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Surfing the Waves of Change

When: 13th to 15th October 2015,

Where: WeCreate Workspace, Cloughjordan Ecovillage
Cost: €350 – To book or for further information contact Davie at davie@cultivate.ie

Overview
Develop your competencies in facilitating learning, navigating change, developing local resilience and using new tools to host transformational conversations in your community or organisation.

Who is this course for? This course is for adult and community educators, trainers, hosts and facilitators who want to develop their skills and ways of working to enable them to have impact and flourish, as we seek to transition to a more values-based and collaborative economy. This course has proved to be extremely popular and inspiring for a wide range of participants from diverse professional backgrounds including local development agencies and community organisations.

What will the course include? The course will provide an introduction to active, experiential and place-based learning methods. It will look particularly at the changing role of the trainer/facilitator, as we become more of a catalyst, rather than just a transmitter of knowledge. Topics include:

  • Process and Programme Design
  • Appreciative Inquiry and Working with Assets
  • Values and Frames
  • Community Resilience and the Collaborative Economy
  • Whole Systems Thinking and Working with Complexity
  • Collective Story Harvesting
  • The Art of Making Change Happen
  • Convening and Hosting

The training is founded on whole systems (ecological and evolutionary) thinking and pulls on fields such as Community Development, ‘The Art of Hosting’, Community Resilience, and Social Permaculture. It examines the contribution participants can make to a green and sustainable economy and greater well-being.

Unique Setting
The course will be held in the new WeCreate Workspace in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, winner of Ireland’s national Green Community award and also the UN backed International Award for Liveable Communities. WeCreate is a co-working space with Ireland’s first community FabLab. The Ecovillage includes over 50 high energy performance houses on a 67-acre estate with community woodlands, renewable energy production, a wood-fired bakery, research gardens and a community supported farm.

This setting provides participants with an opportunity to see many key sustainable community systems in working practice and to hear the stories of people seeking to play their part in the transition to a low carbon society. Cloughjordan is a vibrant rural village where progressive projects have successfully integrated with a traditional local community. It offers a rich environment for learning about the mainstreaming of sustainability.

Facilitators
Davie Philip, Cultivate Living and Learning and Chris Chapman, the Change Exploratory, will host this three-day training.

Davie is a facilitator and trainer with Cultivate. Davie directed the ‘Powerdown Show’ a 10 part TV series and course on how communities can do more for themselves and wrote and directed the Cultivate short film on resilient communities called ʻSurfing the Waves of Change.ʼ

Chris is an experienced independent host and facilitator. Chris has led a variety of emergent initiatives inquiring into the models of leadership and leadership development needed in contemporary Ireland. Chris has an MSc in ʻChange Agent Skills and Strategies from the University of Surrey Business School and has his own company www.changeexploratory.ie

Learning Outcomes
This course will provide participants with a deeper appreciation of what it takes to catalyse community initiatives and the unique role and contribution they can make. On completing the course learners will have the confidence to move forward enthused about making change happen and equipped to lead transformational processes. As a result of the course participants will be able to utilise new methodologies and a systems approach in the the design and delivery of educational programmes.

* Food and accommodation is not included in the course fee but can be booked through Cultivate for Django’s EcoHostel or a room in a house in the Ecovillage. E-mail davie@cultivate.ie for details.

Source: Cultivate – Surfing the Waves of Change