#FacilitationWeek – Martin Gilbraith

Monday, 11 September 2023 – 1.00-2:30pm UK time

Thank you again to the 95 who shared their experience and insights so generously at this free facilitation webinar, and to all the 247 who expressed an interest by registering for the session – as for our May session, we are excited again that the topic and the session generated so much interest!

Thanks also for the fabulous co-facilitation this time of Monica Atim and producer support of Megan Evans & Dawn Williams, and to International Association of Facilitators (IAF) for hosting and ICA:UK, We Are Feminist Leaders & The Collective for partnering.

Scroll down for the recording, and the slides and other outputs…

What does feminism bring to facilitation, and what does feminist facilitation look like? How can I ensure that my own practice as a professional facilitator is more effectively and explicitly feminist, anti-racist and anti-oppressive?

These are the questions that have guided my exploration of feminist, anti-racist and anti-oppressive facilitation this past couple of years. For more on that, see Exploring feminist facilitation.

As Social Inclusion facilitators, we share the same school of thought and continue to seek understanding and practicality due to the awareness that genuine participation is an essential means to effective group, community, organisational and societal leadership and development. Feminism offers a more realistic and practical application to inclusive facilitation.

Are you practicing or exploring feminist facilitation yourself, or are you interested to do so?

Join us on a journey from a conceptual understanding of feminism, leadership and facilitation to how we can apply these in practice as professional facilitators and as leaders more broadly.

To inform our conversation, please read in advance if you can the SessionLab State of Facilitation survey report and workshop recording & resources Is facilitation a woman’s world?, and Martin’s blog post Exploring feminist facilitation.

This online session is free and open to everyone. It is convened by IAF Social Inclusion Facilitators in partnership with ICA:UK, We Are Feminist Leaders and the Collective. It is a repeat of a session delivered in May, somewhat adapted for Facilitation Week in September by Monica Atim, Martin Gilbraith, Megan Evans & Dawn Williams. Whether or not you joined us May, do join us to further the conversation in September!

Registrations are not limited, but the room capacity will be limited to 100 this time. The May session attracted 700 registrations and 200 attendees, so to secure your place in September please arrive early for the session and join the waiting room until start time.

Feminist facilitation FacWeek 2023 – session slides & outputs.pdf from Martin Gilbraith

For recordings and other outputs of previous sessions, see free facilitation webinars.

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.

Happy Facilitation Week 2021, starting today!

Facilitation Week is a participatory experience that inspires synergy and celebrates the act of group facilitation. Held in the third week of October each year, it’s purpose is to showcase the power of facilitation to both new and existing audiences, and to create a sense of community among facilitators and their groups worldwide. To join in as a participant, facilitator or sponsor, see facilitationweek.org.

The mission of our #FacPower book project too is to promote the power of facilitation worldwide. So, what better opportunity could there be for us to share a brief update on how we have been working to do just that, and how you can get involved?

The #FacPower story so far…

our journey began in 2018, when a global team of IAF Certified Professional Facilitators (CPFs), members and others first came together with a vision to contribute chapters and visuals to a book illustrating specific aspects of ‘the power of facilitation’
we shared some of our experience along the way in Four authors share reflections for Facilitation Week, Powerfully Resilient Virtual Teams – Lessons from Global IAF Leaders and Scaling up engagement and dialogue
we launched the book in May 2021 as a free PDF download
since then we have published all the chapters as blog posts as well, one every two weeks, accompanied by posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – see also contents and soci al
our contributors have shared their stories in a series of online sessions hosted by IAF Europe MENA, the IAF England & Wales Facilitation Stories podcast, the IAF Global Webinar series and last week’s global Facilitation Summit – follow the links for session recordings
the book has been downloaded more than 6,000 times by more than 9,000 website visitors in more than 100 countries, and more than US$1,250 has been donated to the IAF Bursary Fund – we are especially grateful to our generous donors
we are excited to have had expressions of interest from colleagues keen to work on translation of the book into languages including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, and to develop new editions including print-on-demand, an audio-book and a podcast series.

How you can get involved

Please…

download and read the whole book, or whichever chapters interest you most
rate the book on Goodreads, and add a brief review there – that will help many other readers to find it
share your reflections and questions on your own website, blog or social media with the #FacPower hashtag and a link to facpower.org, and mention or tag the relevant contributors – let’s deepen and broaden the conversation together
if you have your own blog, podcast or other publication, contact us to arrange an interview or online session with one or more of our contributors
contact us if you are interested to translate of all or some of the book into your own language – see our translation page for what support we are ready to offer and what we will expect from you
contact us if you are interested to share your skills to help us to develop new editions including print-on-demand, an audio-book and a podcast series
follow, like, connect and engage with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & YouTube
refer to our media kit and Creative Commons license for the resources you need to otherwise help to get the word out, or to use excerpts from the book
last but not least, please donate generously to the International Association of Facilitators Bursary Fund, to support IAF too to promote the power of facilitation worldwide.