Tag Archives: conferences

A 10th annual review of my freelance facilitation practice, 2024-25

For what turns out to be my tenth annual review of my freelance facilitation practice, after missing a few in my early years, I shall once again share in this longer post some data and some reflections on my last year.

In this past year to June 2025 I delivered 16 contracts for 12 clients. That compares with 16 contracts for 11 clients the year before and 14 for 12 the year before that. This past year’s contracts involved 3 individual online sessions plus 17 in-person and 1 hybrid event. Events were in Belfast, Birmingham, Brussels, Lisbon, London and Lomazzo. That compares with 2 online sessions, 13 in-person and 2 hybrid events the previous year and 7, 10 and 3 the year before that.

So, it appears that my contracts, clients, sessions and events have settled into a fairly consistent pattern these past three post-Covid years, notwithstanding a further slight fall in online and hybrid delivery. Happily, and as intended, that pattern involves considerably less of everything than my bumper lock-down year to June 2021 (32 contracts for 22 clients involving over 100 online sessions), and the also busy, largely pre-Covid years to June 2019 and to June 2020 which saw 25 contracts each.

Also happily, as I resolved in January 2020, I have again been able to restrict my travel mostly to places accessible to London without flying. For the first time in five years I did find it necessary to fly, from each of Lisbon and Lomazzo to London. To get to each, however, I enjoyed rail travel from Sitges, Barcelona, with stops along the way in Spain and France.

I was sub-contracted by colleagues for two contracts this year, and for one contract I sub-contracted to a colleague myself. That compares to 2 & 2 last year and none & 3 the year before. So it appears that my new post-Covid pattern of working in-person, often with travel, continues to be associated with working largely solo and less as part of a team.

Partners that I have contracted with this past year included again ICA:UK and IAF colleagues Orla Cronin and Marie Dubost.

Clients I have worked with this past year have again included UK and European charities and NGOs, professional and trade associations, multi-sector partnerships and UK local and devolved government.

Of this past year’s contracts, 8 involved facilitation while 7 involved training and one involved coaching and consulting. That compares to 9 facilitation, 7 training and none coaching & consulting the year before, and 10, 3 and one the year before that. So the proportion of facilitation to training remains close to 50/50, while coaching and consulting remains close to zero.

Crafting a joint commitment on living wages in banana supply chains - workshop

Facilitation contracts this past year have ranged in scale from a single evening workshop to several two day events, for groups ranging from less than 10 to around 55:

  • with the Royal Academy of Engineering, design and facilitation of one-day workshop “the Future of Neighbourhood Health for coastal communities” involving around 55 of the Academy community, experts and policy thinkers in London
  • with the European Union Drugs Agency, design and facilitation of a two-day strategic planning retreat involving 9 staff of the EUDA Communications Unit in Lisbon
  • with IDH Trade, design and facilitation of a one day hybrid workshop for around 15 in London and 20 online, representatives of European partner organisations working to develop joint commitments on living wages in Banana supply chains – case study
  • with the Society of Audiovisual Authors, design and facilitation of a one-day Board & Secretariat strategy workshop for around 12 in Brussels
  • with the Royal Society on behalf of Orla Cronin Research, co-facilitation of a Workshop: The Role of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage in a Sustainable Future involving around 35 experts in London
  • with To Zero, design and facilitation of a pair of online sessions with the virtual Implementation Team of nine to draw conclusions and agree next steps following a major global consultation on working together to end childhood sexual violence worldwide
  • with the Oak Foundation, design and facilitation of a two day meeting for a group of 11 in London to build a model by which it and partner foundations might best collaborate as donors in support of working together to end childhood sexual violence worldwide
  • with Islington Borough Council and Clerkenwell Design Week, design and facilitation of a public meeting in Clerkenwell to engage with local residents and other stakeholders on the use of local parks for the annual design festival

Shelley Heckman wrote, May 2025 – case study:

“The iStandUK Executive Board met in London to talk ambitiously about our collective commitment to data standards for public services. I’ve never been as inspired and energised about the topic of data standards as I have been today with this fantastic group of people!”

