Category: Uncategorized
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Setting up an in person event: the minutiae of chairs and tables
A quick download on choices you make as a facilitator about room set up. I recently ran an in person facilitation training at a client’s venue, and when I arrived the room was set up boardroom style (see picture 1 below). We quickly changed it around to a horseshoe (next photo!) and moved between this…
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Is there a way out of ”death by group feedback”?
One of the biggest facilitation challenges I grapple with is how to gather and synthesise insights from break out conversations when working with larger groups (e.g. working with a group of 30 who have gone into 5 x 6 person groups). Specifically, I wonder how to do this in a way which avoids each group…
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How might AI change my work as a freelance facilitator and researcher?
Last week I facilitated a workshop where a guest speaker talked about how AI would change the world of work for charity fundraisers. It was thought provoking stuff! This week, the BBC published a story on how AI might transform the legal profession, and so I decided to spend a week experimenting with it in…
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What have I learnt from facilitating over 1,000 workshops?
Today I’m launching a new facilitation skills programme for people who want to grow their ability and confidence working with groups. Working as a coach and facilitator I often get asked if I can run in house facilitation skills sessions for teams, but I’ve not yet launched an open access programme for individuals who want…
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Three years of running a peer learning network for 135+ organisations: what have we learnt?
For the last three years I have been working with a friend and colleague, Kate Weiler, to deliver The Youth Funding Learning Network: a network for the 135 plus organisations funded by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation for their work with young people. We’ve learnt so much along the way, and have finally found the time…
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Turning insight into policy – how trusts and foundations in the UK approach influencing policy and practice
In late 2019 I worked with the People’s Health Trust to support the development of a policy influencing strategy for their programmes. The foundation of that strategy was a piece of context setting research which explored how other UK based trusts and foundations approached influencing policy. I interviewed 18 individuals working within funding organisations in…
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Tackling poverty in Tower Hamlets: what an improvement approach can offer.
For a while now I’ve been wanting to share some of the work I do in Tower Hamlets as a Quality Improvement Coach. Quality Improvement is a methodology that originated in manufacturing, and has been used widely in healthcare settings as a way of engaging staff from all parts of the health system in…
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Learning together: testing the potential for community wealth building with anchor organisations in the City of London and Hackney
How can big local organisations such as hospitals, universities and local authorities use their economic power to benefit the local communities that surround them? I’m excited to be working with Renaisi to launch a new action learning programme with Anchor organisations in Hackney and the City of London to explore that very question over the…
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The power of the collective: Anchor collaboratives
(If you’re new to the idea of Anchor organisations, take a look at this blog for a quick introduction to the idea) I’m now back in the UK after seven brilliant weeks in North America, interviewing and meeting with over 40 organisations working on community wealth building, and the role of Anchor organisations in tackling…
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Theories of Change and Anchor Organisations
It’s been a few weeks since I last blogged about this research project, and in that time I’ve had some great meetings and interviews with Anchor organisations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as some down time in between to reflect, and tinker with a theory of change which I’ve been trying to…