Witherdens Hall opens new workshop and meeting space

If you want a secluded place to work, rest or play then explore what Louise Chester had created at Witherdens Hall www.witherdenshall.co.uk in Wingham, Kent. It is an intimate space to hold awaydays with food locally produced and sourced. You can arrange your own event or draw on her network of skilled coaches, facilitators and business leaders to apply some Breakthrough Business Coaching and Consultancy; arrange some holistic pampering at The Retreat or simply take a walk through the surrounding countryside. It’s an inspirational place and has innovative events on offer if that’s what you’re after. It’s also great news for those of us based in and around Kent. A real gem I’m not sure we should be letting you know about in case we can’t book it when we want to!

Project Management - APM Conference

A productive place to run workshops is at key points through the project lifecycle: to bring the project team together to make qualitative decisions; achieve buy-in from the whole team to the way forward; and build commitment to achieving the project outcomes. For this reason we like to keep up to date with the latest in project management and recently attended the annual Association for Project Managers conference at The Brewery. www.thebrewery.co.uk

As I sat in the large Porter Tun room for the conference opening my heart sank as I saw that we had a one hour ‘Opening Speaker’ presentation and a huge screen that signalled powerpoint! I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Stephen Carver from Cranfield University www.cranfield.ac.uk was introduced to talk about Project Partnerships: Past Present and Future.
What followed was a master class in creative presentation and effective use of powerpoint! From the opening visuals of David Cameron and Nick Clegg symbolizing a new partnership the audience were engaged. There followed a whole narrative with visuals about the construction of the Pyramids and what type of project management was happening throughout. We were then treated to a short film clip from the Gladiator and subsequently tasked with a related activity to work on in table groups. And so it continued the whole presentation alive with visuals, quotes, stories, humour and activities and not an overcrowded, wordy slide to be seen! It was an excellent start to the conference. For more about the conference go to www.apm.org.uk

Facilitation Camp

Sarah spent two days at FacilitationCamp in Vauxhall South London hosted by www.decisionlab.org.uk and www.LondonCreativeLabs.com. The venue was Vauxhall Gardens Community Centre. Originally an old bed factory it was recently rescued and reclaimed for community benefit and provided a unconventional urban conference space. You can see the team of visionaries who rolled up their sleeves to make it happen, if you watch this short film about it: http://s.coop/2l8

FacilitationCamp was described as an ‘unconference’ where participants could co-create the agenda on the day as well as co-create the experience they have. It was run using the BarCamp model based on Open Space Technology www.openspaceworld.com so that we as participants could design the agenda and convene sessions. It was an energetic and exciting two days with lots of interesting ideas generated.

Sarah convened two sessions on Saturday 21st Open Space 2: Mapping & Exploring your facilitation practice and Open Space 3: Visually Recording FacilitationCamp. To see more visit http://barcamFacilitationCampWhatHappenedp.org/

Up and coming IAF Europe Conference: Paradoxes in Facilitation

Gary is currently the IAF Europe (acting) Conferences and Professional Development Lead and in a few weeks time he will be participating in the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Europe conference 2010, 15th – 17th October, being held this year in Helsinki, Finland with the theme of ‘Paradoxes in Facilitation’; where we will explore paradoxes, magical tools, myths and rites in our facilitation practice.

The conference is on the picturesque peninsula of Kallahti, in a beautiful wooded area a few steps from the shores of the Gulf of Finland – it looks a fantastic place to spend some time catching up with old and new friends active in the field of facilitation.

The conference programme is offered by Facilitator colleagues from around Europe and beyond and contains over 30 concurrent sessions and 4 pre-conference sessions.

There will be formal networking sessions under the heading ‘Punainen Lanka’ (Red Thread) where people can organise gatherings of like-minded folk around a common topic of interest and more informal get-togethers as suggested by the local team; including a range of Finnish activities and offerings to try, as well as time to meet, network and socialise with Facilitator peers; sharing facilitation experiences, stories, tools and techniques with one another.

Have a look at http://www.iaf-europe-conference.org/

The first ed.space…watch this space!

Since my early twenties I have cared deeply about the educational experiences of children and young people. Over many years this was reinforced by my experience of working with many young people whose creativity had been stifled in an educational system that somehow alienated them. The breakthrough question that ed.space is posing ‘How do we create a learning experience that fully engages with the hearts of children and young people?’ has a particular resonance for me.Also I have a firm belief that gathering together with other people to share conversation, time and space in relation to issues that matter we can begin to change the world. That may sound a grand statement but by promoting connectedness in this way we can listen, dream, explore, sense and be present to greater possibility.

Being in ed.space felt different from the start; the virgin martini’s, just an olive in a glass gave a flavour of what the evening was going to be like! Held in the inspiring Engine Hall of the People’s History Museum in Manchester (http://www.phm.org.uk/) there was an excitement in the air.
Mark Hodierne and the ed.space team created an evening that had the perfect balance of input and varied activity. There were video clips of Sir Ken Robinson, opportunities to play with music technology using ipad, small group work and a systemic constellation to explore the wider education system. There was a high level of engagement, great conversations and some powerful ideas emerged.

ed.space is definitely a new venture to watch to learn more visit http://www.edspace.ws/

Engaging Parents

Recently Sarah was asked to design and deliver a workshop for parents in a South East London borough. The parents all have children attending schools in a particular part of the borough and form what is called a school cluster group. The Local Authority Extended Services team were keen to engage with parents in relation to increasing participation in family learning as well as ensuring that parents had a voice and an opportunity to contribute their ideas for a large scale parent’s conference that would be held in July 2010.
Sarah worked with local practitioners to design a workshop that would encourage participation and inclusion. It was important to make the workshop activities accessible to all parents. Things for consideration were the wide range of cultural backgrounds and varying levels of literacy as many participants had English as a second language.

Sessions ranged from: a creative market place of information; a dot voting and marble voting series of activities; large graffiti walls that the parents could contribute their ideas to using words, images or symbols and small group conversation sessions facilitated by local practitioners.

There were high levels of participation, lots of great ideas for the conference in July and positive feedback from the parents plus a desire to be involved in the future. It was a wonderful session to be a part of.

Volcanic ash enables virtual IAF...

Having been asked to facilitate an observed (goldfish bowl) keynote workshop on ‘The Future of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) at the Chicago 2010 North American IAF conference, Gary’s plans, and session, were suddenly in disarray due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland which put paid to flying to the USA!

With a few days to go before the session and no let up on the volcanic ash cloud, Gary along with the conference design team decided that as leaders in the field of facilitation, the IAF should be doing something different and so it was decided that Gary’s keynote workshop would be run virtually with facilitation support from a fellow IAF colleague and friend, Nadine Bell, who would be in the room in Chicago.

So come the day, 16 participants and 12 observers in a hotel conference room in Chicago, Nadine Bell co-Facilitator in Chicago, a five hour time difference and Gary in his office at the bottom of his garden back in the UK, the workshop took place.

Having chosen to do this over Skype and Skype video calling, which all stayed up and connected, with the fantastic help of Nadine Bell in Chicago, a web cam, frantic note taking on post-its stuck up around Gary’s office and a webcam in the room in Chicago, 3.5 hours later virtual facilitation workshop completed, session went really well and feedback very positive.

Now to find more ‘virtual opportunities’ and good online tools and software to support it!