Facilitation Stories

In today's episode, Nikki talks to Perle Laouenan-Catchpole, an Amsterdam-based facilitator and experienced designer. Perle shares the origins of Perle's award-winning, open-source workshop that aids individuals in identifying their personal climate action. Perle discusses the importance of open source in facilitation work and the impact it has on personal growth, relationship-building and work perception. She firmly believes in the need for collaborative and shared resources in addressing pressing issues like climate change. T he discussion also touches on different platforms for sharing open-source material and how they can be leveraged by other facilitators.  Links: Website https://helloperle.com/ Perle's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/perlelc/ Session Lab Template https://www.sessionlab.com/templates/find-your-climate-sweet-spot/ Nikki's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Here's the transcript of the conversation: NIKKI Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by

In this episode, Pilar talks to fellow podcast team members Helene and Nikki, along with Penny Walker and Shanaka Dias about a global, hybrid process they facilitated together, running over 4 days with multiple languages and timezones. They reflect on planning in advance, adapting in the moment and working well as a team. The full transcript is below. All of the team can be found on LinkedIn: Penny Walker:            https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennywalker/ Shanaka Dias             https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanaka-dias-8765b51/ Helene Jewell             https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson                https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Pilar Orti                      https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilarorti/   And you can find all of the links to IAF England and Wales on the Facilitation Stories website: https://www.facilitationstories.com/ SPEAKERS PO – Pilar Orti HJ – Helene Jewell NW – Nikki Wilson PW- Penny Walker SD – Shanaka Dias   PO  00:03 Hello and welcome to Facilitatio

In this episode of Facilitation Stories Pilar is joined by Sue Bird, who is a European public affairs specialist and facilitator. Sue ran a session on facilitating for government at the recent IAF conference. She talks about how pleased she was to be able to attend the IAF England and Wales conference in Birmingham recently, and how it was great to be able to meet fellow facilitators and understand how they're running their business, how they do facilitation. She talks about how she does both European Public Affairs consultancy work AND facilitation.  Sue reflects on a session she attended at IAF England and Wales about structuring your facilitation business. She set up her own business a year ago, following her 30 years work for the European Commission in a number of different policy areas, and in funding programme management. She wanted to set up a business that would play on these strengths and use the training she has received in the Art of Hosting and Participatory Leadership with the European Commiss

In today’s episode Nikki talks to Ann Nkune about her rediscovery of Appreciative Inquiry.  Ann is a facilitator working with charities, social enterprises and the public sector helping people to increase their impact and be sustainable. Her work over the last 10 years has been parent friendly start up and career development programmes for women operate in the environmental and social impact sector.  Ann describes a Linked In post that she recently wrote about Appreciative Inquiry (AI) where she was able to connect with other AI enthusiasts to talk to about it, help her work through the complexities and challenges and think about what more she could do when facilitating. And how she had fallen back in love with it having not used it for a while.   Ann talks about the premise of AI and how most theories of change are about identifying a problem or risk. Whereas AI says that change is much more likely to happen when people understand where their strengths and the strengths of an organisation are, and can

In this episode Pilar talks to Paul Kelly and Caroline Jessop about co-facilitation.  Caroline is a facilitator based just outside Winchester. She describes herself as a creative facilitator and enjoys the things that leave people upbeat and energised.   Paul is the founder of Pandek Group which is a Facilitation, Training and Coaching business based in the South West specialising in bridging the disconnect within organisations. He uses Lego Serious Play as one of his facilitation tools.   Paul and Caroline have recently worked together on an away day that focused on the disconnect within teams in a professional organisation. They had already had a conversation about wanting to do some work together when this piece of work came up.   Caroline describes herself as a born collaborator and how she and Paul have similar expertise but different styles. She felt this piece of work was quite serendipitous and had space in her diary to explore the “gritty” brief.   It was also a learning opportunity for

In today's episode, Helene talks to Catherine Wilks about her experience of running a session at last year's conference. They talk about The Shoopery, working on instinct and play, adapting the plan as you go along, the power of letting go and the plans for the April 2023 conference.  Catherine was introduced to the IAF and the idea that she may actually be a facilitator by Cat Duncan Rees (IAF England and Wales Treasurer). She set up the Shoopery with Pip and Alfie. Having met at a Mental Health organisation and used mental health services themselves, they realised that there was the need for something to happen in between waiting for appointments. They developed lots of different ideas and workshops and realised they were good at helping people let go.  Enter “the Shoop”. Everybody’s Shoop can be different – which Catherine describes as positive, upbeat, out of your comfort zone experiences. When people experience their shoop, they say that at the point of letting go they are comfortable with being themselv

