic Method www.meetingmagic.co.uk. For Katherine Woods and the team their whole ethos is successful meetings made easy and this latest publication is a user friendly seven step guide and tool aimed at supporting business managers gain more effective results from any meeting. It’s also a great tool for us Facilitators serving the wider community; visually strong with simple steps to apply.