"The Business of Facilitation" With Greg Jenkins | Monday Oct 11, 2010

What are the 'business' issues for facilitators in 2010 and beyond?

Come and join a conversation on these and other relevant questions:

• What's my product/service?
• How do I get work and how much should I charge?
• What are the ways to organise my business processes for growth & long term success?
• How do I develop and care for myself and others in a solo business enterprise?
• How do I maintain a sustainable business?

This session will be useful to solo practitioners, those thinking about going solo and anyone who uses the services of solo facilitators and want to contribute.

For the purposes of this session 'facilitators' includes change agents, consultants, trainers, coaches, mentors, speakers, gamesters and any solo/micro business entrepreneur that works with groups.

About the Facilitator:
Greg Jenkins has a background incorporating 30 years in business, 10 years in facilitation. Greg has been Coordinator of Sydney Facilitators Network for past 6 yrs and is a role model for facilitators balancing both practice and business streams.

Greg runs a facilitation/mentoring practice and innovative boutique learning business that develops and delivers blended courses in Facilitation, Leadership and Business.

Greg has developed a new mentoring program ideal for facilitators and other solo change practitioners. 'VeSPA | Solo Biz Success' starts October 27. Find out more info www.tincanlearning.com | greg@changeagent.com.au | 0418 486 501

Venue: University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street. Room 5.580 Level 5, Building 10, Take the lift to level 5, cross the atrium foot bridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.

Time: from 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up

"How you do anything is how you do everything" great improvisation games for facilitators With Cindy Tonkin | Monday Sept 13, 2010

It is a Buddhist belief that how you do anything is how you do everything.
We as facilitators know that the simplest of processes can yield the most exciting breakthroughs.
Come play with us and discover a few improvisation games which will give you much pleasure, AND be useful when next you need to facilitate a group (or have them facilitate themselves!).
The games improvisers use to loosen themselves up and connect their brains before stepping on stage are games which reveal how you handle pressure, what makes you most afraid, what calms you most quickly.
How you play improvisation warm ups and how you respond to their built-in complexity gives you a way to access your patterns (and play with them, accept them, or even just laugh at your you-ness!).
If you're interested in having some fun, being creative, and learning a little about your own patterns, then come along!

We can guarantee you interaction, fun and a few games you may want to try.

Cindy Tonkin is the Consultants' Consultant. Her background in accelerated learning, NLP and more than 20 years experience in corporate consulting and training makes this workshop practical and fun. Her extroverted interactive style will keep you engaged. Cindy has been improvising on stage for the past ten years. She is currently producing and directing an improvised all-women show for the Sydney Fringe called Pink Ladies – Women make it up, all profits from which go to the Breast Cancer Network Australia. Find out more about Cindy at http://www.cindytonkin.com, http://www.consultantsconsultant.com.au and more about the Pink Ladies show at http://pinkladiesimprov.blogspot.com

"The Creative Brain and How It Works – Applied Neuroscience" With Silvia Damiano and Ralph Kerle | Monday August 9, 2010

There is a body of theories and papers starting to emerge in neuroscience around how our brain works creatively. This body of work suggests if you can be more aware of how your brain works in a context that calls upon creative endeavour, you will be able to alter your thinking or adjust your actions, in the process becoming more aware of your own creative praxis and how you can comfortably and confidently contribute your best to creative collaboration – an awareness that can be knowledgably sustained and improved over time.

In this highly experiential session, participants will undertake a creative team challenge using a theoretical framework and an arts based process to test this hypothesis in practice. Through this process, you will be observe and discern your own creative preferences and biases!!

About the Facilitators

Silvia Damiano, Principal of About My Brain

Silvia has degrees in Science and Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires and is currently undertaking a program on the Neuroscience of Leaderhsip with Middlesex University in the UK. She is an Associate Programme Director at Mt Eliza Executive Education part of Melbourne Business School. Her most recent role was Senior Manager, OD Westpac and she has worked in different countries, across many industries, helping teams and organisations to improve business performance, concentrating on key areas around leadership development and cultural change. In 2006, she received the L&D Excellence Award for the best learning tool by AITD (Australian Institute of Training and Development).

Ralph Kerle, Executive Chairman, the Creative Leadership Forum, Founder Creative Skills Training Council

Ralph is a globally respected consultant, presenter, educator, programme designer and writer on creative leadership, creativity and innovation.

His academic appointments include faculty adjunct at the Banff Centre, Banff, Canada as an Innovation Coach in their Leadership Development Programme and an International Thought Leader in their Leadership Learning Lab, faculty adjunct and Programme Director at the AGSM Executive Education Programme, University of NSW, Sydney Australia,and a member of the Advisory Board of Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology, Utter Pradesh, India

He is a former Associate Director of the Sydney Theatre Company, a drama graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and holds a Masters Degree in Creative Industries. He is currently trying to find a university in which to continue his Doctorial studies.