In this episode Nikki talks to Lucy Hawthorne who for the past year has been experimenting with bringing playfulness to conversations about climate. Lucy is a facilitator by trade and an environmental campaigner by background and has been exploring the link between playfulness and climate action for around five years. In the latter stages of her campaigning work, Lucy was at her most successful, including involvement in the ban on fracking in the UK, but was also at her most jaded. She was becoming adept at political maneuvering but not really shifting people’s hearts and minds, and began to think about how to engage people more deeply in this important subject.  As she moved into facilitation she began to look for the antidote to the lack of deep engagement and realised that people were being scared into action, but crushed into apathy. Maybe plan was the antidote.  Lucy has spent a lot of time thinking about what play means and how it is both a set of tools and a mindset.  The project hasn’t developed in qu

We wrap up the year talking to three hosts of our Meetups to find out what's been going on in their regions: what common themes have emerged throughout the year and their plans for 2023.  Join our Meetups in person, or online (you can join any region when you join online!).  https://www.meetup.com/iaf-facilitators-and-friends/ 01.41mins Helene Jewell tells Pilar Orti what’s been going on in the South West facilitators meetups. 12.38mins Megan Evans, co-host of the Wales/Cardiff meetup with Tanya Nash tells Nikki Wilson about what they’ve been up to. 15.46mins Adrian Ashton tells us all about what him and other facilitators have been up to in the "We are Northern" meetup - it involves plenty of zoom selfies that you can follow through #IAFMeetup. Connect with our guests on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-evans-consultant/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-nash-7576b837/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianashton/ And follow Facilitation Stories on Twitter @

Today we have a treat for you: Nikki Wilson interviews two guests who use photography as part of their facilitation practice. Gianpietro Pucciariello and Chris Chinnock. Our first guest is Gianpietro Pucciariello, who returns to the show after appearing in episode 15. Gianpietro’s working life in the UK is divided into two: he’s a start up founder and a sole trader that covers many roles.  He supports mission-drive individuals and communities to building social environmental impact communities and ecosystems.  For this he uses creativity and innovation practices, coaching focus conversations and collective learning experiences.  His last project is called From Lens to Self, through where he connects learning from different areas in his life. He’s developed for others a 3hours outdoor walking self-development journey, using photography for self-exploration. Participants can use their cameras or phones to take photographs to visualise their problems, using metaphors to connect to the problem, and help the probl

Happy Facilitation Week everyone!  We are releasing this bonus episode to celebrate all things facilitation.  In this episode, which we've borrowed from the 21st Century Work Life podcast, Pilar talks to Simon Wilson about how he incorporates asynchronous communication into his facilitation processes - and the challenges this brings.  You can see the full show notes over at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/asynchronous-collaboration-facilitation To get in touch with the team behind Facilitation Stories, head over to https://facilitationstories.com/ or you can follow the podcast through @Fac_Stories on Twitter. 

For this episode, Pilar is joined by John Monks to talk about how to have a conversation with a client about whether your event or workshop should be in person or online. John is a facilitator, and partner of Curve. He coaches CEOs, and has digested his practice of many years into the book Closer Apart: How to Design and Facilitate Brilliant Workshops Online, which he's co-written with Lizzie Shupak.  https://www.closerapartbook.com/ John’s always been passionate about helping people connect with each other in order to collaborate and solve problems, and this drives much of his work.  Through facilitation and training facilitators, he looks for “where the edges are” and new ways of helping people to collaborate. Using technology is part of looking at new ways of working.  John started as a consultant - freelancing and in a large firm, where there were many opportunities to develop his skills in how to run meetings and help people collaborate. In parallel, he trained as an exec coach, helping people to come up

In this episode Nikki talks to Tanya Nash. Tanya is the Founder of Future Clarity.  She is a facilitator, coach, trainer and researcher and works with people in the sustainability field or organisations looking to make sustainability one of their core organising principles.     Tanya  is also one of the hosts of the IAF Wales and Cardiff meetup. Her and Nikki reflect on a discussion that took place at one of these meetups, focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).   The 17 SDGs form part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development - a commitment made by the United Nations in 2015 to Peace and Prosperity for People and Planet.  Tanya highlights in particular the 16th - focusing on peace, justice and strong institutions - and the 17th - recognising that none of the goals can be achieved without working in partnership. They are a common set of goals that all countries which have committed to them can work towards and measure themselves against.   Tanya explains the significance of the SDGs in Wale

In today’s episode, Pilar talks to Myriam Hadnes, facilitator and host of the Workshops Work podcast and founder of the Never Done Before festival.  Myriam first realised she was a facilitator after she read Priay Parker’s "The Art of Gathering". Her perception of facilitation has broadened since then: she now thinks more of having the mindset of a facilitator as she’s doing less and less pure facilitation, and more training and nurturing of facilitators. Maybe it’s more a question of identity and how you do what you do eg in a conversation, being present, listening, making sure the other person is heard etc. Myriam has created a home for facilitators. The Never Done Before festival grew out of a feeling that there was nothing new in the events that Myriam attended. In 2020, Myriam set up the festival, online, with the only “rule” that those leading sessions had to do something they hadn’t done before. She invited previous podcast guests to run sessions.The festival went on for 24 hours and everything that c

