Would you like to be a facilitator at the ICA International Global Conference in Japan?

Dear All FFWians,

FNS, on behalf of Jo Nelson, likes to extend an invitation to you to facilitate a very exciting global conference on world development.

ICA International's "7th Global Conference on Human Development" is scheduled for November 17-21, 2008, in Takayama, Japan.

The subtitles give a sense of the potential: "An agenda-setting conference exploring the future of human development" and "Unlocking the Potential to Create a New World Together".

Jo is on the conference design team, and it is looking for volunteer facilitators for the event. Jo will be one himself. He likes you to be one, too. This is a volunteer role, so you must register for the conference, and will not be paid, but the experience will be amazing (and also add to your resume).

Jo has been a facilitator at ICA global conferences in the past, and the experience of working with a global team on topics that make a difference in our lives and in the world is unforgettable.

There are 10 big focus questions leading to a topic, each of which will have a group who will spend 2 full days exploring it.

These 10 focus questions are:

1. Effective Governance and Protection of Human Rights
2. Persistence of Poverty
3. Environmental Degradation and Climate Change
4. Sustainable Agriculture and Livelihoods
5. Violent Conflict and Social Disintegration
6. Access to Healthcare and Preventing the Spread of Disease
7. Literacy and Education
8. Consumerism and Over-Consumption
9. Disconnectedness and Barriers to Engagement
10. Private Sector Collaboration

Gender inequity is recognized as a cross-cutting issue

exacerbating each of these 10 challenges.

Depending on the number of participants in each group, there may be a number of sub-topic groups. The team will be using a number of facilitation tools at various points during the conference, including World Cafe, ToP workshops and strategic thinking processes, and many others.

There is a full day of site visits to community projects in Japan. And the last day will include vibrant reports from each topic group. The main conference languages will be English and Japanese but there will be translation for many more. If you can communicate in more than one language, that will be an asset. There will be an orientation and facilitator training on November 16.

You can find out more about the conference and register at http://www.japan2008.org/. This link will lead you to the conference information site, a place to participate in pre-conference dialogue on the topics, and a big "register" button. Registration on-line was easy.

If you are thinking about going to the conference and would like to facilitate, please reply to Jo so he can keep you up to date on developments in the conference planning.

If you know someone else who is going or might go, please forward them this invitation. They need lots of facilitators!

On behalf of:

Jo Nelson, CPF, CTF <jnelson@ica-associates.ca>
Certified Professional Facilitator and ICA Certified ToP(TM) Facilitator
ICA Associates, Inc. 655 Queen Street East, Toronto, ON M4M 1G4
Ph. 1 416-691-2316, x230 Toll-free 1 877-691-1422 Fax 1 416-691-2491
Website http://ica-associates.ca
Cellphone 647 233 6910
Skype "jofacilitator"

The Medicine Wheels and Shamanistic Techniques in Facilitation

Looking for ways to improve your effectiveness as a facilitator?

Learn how The Medicine Wheels & Shamanistic Techniques could help you manage group dynamics and facilitate meetings/brainstorming better!

WORKSHOP DETAILS

Title: The Medicine Wheels and Shamanistic Techniques in Facilitation Workshop
Date: 17 Sep 08 – 19 Sep 08 (Wed - Fri)
Time: 8.30am-5.30pm
Venue: Orchid Country Club, Singapore(http://www.orchidclub.com)

P/S: Evening blocks on 17 & 18 Sep 08 from 5.30pm-10pm are optional – see program brochure for details

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• those caring for their own development, personally & professionally;
• anyone facilitating others - individually or in teams - in their line of work e.g. managers, team/project leaders & HRD professionals;
• 'intervention professionals' e.g. coaches, trainers, consultants & facilitators.

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

• How to 'scan' (sense/observe) your own energy and that of others.
• How to balance our own energy and energise ourselves when needed.
• The effect of thoughts and words on our energy and how to protect ourselves energetically.
• Influencing group energy in terms of both connectedness and vibration.
• Energetic preparation of a space to optimize its influence.
• Techniques for dealing with difficult moments and for improving Presence and focus.
• How to work with attention and intention, individually and in/with groups.
• Techniques for changing your own brainwaves, improving clarity, creativity, problem-solving capabilities and much more.
• Techniques for sharpening and enhancing perception.
• The Medicine Wheels: basic framework and applications in group dynamics and facilitation of meetings and brainstorming.
• Employing elemental energy for balance, movement and innovation in a group.
• How to apply all of this for our own development, in our relationships with family, friends, and colleagues and in our professional capacity.

WHAT PEOPLE IN THE KNOW ARE SAYING?

"Michal knows to present the workshops in an inspiring and gripping way. Her coaching and assessment during the workshop are of a very high level and have never failed to leave me with new insights and challenges in my life."

