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December 08, 2008

Co-facilitating

In my last blog I wrote about my initial reactions to our workshop, "The Creative Touch", on 19 November. On further reflection now, and in re-reading the feedback from the group, there was an overwhelming cry for more. Almost everyone in their feedback asked when the follow-up would be, so Louise and I are working on that now. We'll let you have the dates as soon as we've planned them.

In the meantime, I'd like to reflect on the way Louise and I worked in putting the workshop together, as it's some time since I co-facilitated with another consultant. For me, it was what I describe as "very tai chi". We started talking in August and gently and slowly gathered our ideas, explored different activities, decided on the venue, put the flyer together. And then we spent a day practising each of the exercises we were going to use, facilitating live material for each other so we both had experience of the other's process and how it worked. After putting final touches together, and delighting in the fact that the workshop was sold out 10 days before the event, we felt ready.

What was wonderful for me was that we didn't rush in our preparation. We were mindful of each other's commitments and pressures and worked with these.

On the day, again, we worked with each other. We shared the facilitation and both of us held the group when the other was working or demonstrating. It was lovely. And of course it was great to get some feedback about the way we worked:

"I enjoyed particularly the excellent level of facilitation and presentation that you both brought to the workshop – as a person who did not know any participants or facilitators beforehand, the interaction within the group was very good. Although there were participants and facilitators present who did know each other, there was a welcome lack of cliques and (often unhelpful) pairing / familiarity. Apart from the people I spoke with directly who indicated who they were connected with, by the end of the workshop I still could not have identified who knew who. Thank you for a really enjoyable, informative and fun workshop experience" – Ann Dalby, NLP Coach.

Posted by Alison at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)