SFN Co-design Day - Thanks to everyone who could be there!

A very warm thank you for joining us on Saturday 22 October for the Future of Facilitation co-design workshop.

We really appreciated the participation and input from everyone there in making the day so engaging and memorable. We hope that attendees got as much from it as we did running it!!

  
Lina Mbirkou, who so beautifully lead the mindful reflection and sharing circle at the close of the day, shared a quote that so perfectly summarised how the team felt basking in the after-glow of the event:

"There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfilment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe." - Pierre Teilhard Chardin​

We were all overwhelmed and moved by the collective passion, experience, wisdom and creativity of the group. It was an affirming sign that facilitation has a bright future and that the Sydney Facilitators Network has a strong place to stand in supporting this growing community of practitioners​.

Facilitation in the Age of Complexity with Greg Jenkins | Monday October 10, 2016.

There is no denying the fact the world is getting ever more complex - Brexit, Trump, Hanson, the ever changing federal leadership, global warming, debt, and the refugee crisis etc etc etc. Complexity at a political level translates directly into workplaces, classrooms and communities - where most of us facilitators work.
Have you noticed changes in the facilitation experience? Are blame, fear, mistrust, anger, burnout, inability to learn from the past and being overwhelmed the new normal? What do you do when you don’t know what to do?
For us facilitators this is the opportunity of a lifetime. To paraphrase Malcolm Turnbull " there has never been a more exciting time to be [a facilitator]"
This session will contain tools and tips on how to change the game through facilitation:

• How to facilitate collaboration and trust
• Essential strategies for dealing with blame, fear and grief
• The secret to successful high stakes project facilitation
• A systems approach facilitation including 5 stages, 4 principles and 1 rule
• Any thing else that emerges

About Greg Jenkins

Greg has been an active member of the Sydney Facilitators Network for almost 20 years, including 12 years as the Network Coordinator.
Greg is a highly experienced facilitator and coach. He works in complex facilitation across a full range of areas and industries including business, government, education and community. He specialises in high stakes projects and collaborative leadership. Greg’s sessions are highly experiential, practical , fun and most importantly - game changing.
Greg is the author of the ‘Changing the Game’ toolkit launching in later this year. 

Venue: [our usual 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 footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.

Time:

From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up | Donation $5

Enquiries | Eoin Higgins  eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com ; 0407 411 684

Call for Guest Facilitators:

If you have an idea or know someone who has an idea for a session at a Facilitators Network meeting in please contact Eoin Higgins 0407 411 684 eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com

Australasian Facilitator’s Network (AFN) Conference ‘Tuakana Teina,’ Waikato, New Zealand, November 29 - December 2 2016

The SFN is affiliated with the AFN (Australasian Facilitator’s Network).  The AFN is a self-organising community of practitioners based in Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and the Pacific, who have been meeting as the AFN since 1998 (and informally, with other identities, since 1992). 

The AFN focus is on working, learning and sharing with each other.

We share a passion for facilitation and participatory practice in pursuit of better communication, understanding, collaboration and harmony in workplaces, communities, and the world at large.

Similar to the SFN, the AFN is an informal unincorporated association of peers, there are no membership fees for AFN.  

Find out more at the AFN Website.

Each year since 1998 the AFN has held an Annual Conference. This is where professional and voluntary facilitators, supporters and students gather to ‘sharpen the saw’, reflect, discuss, debate, learn, share, meet, mix, create and recreate. 

AFN conferences are organised by teams of volunteers who are associates of the AFN.
  

This year the conference will be held at Waikato, New Zealand. The theme of the conference will be 'Tuakana Teina'.  This refers to the concept of older siblings teaching and guiding younger siblings; also to those with more experience in a particular practice passing their knowledge and skills on to those with less. 

Find out more at the AFN Conference website. 

Future of Facilitation: Co-design Workshop

The Sydney Facilitators Network are hosting a co-design event held at the Michael Crouch Innovation Centre (MCIC, UNSW) on Saturday 22 October, 10am - 4pm, to explore and respond to the changing nature of facilitation.

We would like to invite you to be part of this co-creation process, along with fellow thought leaders and Australian facilitation professionals, to foster innovation, dialogue and uncover how facilitation might look in 2030.

It will be a fun, energetic and fast-paced session of 42 participants in the MCIC hub for Innovators. Our aim for this one-day workshop is to collaborate and empower our community to make positive and meaningful change in society.

But before we give you all the ins and outs of this fantastic day, we would love to ask you for your input and ideas to help our first SFN co-design event!

“One not only needs their minds to think, dream and speak about change but also their hands to tinker, test, and build to create change!” - MCIC

Please take a few minutes to help us by completing a short survey:

CLICK HERE FOR A VERY SHORT SURVEY! 

Facilitating Leadership Transformations with Godwin Vaz | Monday September 12th, 2016

Transformational shifts in thinking and behaviour at the top of an organisation can affect thousands of people’s lives, and the quality of relationships, innovations; and thus whole industry/country impact.

In this dynamic and interactive session, we will look at the role and opportunity of a facilitator to affect change at senior levels.  In our uncertain, disruptive and fast-change world this requires vision, courage, empathy and multidimensionality in the facilitator - to be adaptable and know when not to facilitate and to be more directive, non-conforming and confronting.

