Facilitators: Andy Raingold, Roz Bird, Sarri Bater & Declan D’arcy
This course will shift how you think, feel and embody the practice of transformation. Through experiential learning, we will bring awareness to the nature of change and the relationship between the personal and the systemic. We will reveal power dynamics that separate and learn capacities that reconnect. You will leave with new skills, embodied experience and greater confidence to apply this learning to group settings – enhancing your ability to create meaningful change.
Event time: Tue 16th May 2023 at 10:30am - Sun 21st May 2023 at 5:00pm
Whenever humans come together, be it as part of a consciously created group with a shared purpose, or as an incidental gathering, we have a chance to generate those things we hold most magnificent and meaningful. The art of facilitation helps groups to move towards their purpose by means of group members’ own uniqueness and existing skills and knowledge. Good facilitation is the kindling of creativity, a deep listening to what is felt and needed and an inclusion of all voices for a stronger, richer whole. On this course, we will explore how we can all create group spaces where meaningful collaboration and contact can occur, where we can meet conflict and difference well, and where we can seek to meet some of the challenges of the many social and ecological crises we face.
Previous course participants have said that they have come away from the course with:
This is the impact of our transforming inclusion course in 2022…
As Co-Founder and Director of Change in Nature, Andy supports people and organisations to make meaningful action in this pivotal time. He is a facilitator, coach, speaker, environmental campaigner and social entrepreneur with a wealth of experience leading people through transformation. As Executive Director of the Aldersgate Group for over seven years, he worked in the corridors of power with CEOs, Government Ministers and thought leaders to drive environmental change. As well as hosting talks, workshops and retreats in the UK on nature, purpose and leadership, he has run a 2 month programme with indigenous communities in Namibia and a 2 week retreat for a "nomadic classroom" in the wilds of Sweden. He has written for the Guardian and been interviewed on BBC Newsnight, The Sunday Times, BBC Radio 4, The Independent and Guardian Environment Podcast.
Roz has found huge richness in working with and in groups all her adult life; from communities of migrants recently arrived in the UK, to communities in the townships of South Africa, from junior school students, to learning groups for life and executive coaches, from housing cooperatives and cohousing groups, to volunteer communities, from activists and grass roots organisations, to language learners. She is a facilitator, trainer, mediator, activist and member of Navigate, a cooperative of facilitators working for social change. She feels our times calling us to live boldly by our most dearly held values, to find new and better ways to work effectively and collaboratively, and to connect with each other and the world around us. She finds it deeply meaningful and inspiring to work with so many people who are striving for more equitable, compassionate societies.
As a scholar-practitioner in Conflict Transformation, Sarri holds a consciousness of nonviolent communication (NVC) as a foundation of her approach. Sarri's practice goes beyond political and technical engagement with conflict, to include deeper spiritual and philosophical resources for moving from paradigms of violence to paradigms of peace. Sarri has a passion for the relationship between personal transformation and transforming systemic and structural violence. She also specialises in ‘identity and difference’ conflict. Sarri is committed to learning, embodying and developing re-humanising cultures, practices and systems as an alternative to existing systems for human organising. For 25 years she has lived and worked in Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Europe, the UK and Northern Ireland, with diverse engagement in the field. She holds a First Class Honours Degree in Peace Studies, an MSc with distinction in Transitional Justice, and an LLM in Human Rights, and training in many other processes and practices.
Declan is an artist-activist, cultural antagonist and group facilitator. He is committed to the transformative power of honest conversations and vulnerability as potent tools for social change. Declan has trained and received mentorship in a wide range of facilitation methods and practices to support personal and social transformation. He is a trained cultural anthropologist, specialising in issues of power, empire and coloniality. His work is rooted in a vision of queer decolonised cultures, and place-based earth-connected communities and livelihoods. He is an Associate Fellow of St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, an alumnus of the Deep Adaptation Programme and co-facilitator of the 2019 Refugee Allies programme. His work currently focuses on building place-based intergenerational community and mentorship, and community-building purpose-inspiring programmes for young adults.