Annica Ryng wrote, November 2024:

“I first had the pleasure of working with Martin in 2014. A decade later, when I was looking for a facilitator to help our team develop a new multi-annual strategic plan, Martin was my first choice. On both occasions, in two very different organisational settings, Martin facilitated excellently. He brought a clear, structured process and adaptability to the needs and dynamics of the group. His calm, respectful, and cheerful demeanour created an environment where participants felt comfortable and engaged. With his extensive facilitation experience and knowledge of the pan-European not-for-profit sector and member-led organisations, Martin would be an asset to any team looking to create impactful strategic plans.”

In-house training contracts this past year comprised just one course with a repeat client:

Public training courses grew, in contrast, with the expansion of my regular schedule of public ToP facilitation training for 2025 and my renewed partnership offer ToP facilitation training at your place – and free places for you!

Regularly scheduled courses included Brussels again, as well as London, after a Covid-induced break since 2020, and partnership courses were in Birmingham and Lomazzo:

Annekatrin Madlung wrote, June 2025:

“Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the ICA:UK ToP Action Planning workshop in London, led by the brilliant and deeply experienced Martin Gilbraith. Martin’s facilitation style was generous, thoughtful, clear, and quietly powerful. He really brings the ICA’s ToP methods to life — a set of structured, participatory processes that help groups move from shared vision to concrete action in a way that is collaborative, focused, and energising. It felt like a masterclass in effective group process!”

Maria Elena Luccerini wrote, May 2025:

“An incredibly useful and applicable framework — not just for facilitators, but for anyone leading change, innovation, or transformation… the ToP Participatory Strategic Planning process. Thanks to Martin for being so clear and generous with lots of tips, and to the other participants… your perspectives made this learning journey truly meaningful and inspiring!”

Rosemary Forest wrote, December 2024:

“Several years ago I attended both the ToP Group Facilitation Methods and Strategic Planning courses with Martin. These were by far the best courses I’ve ever done and were highly helpful in my work at the time. Little did I know they’d spark such a love of facilitation that I’d eventually work as a facilitator!”

free facilitation coaching

My coaching and mentoring this past year has again been mostly pro bono. As well as one paid client contract, it has included four younger facilitators taking up my offer of free facilitation coaching in support of their work for climate justice, gender equity or anti-racism (four last year), eight ToP facilitation trainees taking up my offer of an hour’s free post-course coaching (six last year) and my support of another three on their journey to become ICA:UK ToP trainers (three last year).

I continued to serve as well as a volunteer mentor in the IAF mentoring programme, working again with two mentees of each six-month cohort.

For the Power of Facilitation, I continued to support IAF colleagues around the world to work to translate the book into more than a dozen languages. During the year, additional translated editions were launched in Persian and Polish.

Also this past year I was pleased to support also a new initiative of the IAF Global Book Club, to convene a one-year programme of online book club sessions to discuss each of the chapters in turn, in English and in Mandarin.

My free facilitation webinars this year were limited again to one session, this time with Jo Nelson of ICA Associates, Canada, General Editor of the new, second edition of The Art of Focused Conversation: More Than 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in Your Organization. The session attracted around 40 participants – see session recording and slides.

I was pleased this year to make a guest appearance on the new Candid Convos video podcast of Ramesh Srinivasan of IAF India – see A candid conversation with LeadFac Solutions.

In my own professional development I have continued to value the professional community and facilitation meetups of IAF England & Wales, and particularly again the in-person conference in Birmingham in April, this year titled Facilitate 2025: What; How; Who; Why. I have also enjoyed continuing to share in the hosting of regular IAF coffee meetups in London, and helping to launch a new regular meetup in Stroud.

For one of the regular Brussels meetups of IAF Belgium, I led Facilitating a culture of participation in international organisations – demonstrating the ToP Historical Scan method, with a group of 15 or so, to reflect and learn together from diverse experience and perspectives on facilitating a culture of participation in international organisations.

My volunteering with the Gay Outdoor Club has grown again to enjoyably absorb more of my time in the past year, as it continues to provide more opportunities to apply some of my professional experience as well.

I continued to host regular online socials again this past year, and I continued my Board role as Website & IT manager. In addition, in October, I hosted 36 members on a first GOC Midweek walking “weekend” in Sitges. In April I stepped up to the role as interim Vice-Chair, to support the outgoing Chair in the recruitment and induction of his successor, and to help to fill other current and upcoming vacancies – see GOC committee vacancies – your club needs you!

Thank you for following!

