AFN - Speakers

Programme Leader: Dr. Gil Brenson-Lazan
Investment: $110
To enroll in this programme click here or by phone +64 4 472 2603.

Helen Patterson

Helen Patterson is an experienced facilitator based in Ashburton, near Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand. At present she is teaching the Genuine Contact Facilitation Programs in NZ (www.genuinecontact.com).
The components of this programme are:
1. Working with Open Space Technology (OST)
2. Whole Person Facilitation
3. Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution
4. Advanced work with OST featuring the Open Space Organization
5. Train the Trainer
Her workshop at the AFN Conference explores the use of the medicine wheel/healing circle, one of the key frameworks used in the Genuine Contact Programs.

Previously Helen has been on the leadership team of 30+ Zenergy
facilitation and coaching workshops in New Zealand.

Helen is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Exploring your journey as a facilitator using the medicine wheel/healing circle as a metaphor.
An experiential interactive session exploring your journey as a facilitator using the medicine wheel/healing circle as a metaphor. Aspects covered are purpose, leadership, vision, community, management and relationships.

Janet Rice

Janet is a Councillor with the City of Maribyrnong in Melbourne, Co-convenor of The Australian Greens Victoria and works as a consultant in community involvement and facilitation. She has lots of experience facilitating consensus decision making processes, and says her election to Council last year has given her a rude awakening as to how decisions are made outside this framework!

Janet is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Egos, ambition and the adversarial paradigm: Facilitating collaborative decision making processes in political organisations
Led by Janet Rice and aimed at Journeypeople. A lot of facilitation involves working with organisations to help them make better decisions; generally through using good collaborative processes, involving all affected stakeholders as necessary. What if however some members of an organisation are threatened by the participatory democracy of such processes? They are entrenched in the adversarial 'winner take all' approach, often not seeing that the pursuit of power in this way impacts on the organisation's long-term health. However, if a majority in the organisation want to make decisions collaboratively, can it be done? How to do it? This session will explore these issues in different political and community settings. Please come and share your experiences!

Dr Dale Hunter

Dale Hunter is an international facilitator and mediator whose work includes conferences and public meetings, strategic planning, conflict resolution, team building and individual coaching for empowerment. Her client base is broad including the business, public and community sectors and political parties. Dale is the co-author of four internationally published books: "The Zen of groups", "The Art of Facilitation", "Co-operacy- a New Way of Being at Work" and "The Essence of Facilitation". Dale is the Vice-chair International for the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and a member of the Executive team.

Dale is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Mapping the Field of Facilitation
Led by Dr Dale Hunter and aimed at all comers. An interactive workshop to map the field of facilitation and explore where the various methods fit within a Facilitation Methods Matrix. This workshop is an opportunity to take part in mapping the field and learn about other facilitation methods. Suitable for beginners and advanced. Will also include an introduction to the IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation.

John Faisandier

John is a TEP (Trainer, Educator and Practitioner) in the Wellington Psychodrama Training Institute. He facilitates team development processes throughout New Zealand and the Pacific in a variety of organizations, including government departments, large corporates, private companies and community organisations. Over the past 15 years he has presented workshops at conferences for NZ Association of Training and Development, Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association, New Zealand Association of Counsellors and Rural GP Network.

John is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

A Psychodramatic Approach to Facilitation
L ed by John Faisandier and aimed at all comers. This interactive session will explore how various aspects of the psychodramatic method can be utilised in the process of facilitation. The participants will determine the content of
the session. Simple techniques such as warm up, concretisation, and action sociometry will be used and taught. There will be opportunity for reflection on the process so that participants learn from what they have experienced.

Kevin Balm

Kevin Balm is a Director of Participative Technologies, a facilitation consultancy firm specialising in participative learning, planning and decision making processes. Participative Technologies designs and delivers facilitation, learning and consulting services aimed at stimulating business innovation, improving team productivity and, increasing organisational coherence. Kevin has over 15 years of experience in his primary roles of facilitator, trainer and consultant and has led sessions at facilitation conferences in Australia, Asia, USA and New Zealand.

Kevin is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Spiral Dynamics and Facilitation Wizardry
Led by Kevin Balm and aimed at Seasoned Adventurers A session aimed at expanding our current facilitation boundaries. Spiral Dynamics, sometimes called levels of psychological existence theory or "psycho-social DNA" is based on the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves and made popular by the recent book SPIRAL DYNAMICS: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan. This book explores the new science of Memetics, which explores the origins of human behaviour rather than the physical characteristics. Beck and Cowan are basically saying that there are, at this point in history, eight basic memes or value systems, paradigms that have evolved since the beginning of human history. By putting these memes into a spiral one gets a sense of the complexity that happens as more and more memes intermingle. The challenge for leadership/facilitators is to become a "spiral wizard" who can bring health to the spiral by respecting all the memes present, healing the ill manifestations of any of the memes and helping with appropriate responses to the present situation.