In this episode Nikki talks to Helene about the recent “Re-Facilitation Conference”. This was a hybrid conference with around half of the participants meeting in person and half Zooming in.  The conference had three streams - one fully in person, one fully virtual and one designed to be hybrid, joined by people in the room and those joining virtually. They start by talking about the evolving team including a core group of Hilary Topp, Camilla Gordon, Cat Duncan-Rees, Adrian Ashton, Paul Kelly and Paul Brand who helped with the tech,  and some who helped at various points including Caroline Jessop, Nicola Morris, Gary Austin,   Lee Button and Megan Evans.  They then talk about the planning process and the fact that a combination of uncertainty due to COVID and a curiosity about trying it out, led to a decision around the end of 2021 that this would be a hybrid conference.  One of the first things they thought about was the theme “Refacilitation” .  The conference then evolved from there with facilitators invit

In today’s episode Pilar talks to facilitator Paul Kelly.  He’s going to be running two sessions at the IAFEW Re-Facilitation conference on 13th-14th May 2022 in Birmingham and online. His first session will be on “Collaborative Consensus”and the second will be a facilitated discussion around neurodiversity. (A note to readers on the website: we have some gremlins playing around with our text here. Apologies while we sort it out, and oh the irony given the topic of this episode...) Paul first talks about how he got into facilitation and then about his interest in Neurodiversity.  "Neurodivergent" is used to describe a variety of conditions and Paul emphasises that having conversations with people, allows sessions to be more inclusive. Paul shares some of the ways that people might engage differently from the starting point is that we all have different ways to interact with the world.  When facilitating, sometimes simple things can make a difference.  This can include thinking about how to reduce anxiety for

In this episode of Facilitation Stores, host Helene Jewell is joined by guest Lisa Morgans Lisa is a vet, researcher and facilitator. She is Head of Livestock at Innovation for Agriculture – an independent knowledge exchange charity based in England that works to bridge the science-practice gap and support farmers as they transition to a more sustainable, resilient and productive farming system. Lisa has a PhD in participatory action research and before that worked as a veterinary surgeon in a mixed veterinary practice in Cornwall. Lisa talks about the variety in her role, from project management to facilitating knowledge exchange activities and translating policy into information for farmers. Also, part of her role is training vets in facilitation skills as they are such good skills to have. Over this episode Helene and Lisa discuss the methods used in Lisa’s workshops, which follow the principles of participatory action research and farmer led innovation. They discuss the similarities between Lisa and Helen

In this episode Pilar welcomes two guests. First she talks to Adrian Ashton.  They start talking about Adrian’s relationship with facilitation and how over time he’s become more involved with the IAF and hosts the North of England meetup.  He talks about some of the highlights of running the group.  They’ve experimented a lot with location, themes, topics and guests.  Adrian highlights the variety of people that join the meetups but that it’s always a safe and relaxed space to reflect together.   Topics have ranged from dating to cows to spreadsheets to props. Adrian sometimes gathers notes on the themes discussed and shares them on social media.    This amplifies and captures the learning for themselves and facilitators of the future. They go on to talk about Adrian’s awards.  One with current pride of place is “non employee of the week” from a Facebook community “Being Freelance Friends”.   Next Pilar and Adrian talk about the IAF Conference taking place in Birmingham, UK on 13th and 14th May.   The Leaders

In this episode Pilar talks to Penny Pullan, Director of “Making Projects Work” and author of “Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Success with Remote or Hybrid Work and Teams”, just out in its second edition, and in 2021,  “Making Workshops Work: Creative Collaboration for Our Time”. Penny explains that Making Workshops Work was originally contracted and due to be published in 2016 but then the pandemic hit and she focused on writing the book to help people, not necessarily certified professional facilitators, who needed to collaborate. Penny talks about seeing her role as a catalyst for collaboration, making it easy for groups to do the best work they can do. They move on to talking about when Penny first called herself a facilitator.  Penny explains that it began when she was running a session for a group where a Senior person said in front of everyone, they were going to leave at lunchtime if the session didn’t improve. Penny opted to give the group a break and admitted to this senior person that

Just saying hello, we'll be back with a proper episode soon. Let us know you're listening!  We're @fac_stories on Twitter Check out facilitationstories.com

In this episode, Pilar talks to Anish Hindocha, who has recently taken the IAF Endorsed Facilitator assessment process. They talk about Anish’s experience through the process and then move on to talk about the challenges of being truly inclusive.  (You can check out an earlier conversation they had, in episode 08 of Facilitation Stories. https://facilitationstories.com/fs08-what-happens-at-our-meetups-and-first-steps-in-facilitation ) Anish is a change consultant with a passion for culture transformation. He started using facilitation through his work as  a business analyst, bringing teams together. He progressed to bringing different people together, with different opinions and helping them to solve problems together. At the same time, he created a Meetup for Spanish speakers wanting to practice English and viceversa, which also brought in another level of facilitation. Anish started looking at the IAF's endorsed route when he became freelance. He realised that a lot of the proposals he was putting out t