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

Reflecting on another year in freelance facilitation, 2023-24

As last summer, when I reviewed the year to June 2023, I shall share in this longer read some data and reflections on the last year of my professional practice.

In this past year to June 2024 I delivered 16 contracts for 11 clients. That compares with 14 contracts for 12 clients the year before and 19 for 15 the year before that. This past year’s contracts involved just 2 individual online sessions plus 13 wholly in-person and 2 hybrid events. Events were in Birmingham, Brussels, Leeds, London, Madrid, Sevenoaks and Windsor. That compares with 7 online sessions, 10 in-person & 3 hybrid events last year and 76 online and just 2 in-person the year before that to June 2022, still in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

So contracts have risen a little this year while clients have fallen slightly, however both remain considerably fewer than the largely pre-Covid years to June 2019 and to June 2020 which saw 25 contracts each. The continuing decline in online and hybrid events may partly reflect a continuing post-pandemic return to more in-person collaboration where possible. The lower numbers of clients, contracts and events at least in part reflects my own choices – pre-pandemic to work more locally and online, and post-pandemic to work more selectively and less. 

I resolved in January 2020 to restrict my travel mostly to places accessible to London without flying, and to try to travel less and work more online, and happily that is exactly what I have been able to do since then – albeit without working much online this year. Having also begun to spend more time more often in Sitges, near Barcelona, as I had also resolved then, it was fortunate that the invitation to work in Madrid came at a time when I was scheduled to be there. So I have not flown for work since February 2020, and I have not been tempted to do so.

I was sub-contracted by colleagues for two contracts this year, and for two contracts I sub-contracted to colleagues myself. That compares to none & 3 last year and 1 & 9 the year before. So my return to more working in-person and with travel continues to be associated with more working solo and less as part of a team. 

Partners that I have contracted with this past year included ICA:UK colleagues Alan Heckman and IAF colleagues Marie Dubost and Camilla Gordon. 

Clients I have worked with this past year have again included UK and European charities, NGOs, and professional & trade associations and multi-sector partnerships. This year also I have worked again with UK local government, with the health service and with Universities.

Of this past year’s contracts, 9 involved facilitation while 7 involved training and none involved coaching and consulting. That compares to 10 facilitation, 3 training and one coaching & consulting the year before, and 7, 7 and 6 the year before that.  So the proportion of facilitation to training has returned to close to 50/50, while that of coaching and consulting this year has returned to zero. Perhaps that reflects a return to pre-pandemic business as usual.

Crafting a joint commitment on living wages in banana supply chains - workshopFacilitation contracts this past year have ranged in scale from a single half-day workshop to a 3 day retreat, for groups ranging from less than 10 to around 100:

  • with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and NHS England, design and facilitation of a workshop in London for around 25 stakeholders to build collaboration to improve eye care in England
  • with the Architects Council of Europe design and facilitation of a strategy retreat involving around 15 staff & Board members in Brussels 
  • with Amnesty International, design and facilitation of a 2-day global strategy and team-building retreat for around 55 member Fundraising Directors and Secretariat fundraising staff in London and online
  • with iStandUK, design and facilitation of a strategy away day in London for partners working on data standards in UK public services
  • with Amnesty International, design and facilitation of a pair of tri-lingual, cross-regional online consultation sessions on global governance, involving 2-3 delegates of each of around 70 member entities worldwide
  • with Shelter, design and facilitation of a 2-day ‘Changemakers Summit’ for around 100 staff of the Communications, Policy & Campaigns Directorate and others in London
  • with Amnesty International, design and facilitation of a one day retreat of the Regional Human Rights Impact Directorate of the International Secretariat in Windsor
  • with Amnesty International, design and facilitation of a 3-day team retreat in Sevenoaks for around 30 members of the East Europe & Central Asia Regional Office of the International Secretariat
  • with IDH Trade, design and facilitation of a one day hybrid workshop for around 30 in Madrid and a dozen online, representatives of European partner organisations working to develop joint commitments on living wages in Banana supply chains – case study 

Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE-CAE), wrote on LinkedIn:

“Reflecting on last week’s inspiring #strategy workshop!  The ACE Executive Board came together in #Brussels to #brainstorm and pave the path for the future of the organisation. Strategic workshops are not just about planning for the future; they are about transforming vision into actionable steps, highlighted Ruth Schagemann, ACE President. Over the course of this collaborative and creative day, we engaged in strategic discussions about how to leverage impactful advocacy and the organisation’s agenda for action. Excited for what’s ahead and proud of what we’ve accomplished together!” 