Martin Butcher
	Martin is a current PhD candidate at Southern Cross Uni working on Methods and Techniques in Participatory Development. He has an Interactive CDROM due to be released this month: 'Outside the Gates: Development Processes for the Real World.' Martin is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Group Activity Design Session: Exercises in Engaging Powerful Stakeholders
Led by Martin Butcher and aimed at Seasoned Adventurers Facilitation enables a group work together effectively in identifying and achieving desired outcomes. Implicit in this is are two concepts. 1) Empowerment. Any group has those that are more articulate, quick thinking, louder and confident than others, the role of the facilitator being to enable the others to be heard. 2) That the collective wisdom of the group is able to create more sustainable and sophisticated solutions to complex problems than an individual. A common problem for many groups is that for various reasons those stakeholders with power do not engage in group processes. The proposed workshop invites participants to investigate this issue and develop techniques that facilitators might use to assist groups understand and handle the problem.

Ron West

Ron last ran workshops for facilitators in April 2004, in Sydney (Hurstville) and Melbourne (Moonee Ponds). These workshops were for trainers who needed to develop skills in facilitation - and it is these workshops that have inspired the session he is proposing. Most of his facilitation work has been in the education and government sectors, and has included work with CEOs and key stakeholders. Ron's current interests are in facilitating virtual conferences (audio and videolink), and in facilitating design.

Ron is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Helping trainer/experts become learning facilitators
Led by Ron West and aimed at New Recruits The situation? Trainers who normally have to deliver content in which they have expertise but who were now being asked to facilitate learning where the content would have to come from the participants. The brief? Make it fun, keep it light, but get those trainers to facilitate! This session will look at (and practise) two of the exercises we used to help people make the jump from "trainer/expert" to "facilitator/enabler". The exercises are simple and fun, but the conversation about the exercises will serve to bring out an understanding of some very different world views.

Aisha Damali

Aisha's background is in community not-for-profit organisations where she has worked with young people with parents in prison, women who are survivors of domestic violence, women who are survivors of sexual violence, women in prison and people from non-English speaking backgrounds. Aisha has recently joined the training team at the Outlook Training and Resource Centre, Boonah, Australia, which runs training for the community sector.

Aisha is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

The Role of Fun in Group Work
Led by Aisha Damali. Aimed at all levels of experience; maybe especially relevant to New Recruits An opportunity to share games and problem solvers that can be used with a variety of groups. Having a box of magic tricks up your sleeve is very handy as a facilitator. This workshop will explore the concept of fun and it's ability to make an experience come alive. Fun keeps people focused, engaged, and connected to each other and the activities. This workshop will provide examples of icebreakers, energisers, trust activities, activities exploring communication and group work problem solvers. Come along with your own games to share with the group.

Anne Pattillo

Anne has been working as a consultant in her own business in the areas of strategy, organisation development and business planning since 1989. In the last year, Anne has presented and facilitated in New Zealand, Australia and the USA. Anne's facilitation experience includes work with teams in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, focusing on strategy and teamwork. Anne also has a growing public participation practice extending the facilitation role.

Anne is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Independent Souls
Aimed at Seasoned Adventurers and led by Anne Pattillo. Facilitators engage in harnessing the power of people and groups, but how to harness the power of the facilitator? A session that seeks to explore how to engage the creativity, skills, expertise and power of facilitators in organisations and consultancies. What is it facilitators need to sustain themselves in an organisation or consultancy?

Michelle Rush

Michelle has more than 10 years experience as a facilitator primarily in the environment and agriculture fields with both Government and private sector clients. Her passion is using facilitation techniques that enable people to find their own solutions to environmental problems - and inspire them to take action. She is a user - and great fan of - the Technology of Participation methods. She is co-author of two publications that provide practical 'self-help' for those involved in environmental education and conservation projects.

Michelle is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Taking Stock - introducing a visual method for group reflection
Aimed at New Recruits and Journeypeople, and led by Michelle Rush. This session will introduce a method for group reflection that uses a visual approach along with strategic questions to help a group reflect deeply and critically on a shared experience. Its aim is to enable a group to learn effectively and powerfully from its experiences. It is designed for use by community groups and teams, and is able to 'fit' in an ordinary meeting context and timeframe. It is a useful addition to the tool box for those needing an accessible reflection/reviewing technique for the teams and groups they are working with.

Viv McWaters

Viv's passions for the environment, reading, travelling, knowing a little about a lot and doing something different every day are brought together in her job as a self-employed, freelance facilitator. Viv works mainly with people in rural communities and organisations (across Australia and in SE Asia) - building their confidence, self esteem and capacity to get things done; meeting extraordinary people with great ideas and a passion to contribute. She's influenced by a lot of seemingly disparate disciplines: Playback Theatre, scriptwriting, Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry, Technology of Participation, storytelling, evaluation and action methods.

