Innovation Wildcard with End of Year Social | Monday December 12, 2016 | 5.30pm

Do you have a short process that you want to practice before you do it live with a client?
Have you been considering taking a guest facilitator spot but want to get some experience with the group first?
Do you have a short process that is energizing and fun?

All these and more are what wildcard is for. You can be guest facilitator on the night for between 5 and 20 minutes.
Typically there is time for around 6 short sessions.

Wildcards are for everyone no matter what the experience level. They are unpredictable, engaging and always fun.
Wildcards are a great way to experience a range of ideas and tools from a variety of different experiences.

Wildcard sessions are organized dynamically on the night. Just turn up with your idea.

Everyone else just turn up to learn from the experience and have fun.

Xmas Social

Please join us for networking, conversation and laughter afterwards at the nearby, very economical Pho Mumum Vietnamese Restaurant, No 16 Broadway, Chippendale (opposite the Big UTS Tower). Average meal cost only$10. 

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

Leadership from the inside out : the capacity to lead and stay alive With Nick Ellem | Monday November 14, 2016.

Derives from a course and set of ideas developed at the Harvard Kennedy school of government by Ron Heifetz and others about the dangers of leading.

We will learn about leadership from the group itself as a case study of analysis and looking to build the following capacities:

- Learn to identify your capabilities, vulnerabilities and triggers
- figure out how others perceive your role in the system
- distinguish self from role
- choose among competing values
- increase tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict
- experiment beyond your comfort zone

About Nick Ellem
Nick Ellem, Harvard trained senior leadership development consultant and coach

specialised in working with organisations, teams and individuals to identify their adaptive leadership challenges, facilitate problem solving and build capacity to exercise leadership. The Adaptive Leadership Framework used in our programs grew out of the work of its co-founders Dr Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky at Harvard University, who have spent the last 30 years developing leadership art and practice.

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

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