Shelley Heckman, Deputy Director at iNetwork wrote on LinkedIn:

“I’ve never been as inspired and energised about the topic of data standards as I have been today with this fantastic group of people! The iStandUK Executive Board met in London to talk ambitiously about our collective commitment to data standards for public services.” 

Training contracts this past year have involved more or less tailored delivery of three standard ICA:UK ToP facilitation training courses:

During this past year I relaunched my own regular schedule of public ToP facilitation training under license with ICA:UK, in collaboration with the ICA:UK team of ToP Associates and in support of a wider ICA:UK organisational restructure.  As part of that restructure I have taken on a volunteer role supporting ICA:UK with it’s website, mailing list and social media.  

In my new schedule for 2024 I re-established my pre-COVID pattern of offering three pairs of courses per year in London plus occasional courses elsewhere, in partnership or on demand – so far in Birmingham and Bristol. I also re-established my 2013 partnership offer ToP facilitation training at your place – and free places for you!. I am particularly interested to partner to offer public courses in Brussels again, as I did from 2014-2020, and/or in Barcelona. 

Abi Green, Company Director at The Conscious Project, wrote this year:

“I attended [Group Facilitation Methods] a few years ago, and I have been using what I learned ever since! In my experience you are a patient teacher who accurately judges the individual’s need for stretch or reassurance. As a facilitator, you create a space where people can listen to each other and be heard. I’d wholeheartedly recommend both your courses and your practice.” 

Trey Darley, cat herder; bit-flipper; human, wrote this year:

“Martin Gilbraith’s group facilitation training was a terrific investment of three days, the best training of my career hands-down…” 

free facilitation coachingMy coaching and mentoring this past year has all been pro bono. It has included four younger facilitators taking up my offer of free facilitation coaching in support of their work for climate justice, gender equity or anti-racism, six ToP trainees taking up my offer of an hour’s free post-course coaching and my support of another three on their journey to become ICA:UK ToP trainers. 

For IAF I continue to serve as a volunteer mentor in the IAF mentoring programme, working with two mentees of each six-month cohort. I have been in conversation this past year with members of the IAF Board to support a new programme along similar lines, by which incoming new Board members could be supported in their roles by former Board members such as me.

For the Power of Facilitation, I continued to support more than 80 IAF colleagues around the world to work to translate the book into more than a dozen languages. Additional translated editions were launched during the year in Japanese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian & Spanish

My free facilitation webinars this year were limited to one further session on Feminist Facilitation, for Facilitation Week 2023, following two on the same topic the previous year. This year’s attracted 95 participants.

In my own professional development I have continued to value the professional community and facilitation meetups of IAF England & Wales, and particularly again the in-person conference in Birmingham in April, this year titled Facilitate2024: GrowingTogether.

I have also enjoyed returning to share in the hosting of IAF coffee meetups in London, after taking a break since I hosted such meetups for 5 years until 2020.   

My volunteering with the Gay Outdoor Club has grown to enjoyably absorb more of my time in the past year, as it increasingly provides opportunities to apply my professional experience as well.  

In addition to hosting regular online socials this past year, in my Board role as Website & IT manager I have led a redesign of the GOC website and marketing materials for our 50th anniversary year in 2024, a member engagement process to develop a new strategy for the club and a social media advertising campaign that generated over 400 new members.

Having discovered the great hiking opportunities to be had around Sitges, near Barcelona, now that I am spending more of my time there, I have also applied my professional skills to offer a Midweek Walking “Weekend” in Sitges in October for 35 members at least – like a team retreat or a conference, but sunnier and more fun! 

Thank you for following. If you don’t find me online, or in facilitation, training and consulting, you might find me outdoors or in Sitges!

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

Are you planning an online conference, Forum or General Assembly?

Free facilitation webinar: Taking your event online: what could possibly go wrong?

Below is a ‘menu of services’ that I have been able to provide to a number of clients planning such online events in recent years. Please contact me as early as you can if you could benefit from such support as you plan, prepare and deliver your own event.