Jessica Dart

Jessica's work sits on the boundary between facilitation and participatory monitoring and evaluation. She is a specialised evaluator, who facilitates groups to evaluate and learn from their achievements and processes. In particular, Jessica uses story to help practitioners search and ascribe meaning to program impacts. Jessica runs a consultancy group with clients from a variety of sectors including overseas development programs, natural resource projects, community development projects and more.Jessica's professional interests are in facilitated approaches to evaluation, qualitative evaluation methods, evaluation theory, and action research. She has a PhD in program evaluation and an MSc in sustainable agriculture. Her doctoral research concerned adapting and testing a dialogical story-based tool - the Most Significant Change technique.

Viv and Jessica are offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Using Participatory Storytelling in Planning Processes
Aimed at allcomers, and led by Viv McWaters and Jessica Dart. Experience the power of storytelling to engage people in planning processes; see how to reignite enthusiasm and encourage authentic participatory planning. We draw on our combined knowledge and experience of Appreciative Inquiry for gathering stories, the Most Significant Change evaluation methodology, affinity grouping and qualitative analysis to engage and excite and produce results. In this very hands-on demonstration we will help you develop your own 'facilitation development plan' drawing on your experiences so far and looking forward to your hopes and dreams as a facilitator.

Glyn Thomas

Glyn has 18 years experience facilitating experiential education programs with a broad range of client groups in diverse contexts. He is currently working at La Trobe University in Bendigo, Australia and his teaching is in the area of outdoor leadership preparation. He is also working towards a doctorate in the area of facilitator education. He has published articles in a range of Australian and international journals and books - including a chapter in the forthcoming The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation.

Glyn is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Getting experiential outdoors . but wait have you thought about ...?
Aimed at allcomers, led by Glyn Thomas. This session will combine doing and thinking about outdoor experiential education. Some of the underlying theories, principles, philosophies and practices will be explored and discussed. Implications for facilitators will be addressed.

Claire Wynn

Claire has been working as a facilitator in New Zealand for 15 years. She originally trained as a counselor in the mid 1980's working with survivors of sexual abuse. She started facilitating group sessions with survivors and discovered group facilitation was her passion! For the last six years she has been operating her own Training and Facilitation Business - WYNN Training. Her passion is facilitating staff teams and executive teams that are experiencing internal difficulty and facilitating workshops that address paradigms and skills for embracing change. As well as delivering facilitated sessions, she also delivers a range of training programmes with an interpersonal/emotional intelligence focus. For example, in Leadership, Customer Service, Leading Change, Giving and Receiving Feedback, Negotiation, Assertiveness, Managing Organisational Relationships, Performance Development.

Claire is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Why are You Like That? - a tool for creating greater understanding and synergy during the group process.
Aimed at all comers, and led by Claire Wynn. In our work as facilitators it is critical for us to have a knowledge and an
understanding of individual behaviours and their impact on group dynamics. It is also critical for us to understand our own behaviour as facilitators and how to adapt behaviour to ensure we are connecting with individuals and having a positive impact on the group process. TetraMap is a new-millennium model that addresses old-world issues of communication, mis-communication and diversity. Based on ancient Chinese philosophy that looked to Nature as a metaphor of behaviour, and integrated with the 20th century work of Buckminster Fuller's Design Science, TetraMap is a tool to take us into a future of holistic critical thinking. Based on the four elements of Nature, Earth, Air, Water and Fire, the map reflects the logic and beauty of our inter-dependent and synergistic world. During this workshop you will discover how you can apply the Tetramap model and the metaphor of nature to enhance your facilitation skills and the effectiveness of the facilitated group process.

Sharon Fulton-Bevers

Sharon is a Consultant with Nexus Partners Ltd, with 17 years experience including training and facilitation for clients in the Private and Public sector as well as not for profit organisations. Her training included sociodrama and role training for facilitation skills, as well as extensive needs analysis, training design and evaluation techniques. She has designed and delivered customised interventions specialising in teambuilding, goal setting, managing relationships, time management, and supervision. She particularly enjoys working with diverse groups, and gaining participant buy-in.

Sharon is offering this workshop at the AFN Conference:

Spontaneity and the role of the facilitator.
Aimed at Journeypeople and led by Sharon Fulton-Bevers. Join us on the often uncharted journey that arrives at a shared destination of using spontaneity as part of your facilitation skills. What happens when you work spontaneously with those in the group? Is it going to be an 'Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom' nail biting roller coaster, or a fulfilling and useful experience where all contribute and have a sense of fun? Join us to find out the rollicking rewards and potential perils of using specific spontaneous skills.