In this session we will discuss and explore:

• What loses credibility and trust when influencing at the top team level
• How 60% of leadership facilitation impact happens outside the room/event
• The fears/blockers that may be holding you back from greater impact
• The 5 stages of mastery for a Transformative Leadership facilitator

This session will be useful for change facilitators, trainers, leaders, leadership consultants, executive coaches, artists and aspiring leadership facilitators.

About Godwin Vaz.

Godwin has worked with executives and senior leaders in MNC’s, government, schools, NGO’s and universities in the role of advisor, mentor and top team facilitator.  His work has had him deliver projects in Brazil, USA, Kenya, China, Indonesia, Argentina, Thailand, Malaysia, Canada, Ethiopia, Singapore and India.  Some of his clients include Infosys, Kenyan Government, Itau Bank (Brazil), Singapore Airlines, ANZ bank, McKinsey and Company, Ethiopian Government – water research and public university programs.

This deep-dive session is an introduction to Godwin’s Facilitation Mastery program (October 22) and Leadership Facilitation program to be held in Nov/Dec this year.

Venue: [our usual 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 footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.

Time:

From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up | Donation $5

Enquiries | Eoin Higgins  eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com ; 0407 411 684

Call for Guest Facilitators:

If you have an idea or know someone who has an idea for a session at a Facilitators Network meeting in please contact Eoin Higgins 0407 411 684 eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com

Experiencing 'Circling' with Tim Mansfield, Mary Jamieson & Khali Young | Monday August 8, 2016

'Circling’ is a facilitated group process based on in-the-moment authentic relating. It is the art of getting someone else’s world in a way that has them feel seen, known and appreciated.

A Circle starts by a group of people or a single facilitator putting their curious and open attention on the person being ‘circled’. Rather than helping, fixing or solving any particular problem, the intention is simply to connect with them and enquire into their moment-by-moment experience. The facilitator and other group members may also vulnerably express their experience as it arises.

By relating in the present moment – beyond stories, expectations and pre-determined ideas about who they are – Circling has the capacity to reveal the true essence of the person being Circled. They may also discover that who they ARE is more magnificent than any limited idea about how they think they ‘should’ be. Because of this, Circling is often deeply nourishing.

Participants often experience a deep sense of connection with each other. Practising these skills over time can also build our capacity to bring truth, authenticity and connection to all relationships.

To find out more about Circling see http://integralcenter.org/what-is-circling/

About Khali Young

Khali works as a leadership coach and corporate transformation agent. He has a lifelong interest in deep spirituality and a passion for authentic connection and personal transformation. He's a graduate of the Generating Transformative Change program and has trained in several methods of embodied, relational coaching and change facilitation. He is one of the founders of Authentic Sydney.

About Mary Jamieson

Mary works as a professional group facilitator and coach in corporations, government and not-for-profit organisations. She’s qualified as a counsellor and negotiator and trained in Integral Coaching, human development models (Spiral Dynamics and Suzanne Cook-Greuter’s work), Non-Violent Communication (NVC), NLP, the MBTI measure and adult education among other things. Mary’s a long-term meditator and dance practitioner.

About Tim Mansfield

Tim Mansfield helps organisations large and small engage more fully with the process of creation. He is currently the CEO of a specialist web software company called Interaction Consortium.

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Call for Guest Facilitators:

If you have an idea or know someone who has an idea for a session at a Facilitators Network meeting in please contact Eoin Higgins 0407 411 684 eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com

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Venue:  [Our usual 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 footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.

Time:

From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up | Donation $5

Blog www.facilitatorsnetwork.blogspot.com

Enquiries | Eoin Higgins  eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com ; 0407 411 684

=======================================================================

To either Join or be removed from this list email to Sydney.facilitators@gmail.com
with either ADD or REMOVE in the subject area.

An Introduction to System Dynamics and Organisational Constellations with Sarah Cornally | Monday July 11, 2016

As our world is becoming increasingly complex and our clients need ways of working with this, our capacity to understand, access and work with systemic intelligence is an important to cultivate. This work enables us to see the whole system, the complex web of relationships, the hidden dynamics, multiple perspectives and an expanded range of possible ways forward. It reveals harsh truths that may need to be faced and healthy ways to respond. Systemic Intelligence works on three different levels – the personal the collective & evolutionary.

In this session we will cover some basic principles of system dynamics and explore them in action. Sarah will facilitate a case in point from someone in the audience.

About Sarah Cornally

Sarah Cornally has been studying systems dynamics and organisational constellation work in Europe for the past seven years and has found this a particularly powerful way to quickly access solutions and useful outcomes in the face of complex and challenging dilemmas. Sarah’s work focuses on enabling leaders to collectively create successful businesses and organisations where people thrive whilst achieving the organisation’s purpose. She has a special interest in developing greater capacity to respond insightfully and effectively to uncertainty and complexity by exploring adaptive responses.

www.sarahcornally.com

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Call for Guest Facilitators:

If you have an idea or know someone who has an idea for a session at a Facilitators Network meeting in please contact Eoin Higgins 0407 411 684 eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com

=======================================================

Venue:  [Our usual 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 footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.

Time:

From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up | Donation $5

Blog www.facilitatorsnetwork.blogspot.com

Enquiries | Eoin Higgins  eoin.p.higgins@gmail.com ; 0407 411 684

=======================================================================

To either Join or be removed from this list email to Sydney.facilitators@gmail.com
with either ADD or REMOVE in the subject area.