The scope and scale of service delivered for these recent projects has ranged from just a few days of consulting and coaching from myself alone over a week or two, to a larger package of consultation, coaching and Introduction to Facilitation Online training with multiple teams from myself and a co-facilitator over several weeks, to anything from 10 to 50 days or more of comprehensive support over several months from myself and a larger team with diverse skills able to provide many if not all of the menu of services.

Colleagues that I have collaborated with on such projects recently have included Orla Cronin, Marie Dubost, Charo Lanao, Judy Rees, Hector Villarreal Lozoya and Bruno Selun – I am thankful to them for the teamwork that has made many of these projects possible.

Recent such client contracts have included:

  • with Action Aid International, facilitation coaching and support for the Convener, Organising Committee and Governance staff of the Global Secretariat in preparation for sessions of the online 2021 Annual General Meeting
  • with Amnesty International, design and lead facilitation of a series of 17 sessions of the online 2021 Global Assembly, involving a multilingual team of 5 facilitators and 3-4 delegates of each of almost 70 member entities worldwide working in English, French and Spanish
  • with Amnesty International, Europe & Central Asia region, lead design and facilitation of a 4-week online 2021 Regional Forum involving over 100 delegates from around 25 member organisations in over 20 sessions
  • with OMCT, design consulting and facilitation training over 3 months in support of the first online Global Week Against Torture in 2021
  • with Oxfam Ireland, online facilitation training and coaching with staff in Ireland and of six African programme partners, in support of their first online Annual Partnership Meeting together in 2020
  • with the ISEAL Alliance, online facilitation training and coaching in support of their first online ‘Members’ Month’ in 2020
  • with ILGA Europe on behalf of Kumquat Consult, design consulting and facilitation training in support of the first online ILGA Europe 2020 Annual Conference
  • with Amnesty International, design and facilitation of a series of six online Global Strategy Labs involving around 150 delegates representing 70 national entities worldwide working in English, French and Spanish in 2020
  • with the Amnesty International Europe & Central Asia region, lead design and facilitation of a 3-day online 2020 Regional Forum involving over 100 delegates from around 25 member organisations – blog post
  • with FAO, design and facilitation of the 2015 online conference “Economics of Climate Change Mitigation Options in the Forest Sector” engaging over 900 international experts – case study

“Martin and his team provided outstanding support during Amnesty International’s 2021 Global Assembly which for the first time was held entirely online. They were integral in the planning of the model which helped to ensure broad participation and access for delegates of almost 70 member entities. Their experience and familiarity with facilitating online spaces were game changing and were critical in helping to build trust in the process and in a new model of digital governance.” – Ann Burroughs, Chair of the 2021 Global Assembly and Preparatory Committee, Amnesty International – Sep 16, 2021

“Together with other folks at the Kumquat team Martin helped us to organize the ILGA-Europe Gathering Online 2020. Organizing a large event online for the first time came with many questions and challenges. Martin particularly helped us with providing training and assistance to put together the flow of the programme and to ensure that we were ready to facilitate the many spaces that our event was made up with. It was a pleasure working with Martin!” – Björn van Roozendaal, Programmes Director at ILGA-Europe – Feb 25, 2021

“In November 2020, Martin provided invaluable support to Oxfam Ireland in the build-up to a series of multi-stakeholder online workshops. He provided tailored ‘coaching sessions’ to our team, which helped us to prepare and deliver several engaging virtual sessions. These sessions directly catered to our needs, building our ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ virtual facilitation skills and knowledge. Furthermore, he also co-facilitated an in-house “Introduction to Facilitation Online” workshop with colleagues across Southern and Eastern Africa. This excellent workshop was well received by all participants. Thanks, Martin!” – Rosa Brandon, Programme Quality Officer at Oxfam Ireland – Feb 22, 2021

“WOW! Awesome contributions from 200+ participants at the #ECCMOFS REDD+ online conference session. Feeling inspired @FAOForestry”  – Ruth Mallett, Consultant at UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) – February 13, 2013

Menu of services

Before

Project management: We can work with you to clearly define the project and its boundaries, starting from a clear purpose statement (including outputs and outcomes) that will help align your various stakeholders’ expectations of the event. We can help you make it operational by translating it into a clear project plan and division of responsibilities, and we can accompany you in delivery.

We will recommend using an online project management tool across the entire team (internal and external) to achieve and maintain this throughout – we can provide and support you to use Basecamp or Asana, or join an existing platform you’re already using internally, or we can support you to acquire and use your own platform. Such a platform will be crucial to deliver such a complex project on schedule.

