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facilitating & hosting

Why Circle is the Core

Two recent experiences I’ve been reflecting on about the power of learning “just a little bit of circle”. One was with a group of community peer ambassadors who will be engaging with families on literacy and wellness. The topic for their evening together was “Leadership and Facilitation” – a BIG topic for a two hour […]

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facilitating & hosting

Some Questions I Bring Into the Room

As part of my preparation for the Art of Hosting on Bowen Island in February I have been reflecting on what’s alive in my work these days. An Art of Hosting learning experience is not delivered from a standard curriculum that we dust off and teach. Rather, it is informed by what inquiries participants bring […]

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facilitating & hosting

A World Cafe for the Vancouver Startup Community: WeAreYVR

This week I had the great fun of collaborating with Claire Atkin of WeAreYVR and Todd Sieling, Tylor Sherman, Arian Khosravi and Sam Dal Monte of Denim & Steel. WeAreYVR is a not for profit, collaborative project, with the goal of making Vancouver’s startup community more connected, transparent, and welcoming. In March WeAreYVR received enough municipal […]

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facilitating & hosting

Insight: Harvesting Is A Process

An important part of planning a participatory gathering or meeting is the harvest. I like to explain this as what do we want to harvest in our hands (the tangible – reports, photos, videos, sculptures…) and in our hearts (the intangible – togetherness, team spirit, clarity, passion, new relationships…)? In fact, we aren’t planning a […]

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change facilitating & hosting

Exploring How Living Systems Change

In my last post about the Strategic Reflection Session, I mentioned a context setting piece on the Two Loops, which is a map of how living systems change. Here is how I described it to the group. This is a context-setting piece, not a roadmap of ‘change management’. I’ll touch on some of the core […]

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facilitating & hosting

Beauty, Silence and Listening

This from Bob Stilger in the Art of Hosting community: Several days ago, in Montreal, we held a one day workshop using stories from Japan’s disaster area as fuel for a conversation about thrivability in Montreal. Several things were key to the event’s success. One was that we brought beauty into the center. As we […]

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facilitating & hosting

A Sensing Journey Story

Some reflections as I read Otto Scharmer’s blog post about a sensing journey and gathering in Belitung of 30 stakeholders of the community (governmental department heads, NGOs, religious leaders, business leaders, etc). 1. I can related to the feeling when it’s late, people are tired… is it possible do what we hoped with this gathering? Do we […]

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facilitating & hosting

HopeLab Check-in Deck

Really love this resource put together by Chris Murchison of HopeLab: A collection of our most memorable check-in activities at HopeLab, used to kick off and close staff meetings and retreats. The exercises are simple tools we use to help create quality connections between our staff. Some great, creative ideas. Check it out here. Also, […]

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facilitating & hosting

The Article that Started It All

Had some fun tonight putting together a Resources page (gratitude to all the amazing folks I linked to). The very last link on the page is to the article that started it all for me: Alan Webber’s 1999 interview with Peter Senge: Learning for a Change. It shifted my trajectory in life to facilitating participatory processes. I […]

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facilitating & hosting

Open Space Learning Workshop

*This is a long, rambling capture of my learnings* We were a group of 11 who gathered in a warm, sunny San Francisco for Lisa Heft’s Open Space Learning Workshop: Porcia, Owen, Gary, Julie, Dianne, Anthony, Denise, Carolina, Lindsay and Lorenia. We started by reflecting in silence on our work as a facilitator and wrote […]