As the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, join us in celebrating the power of facilitation by exploring, sharing and reflecting together on its history worldwide – past, present and future. 

We are inviting facilitators everywhere – and everyone with an interest in facilitation, professional and otherwise – to join together in a six-month collaborative process to develop our collective story of facilitation, culminating during International Facilitation Week 20-26 October 2014.  Our aim is to strike a balance between honouring the past, celebrating the present, and envisioning the future – and to learn and have some fun together in the process!

We invite you to share key events & milestones in the history of facilitation, from your perspective and in your experience, and links and resources on how facilitation has developed and where it might be heading – share and discuss online at Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (hashtag #FacHistory), and participate face-to-face as well!  Facilitated workshop sessions and other opportunities to share and reflect together will be held at each of IAF’s global conferences this year (April 9-12 in Orlando, 14-16 August in Singapore and 3-5 October in Moscow), and we encourage IAF chapters and other local groups to hold their own events as well – in the run up to International Facilitation Week and/or during the week itself.  Follow @FacWeek and #FacHistory on twitter for the latest.

The six-month process will be modelled on the Technology of Participation (ToP) Historical Scan method (or ‘Wall of Wonder) – a powerful tool to enable a group to share and learn from their varied perspectives of a journey through history, to review the past in order to prepare for the future.  We will build on ideas shared during such a session at the 2007 IAF Europe conference in Edinburgh “Reviewing the past to prepare for the future: demonstrating the ToP Historical Scan method to discern a shared image of the past & future journey of the facilitation profession”, and a subsequent article Reflections on the history of professional process facilitation by Richard Chapman published by IAF Europe & AMED in 2011 – and of course the history of IAF.

Questions we might use to reflect and learn together on the story emerging from the shared events, milestones, links and resources could include:

* Which are/were most exciting or encouraging for you (and which less so)?
* Which are/were most influential for you, in your experience or from your perspective? How?
* Which indicate the power of faciliation to impact positively – on people, on communities, on organisations, on societies?
* What trends can you discern over time, or across geography?
* Where can you discern turning points, as between chapters in history?
* How would you name the chapters? How would you name the history as a whole?

During International Facilitation Week itself, as well as any other local or online events, there will be a couple of #FacWeekChat twitter chats to reflect together on what has been shared and a the results will be published all together online as a storify.

Please join us now by following and sharing your events & milestones, and links & resources, at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter (hashtag #FacHistory)!