Conceptualisation: Support for the overall design and conceptualisation of a coherent event, including flow, timing, duration and format to maximise engagement and participation to best meet your aims and ambitions within your constraints, including budget and capacity. We can help you to identify what types of sessions should be offered (including format, degree of participation, types of outcomes, etc.), allowing you to then populate the programme using those session types.

Participation design: We can work with you to identify what sort of participation (how much, how broad, how deep) each session type will require, and the number of participants expected or desired. These will make up the event’s participation requirements, which with security & accessibility requirements will allow us to advise which service(s), platform(s) and/or tool(s) you should consider.

Session call & selection: We can support you in the setup and running of a session call, proposal and selection system for submitters, reviewers and decision-makers – including technical support, training and assistance

Communication: We can advise you on how and when to communicate with prospective and confirmed participants, session leaders, speakers and other stakeholders in order to manage their expectations and preparations in alignment with those of the event as a whole.

Platform selection & setup: We can help you in researching and reviewing available options and selecting an online event platform to meet your specific requirements, including in relation to security, pricing, functionality and much more. We can help you with setup and troubleshooting of your selected platform, including the pre-registration, registration, event and post-event phases

Additional tools: Depending on your requirements and choice of platform, we can support you to select, configure and use additional tools for participant inclusion and engagement, e.g. for interpretation, voting, Q&A, brainstorming, visualisation, networking etc.

Facilitation training & coaching: We can help you determine how to best recruit additional facilitators if needed, whether volunteers or professionals. We can design and deliver bespoke facilitation training, drawing on a range of existing and well-established training modules (see above). We can offer tailored coaching & troubleshooting sessions for session facilitators and producers, individually or in pairs or small teams, to support them in their session design and preparation.

Technical preparation: We can help you with the technical preparation of your team, speakers and moderators to run their sessions through the event platform – technical checks, testing all platforms & tools used to ensure they’re familiar with them on the day

During

Technical support (a.k.a. production): On-call technical support for the full duration of the event, both inside and between sessions, to ensure everything goes according to plan, and to deliver backup solutions in the event of a failure (e.g. if a speaker or session leader can’t connect)

Facilitation support: We can help by facilitating or producing particular sessions or parts of sessions for you, or the whole event, or by co-facilitating or co-producing to support your own session teams to do so

After

Evaluation: Design, delivery and analysis of a bespoke evaluation survey to collect actionable feedback from your participants regarding what went well, what didn’t, and how to improve future events

See also free facilitation webinars including:

See also about me, how I work and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

ToP facilitation courses, taster sessions & webinars – what difference do they make?

While enjoying a welcome opportunity to pause and reflect this summer, I have taken (quite) some time to review what ToP facilitation training courses, taster sessions and webinars I have delivered in recent years, and what I can learn from feedback shared by participants at the time.

Full results are shared in the slides above. This draws on the experience of 47 training courses, 13 conference & meetup taster sessions and 7 webinars in the past 5 years, reaching a total of 1,089 participants. This is in addition to tailored facilitation processes that I have delivered – 24 in the past year and 52 in my first four years of freelance practice.  See also ToP facilitation training – what’s it like, and is it worthwhile?

Feedback for ToP training courses in particular is largely very high, as it has been for the 20 years I have been delivering them – the average of participant ratings for design & delivery, of all the 37 courses over the past 5 years for which data is available, is 9.1 out of 10. Included in the slides are some conclusions of my own on what is most appreciated and what suggestions for improvement I should consider, and how I have already begun to act on some suggestions.

But… what difference do they make?  

What do participants remember and apply of what they have learned, months and years later? With whom do they apply what they have learned, and what (greater) difference are they now able to make with them? What supports or hinders them from applying what they have learned? What additional recommendations can they make for the courses, sessions & webinars, with the benefit of hindsight? What additional training or support might they find helpful – from me or from others?

If you have participated with me in courses, taster sessions or webinars within the past 5 years, or within the past 20 years, please respond now to a short survey to help me to assess and improve what difference they make – at surveymonkey. This survey is in partnership with ICA:UK, with whom I have been delivering ToP facilitation training since 1996 – for the past 5 years as a licensed Associate, and before that as employed staff. If you have received a link by email, please follow the link in the email to respond.

