Organization: International NGO Training and Research Centre
Registration deadline: 08 Nov 2016
Starting date: 22 Nov 2016
Ending date: 24 Nov 2016
Think about the last good meeting, workshop or event you attended: what made it good, left you inspired, full of ideas, eager to follow up on connections? What if all the events you organise energised participants in this way, enabling them to bring the best of their collective experience and intelligence to the task at hand? Of course there’s no single magic formula, but it’s undeniable that in a good gathering a kind of magic does happen. This applies whether the participants are meeting face-to-face or online, using web or other communication channels.
This three-day workshop will provide you with an opportunity to think about and practise designing and facilitating gatherings of people in ways that bring all of their talents into the room. The course facilitators, Pete Cranston and Isobel McConnan, have between them been designing and facilitating events, workshops and meetings for development and humanitarian practitioners for more than 50 years. We want to share some of this experience with you, and have identified approaches, methods and principles which we think contribute to successful events.
Objectives of the course
By the end of the workshop participants will:
- Know how to design and facilitate face-to-face and online events and processes in ways that maximise engagement, participation and collaboration
- Be familiar with a toolkit of practices, approaches and resources, including a core set of tools and platforms available to support online collaboration and communication.
- Feel confident in selecting and adapting facilitation techniques for different situations, including face-to-face, online and ‘blended’ (combining online and face-to-face).
- Know how to apply the learning from the workshop to a specific event or process, and feel more confident in your own role and personal strengths as a facilitator.
The workshop will provide a welcoming space for you to share and reflect on current experience, try out new things and expand your repertoire as a facilitator. We’ll be working with scenarios brought by the facilitators, as well as participants’ own situations. You’ll have the opportunity to experience and reflect on how it is to facilitate and be facilitated in both face-to-face and ‘blended’ environments. Building on this and your own experience you’ll develop your own ideas about when and how to blend a combination of these approaches in different contexts.
Intended audience
The workshop is for those with some experience of facilitating groups and meetings, and who bring together diverse groups of people as part of their role.
Core content areas
- A framework with the key principles and questions to help guide the design, preparation and facilitation of effective face-to-face and online events and processes
- Roles and support required for effective group process
- A selection of methods and activities that can be adapted to small and large meetings and events, both face-to-face and online
- Creating a safe environment for effective interaction (including the physical use of space)
- The similarities and differences between online and face-to-face facilitation
- ‘Myself as facilitator’: internal skills and developing one’s personal style
- An online wiki with a compilation of tools and techniques for use during and after the workshop
- Reflection and learning
- Online tools and platforms
Course format and costs
Starting with an online survey to identify participants’ priorities, the workshop programme is in two parts:
- A two-hour online event on 14 November
- A three-day face-to-face workshop, in Oxford on 22-24 November. As well as face-to-face facilitation there will be opportunity to practice blended facilitation in a simulated situation. Coaching support following the workshop is available on request.
How to register:
For further information on the course content, intended audience and cost, download the PDF of the course profile.
To apply for this course, complete this application form and send back to training@intrac.org
More information
For more information about this course and our other courses please contact the INTRAC Training Team:
Phone: +44 (0)1865 203040/201851
Email: training@intrac.org
Web: www.intrac.org/pages/en/training.html
INTRAC is accredited as a non-collegiate provider by the British Accreditation Council for Independent Further and Higher Education.