Flow with Everyday Conflicts - Using the Skills from NVC Mediation | 1 or 2 Days with Ike Lasater 10 & 11 Sept 2010 Adelaide

A unique experiential learning opportunity with Ike Lasater (USA, Poland) supported by three experienced local coaches.
We all have conflicts within ourselves and with others, little and not so little. NVC Mediation provides step-by-step approaches to taking care of yourself before, during and after a conflict. Learn how to use the skills developed in the formal mediation context to transform everyday conflict into opportunities for deeper understanding and connection. NVC Mediation is based on Nonviolent Communication, a communication model developed by Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Day 1: Understanding and experiencing the contribution of NVC Mediation skills when applied to our everyday conflicts.
Day 2: Extending our understanding and application of NVC Mediation skills.
This workshop is relevant for anyone who works as a mediator, manager, trainer, educator, facilitator, business coach or counsellor. Also relevant for anyone who wants to find new and effective ways to peacefully resolve conflicts between others; between you and another; and to transform warring voices in your own head.
No prior experience of NVC or mediation required.
For more information or to register contact Kate Raffin Mob: 0488 550 979 kate@kateraffin.com

"Change Agents at the Gates of Transformation" with Gisela Wendling, Ph.D. | Monday July 12, 2010

Using an Ancient Approach to Harness the Vital Forces in Contemporary Experiences of Change

At these thresholds of transformative change, the old gives way to the new. These gates are marked by mounting tensions that are part of letting go, entering uncertainty, and envisioning what is possible. These challenging and generative tensions bring about the necessary momentum and energy to give birth to the new. In a world that is changing at an unfathomable pace and seemingly unpredictable ways, patterns of change have become less recognizable and change processes are often left incomplete. For many, living in the ‘betwixt and between’ has become a permanent way to be.

In this session, we will apply an adapted rites of passage framework to explore how the continuous presence of perplexing change impacts our lives and especially our practice as facilitators of change. We will identify approaches to assist the full engagement of these complex tensions and explore the criticality of supporting one another as change agents. In our work, we stand at the threshold of change not only with our clients, but also in our own lives and alongside members of our local and global communities.

About Gisela Wendeling PhD.

Gisela brings together contemporary and indigenous knowledge and practices to offer more complete, systemic, and contextually sensitive approaches to transformation. Gisela guides individuals and groups to courageously meet the challenges inherent in transformational change and to trust their innate capacity for renewal. In the process, they experience the healing that often precede the ability to access previously unrecognized resources. Gisela encourages sensitivity and compassion toward oneself and others, and I evoke the abilities for deep insight and focused action.

The conceptual and practical underpinnings for Gisela's work have grown out of doctoral research in human development and organization systems, 15 years of guiding organization change and employee development projects, and her position as an assistant professor directing a MA program in Organization Development. In the latter role she supported graduate students to gain the conceptual knowledge, practical experience and personal development to become successful change agents.

Monday June 21 (*Third Monday) Wildcard

At a “Wildcard” meeting, volunteer facilitators, in an open space style, step-up from the group to run a short session of between 5 and 20 minutes.

Typical processes suitable for the “Wildcard” include ice breakers, opening and closing rituals, energisers, thought provokers, experiential activities, games, simulations - anything at all that can be done in 5 - 20 minutes.

Sessions are not scheduled in advance. We usually have time for six (6) entries on the night including a short debriefing.

Either come with a short process 'in your pocket' or just come along and have fun.

For further info call Greg Jenkins m: 0418 486 501, greg@tincanlearning.com

* Due to the Public Holiday falling on June 14, this meeting will be held on the Third Monday - June 21

Sol Australia Story Telling June 22

Story Telling - Surfing or Surfacing The Organisation Subconscious?

Speaker: Lee Carsley, Vice-President solAustralia

The world of business and government is one that applauds the virtues of rigor, clarity, crispness - heavy with practical import - after all, the entire economic wellbeing of the human race is said to rest on the effectiveness of this world view.

The success of this rational thinking, however, is spectacularly low, viz:

1. Only 10% of all publicly traded companies prove themselves able to sustain for more than a few years a growth trajectory that creates above average shareholder returns

2. The success rate of innovation, and particularly in large corporates - often the ones on which the future is said to depend - are also only about 10% successful

3. That never-ending activity of mergers and acquisitions has been shown to add value to the acquiring company of about 15% over a 5 year period.

So what else is there for organisations to sustain performance and their people?

The second in our series of provocative conversations asks the question:

"What might organisation story telling contribute to delivering sustainable change and growth for people and the places in which they work?"

Lee Carsley, National Vice President, solAustralia, and principal of Portent Consulting (for more information on who and what she is, see http://portentconsulting.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/meet-the-people/ and http://www.solaustralia.org/contact-us.php) will lead the 1.5 hour group conversation.

To entice conversation, a number of story telling frameworks will be presented.

People who attend will also have the opportunity to design a story for themselves, for others, or for organisation change. The session will stop short of expressive dance & face painting."

Date:	Tuesday 22nd June 2010
Time:	Following the 2010 Annual General Meeting starting @ 5:30pm
Venue:	The Carmichael Room, Level 1, Sydney Mechanics School Of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW
Cost:	Member Fee: Free Affiliate Member Fee: $20 Full Time Student Fee: $20 Non-Member Fee: $40
RSVP:	RSVP using this Registration Form Link

CANCELLATION POLICY: We are charged for the number of bookings made, regardless of attendance. If you register and find you are unable to attend, and unless you have cancelled your booking by close of business on Monday 21st June 2010, people who book but do not attend will be charged for the event.