I plan to analyse and share the results in the autumn, based on what responses I have received by mid-September.  After that I plan to leave the survey open indefinitely for further responses, and systematically request responses of future participants by email 6-12 months after each event.

As a token of appreciation for your feedback, three of those responding before the mid-September deadline (tbc) will be randomly selected to receive a free gift of an ICA:UK sticky wall or book of their choice (subject to availability).

Finally, if you have participated or not, join me!

For more on my work, and what others have to say about it, please see how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies – or view my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

A welcome opportunity to pause and reflect this summer, 2016-17

This June completed my fourth year in business as Martin Gilbraith Associates Ltd, and in October it will be 5 years since I went freelance from ICA:UK. Following what has been a bumper year for client work, for the first time in probably 15 months I am looking forward to several consecutive weeks of desk time, free of delivering client contracts – and a holiday in August after that!

In the last 12 months, it turns out, I have delivered 26 contracts for 18 clients in 9 countries, involving 32 face-to-face and 3 virtual events and 24 facilitated processes and 11 facilitation training courses. That has involved 73 nights away from home, 18 in the UK and 55 abroad. No wonder it felt like a bumper year – that represents an increase of around 70% in client work compared to my first four years of freelance practice, and the contracts on average were larger too.

I have been fortunate and grateful to enjoy a diverse and stimulating, often inspiring, range of groups and contexts to work with this past year. Recent client contracts for facilitation have included large and multi-event, multi-stakeholder strategic planning processes with international NGO networks such as ICUU, Girls Not Brides and Eurochild (above), and smaller, relatively simpler strategy and planning retreats such as with CENTR, Wells For India, Lorensbergs and the Peel Institute. Also large and relatively complex and challenging international team meetings such as with Amnesty International and Oxfam OPTI, and a small but complex and challenging closed Ministerial Forum with the International Union on Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Also a conference of activists on refugee and migration issues with Amnesty UK, and facilitated leadership development labs, face-to-face & virtual, for managers of Astra Zeneca. Facilitation training has included courses with civil servants of Ofgem and the Care Quality Commission, for agile finance software project managers of Santander and bereavement counselors of the Dove Service, and for diverse groups on public courses in London, Brussels, Geneva and Moscow. I lost some bids for work, and had to turn down some opportunities as well, but I wouldn’t have wished for any other workload.

It is no wonder then that I have spent less time on other things. My volunteer time has reduced since I completed my four year term as ICAI President in December, although since then I have somewhat increased my time growing IAF England & Wales‘ activity and leadership team and partnership with IABC.

Readers may have noticed that I have managed fewer blog posts (only 20 this past year from an average of 32 the past four), and only one of my “bi-monthly” free facilitation webinars – plus in May What does it take for people to align behind change? with Michael Ambjorn, published today by MILE Madinah on YouTube.

So, what do I hope to make of this opportunity to pause and reflect?

Mostly, I hope to take the opportunity to reflect and learn from this recent experience, and share some insights here on my blog – so watch this space!

I hope to review my recent years’ ToP facilitation training end-of-course participant evaluations, and launch an online survey to invite past participants to share something of what they have applied of their learning and how, and what difference their training has made to them and the groups they work with. I hope to draft and begin to post some more facilitation case studies from my facilitation work of this last year, and request further client feedback.

I hope to schedule one or two more free facilitation webinars for the autumn, and share a recording of one already scheduled for this month with IAF India – with Martin Farrell of IAF England & Wales, on the topic of co-facilitation (below).

I hope to catch upon some reading – next up after Penny Pullan CPF’s Virtual Leadership, Responsible Facilitation by Jim Campbell formerly of ICA Belgium.

Also, I have some advance preparation to do for delivery work in the autumn, including for my new IAF-endorsed Meetings That Work courses in London & Brussels in September, with Bill Staples of ICA Associates (book here). And I hope that my calendar for the autumn will continue to fill itself – so do feel free to contact me if you’d like to help with that!

In the meantime, I am hoping also to enjoy some more summery good weather, and all that goes with it – at home in London, at the WOMAD music festival later this month and in Sitges in August.

Wishing you an opportunity to pause and reflect as well when you can…

For more on my work, and what others have to say about it, please see how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies – or view my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can connect with me also by joining my free facilitation webinars online, and IAF England & Wales’ free facilitation meetups in London and elsewhere.