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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

In this episode, Pilar interviews Helene Jewell CPF about her experience of going through the CPF Certification Process as someone already experienced in facilitation. Helene has been working for 7/8 years as a freelancer, with a background in international development and Speech and Language Therapy where she started doing training and working with groups. Pilar asks Helene what she did to develop and continue learning before becoming certified.  Helene talks about the ICA UK training...

Today’s host is Nikki Wilson, talking to guest David Bishop, bilingual trainer and facilitator, based in France. David’s adventures in facilitation started about 10 years ago, when he was training managers on presentation and negotiation skills. His own practice took him towards being a meeting host, and a facilitator (though he wasn’t aware of that term at the time). He’s been with IAF for 3 years, which he joined because he wanted to support the great work they were doing. Celeste...

In this episode, Pilar talks to three of the co-authors of the book The Power of Facilitation, which was released this summer of 2021. Our conversation today is a little bit different, as it's an edited recording of the meetup that took place on 7 July 2021, a panel discussion with the authors, with contributions from the other attendees. The three panelists you'll hear from are Martin Gilbraith, who co-authored The Power of Partnership Between Facilitation and Communication with Michael...

We have two guests joining our host Nikki Wilson in this episode: Steve Yorkstone, talking about IAF Scotland and Ewen Le Borgne, who talks about process literacy with Liberating Structures. Steve Yorkstone, tells us about how he got involved with the IAF and how he's ended up running the IAF Scotland chapter.  Since he's taken the baton, Steve has set up a website for the chapter, where people can sign up to the mailing list and receive updates about what's going on.  ...

In this episode Helene talks to Alex Williams Lead Trainer and Facilitator for nature-based learning at Muddy Feet.   All Alex and her team’s facilitation is outside, taking groups of all ages out to urban and rural wild spaces encouraging nature connection.    Helene asks why Alex chooses to work outdoors.  This is largely as the focus of the work is linking people to their environment.  It started when Alex did Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in the Philippines .  There all planning...

In today’s episode, Pilar and Helene both join a conversation with Vinay Kumar.  Vinay is Chair of IAF Global, based in Bangalore, India. He is a Certified Professional Facilitator, Coach, Organisational Development Consultant, Founder of C2C and host of podcast “Shiny Happy People”. They start by discussing how in 2006 Vinay began calling himself a Facilitator and became interested in the IAF.  They talk about what changed in his practice as a result of starting to call himself a...

This is a short, bonus episode to let you know about how we've changed the organisation of our Meetups over at Meetup.com. See below for more details.  Join us here: https://www.meetup.com/IAF-facilitators-and-friends/ Next set of meetups: Tuesday, June 8, 2021 Midlands facilitators monthly online coffee meet-up https://www.meetup.com/IAF-facilitators-and-friends/events/jswzjsyccjblb/ Wednesday, June 9, 2021 South West facilitators monthly coffee meetup ...

In today’s episode, host Helene Jewell talks about returning back to face-to-face facilitation after a year spent moving facilitation online due to the pandemic. Helene first talks to Camilla Gordon, freelance facilitator, trainer and consultant, and a winner of an IAF Facilitation Impact Award, about her experiences about face-to-face facilitation in the past year. Camilla talks openly about her need to be with clients face to face, as she wasn’t built for an office job, or to be stuck...

FS31 Clean Language and Metaphor In today’s episode, host Nikki Wilson takes a deep dive into clean language and metaphor, and talks to three guests about their uses of them in their facilitation practice. First Nikki talks to Judy Rees about how she discovered clean language and metaphor and how they feature in her work today. Judy started exploring the use of metaphor as a child, when her father was studying its use in education. Following reading the book “Metaphors We Live By” by...

In today's episode, Helene Jewell talks to Lindsay Sumner and Simon Wilson about the IAF's Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) assessment process and how it has moved online. Lindsay Sumner (CPF M) is the  IAF Director of Certification Operations. She shares with Helene her own certification process, which was a testing one! The process continues to test facilitators skills and processes. There is writing, interviewing and observation involved.  CPF is an in-depth peer review of...

This episode features three initiatives from members of the IAF England and Wales Chapter. First, Nikki speaks to Mike Clargo about “Leading by Adventure”, a series of weekly adventures of around 15 minutes each, to offer people a different perspective.  They talk about where the idea came from, and how Mike was struck with the thought that we need something to support us to engage with change as a game, having fun, while building skills for the future.  Mike tells Nikki about some of the...

FS28 Exploring Metaphorum with Judy Rees – Show Notes Today’s episode starts with an overview of upcoming IAF meetups from Pilar, with a specific invitation to join a Networking and Learning Meetup at 9.30am GMT on 20th January, hosted by Helene Jewell and Sue Windley following up on a session Helene ran in International Facilitation Week on making online events accessible. https://www.meetup.com/IAF-South-West-England-facilitators-and-friends/events/fpkdvrycccbrb/ We then move on to a...

Helene Jewell hosts this episode about the skill of online facilitation and the importance of Facilitation to make your celebrations go with (or without) a pop!   We also have two voices from our virtual coffee meet-ups: Gordon Mullan and Jane Mitchell share their thoughts about online facilitation following the IAF conference in October. And Helene introduces the new England and Wales IAF Board, and thanks the outgoing Chair and Treasurer! Two Twitter handles for the coffee inserts:...