"In my years as a manager I have enjoyed some executive programs at top business schools like Fontainebleu and MIT as well as some of the best personal trainings in our country. The real impact, however, that you were able to achieve on the team and myself in a short period of time puts you in my mind right up in that league."

"All the workshops I've done with Michal have been pure joy. Not only that, they have brought me immense understanding of "how life works" and my role-(playing) in it. Michal is able to access an incredible font of knowledge as well as inspired intuition. She shares these in a way which makes the understanding gained accessible. I feel this is why her workshops have brought so much clarity to me and have had such an impact in my life, in very practical ways."

"With more than 15 years of experience in leadership development (as a retired Lt.Col.) I can truly say you are unique, no-nonsense, and very, very effective."

WHO IS THE WORKSHOP FACILITATOR?

Born in Israel, Michal has lived and worked on three continents. She studied mathematics, physics, psychology & social sciences and later trained in a wide range of holistic, natural and body-mind systems & modalities. Having treated and counseled hundreds of people, Michal's practice developed into a school for Human Potential Development, focusing on the ancient American Indian knowledge of the Medicine Wheels, the Toltec tradition, and Shamanic practices from all over the world and incorporating leading-edge (scientific) knowledge and techniques. In 1998, Michal was handed a Peace-Elder ribbon at the international congregation of Wolfsong.

Michal has 30+ years of experience in guiding and coaching individuals in various contexts and close to as many in facilitating groups and teams, with 'training the trainers' as her specialization for the past 12 years. Since moving to Australia, Michal has divided her time between the private sector and the corporate world, advising management teams of multi-nationals in Europe and the Middle-East, working with businesses, Government and Community organisations in Australia and presenting various courses, workshops and training programs. For the past 10 years she has further specialised in Emotional, Spiritual and Collective Intelligence, Complexity, Accelerated Learning and Training Program Design.

WORKSHOP INVESTMENT*

Early Bird Registration (by 9 Aug 08)
IAF Members S$990**
Non Members S$1,290
After Early Bird Deadline (after 9 Aug 08)
S$1,490 for IAF and Non-IAF members.

*Overseas registrants paying by bank draft or TT, please add S$30 for bank charges in Singapore

**IAF membership is USD85 per year for developing countries and USD175 for high income countries. In East Asia; Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Macau and Singapore are classified as high income and the rest of Asia as developing. Singapore members pay the Affiliate rate of USD165 as the local Facilitators Network Singapore (FNS) is affiliated to IAF.
http://www.iaf-world.org

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

Online at: http://www.fns.sg

Payment by cheque to:
Facilitators Network Singapore Pte Ltd
10 Anson Road
#03-09 International Plaza
Singapore 079903

REGISTRATION ENQUIRIES

Tel : (65) 9099-4655 or (65) 9833-3515
Email : admin@fns.sg

The Flip Flop Debate Workshop

Introducing and using a safe space process for working with polarized issues & views -The Flip Flop Debate

An exploration of it's application to a topic that impacts people, organisations and society. "Do Values Really Matter? Can't we do without them"

WORKSHOP DETAILS

Title: The Flip Flop Debate Workshop
Date: 8 Aug 08 (Fri)
Time: 8.30am-5.30pm
Venue: Orchid Country Club, Singapore(http://www.orchidclub.com)

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Process perspective: Facilitators, Teachers, Trainers, Supervisors, Managers, HRD & OD professionals, Community Leaders, Change Agents, Activists, and anyone who needs to work effectively with strong and polarised views and/or gain strong group engagement.

Content perspective: For those who need to work with Values in organizational settings and who both seek to heighten participant engagement with the topic and also wish to broaden their own understanding of the dynamics involved in this.

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

1) Understand and have experienced how to design a sequence of processes that take a group on a journey

a) from an initial state of individual/stakeholder/sub-group polarizing views and positions on topics through a safe space to express these.
b) to working with these usefully and gaining a group consensus on ways forward.
c) AND during which people experience looking at the world from 'other's shoes - the 2nd position/perspective'.

2) Obtain insight into where along the participatory processes consensus journey such safe-space processes are useful.

WHAT PEOPLE IN THE KNOW ARE SAYING?

"Excellent Experiential Learning! Many Thanks."
"Everything and I get awakened."
"Tom is a fantastic Facilitator. He ensured Safety. He was focused. Lots of Learning. Thank you."
"The flexibility of the mind & High level of tolerance of opposing views."
"Practical diffusers of polar views & bringing convergence."
"The experience. Being influenced to the other side myself."
"The methodology of sharing done by the Facilitator"

WHO IS THE WORKSHOP FACILITATOR?

Dr Tom Schwarz helps organizations, teams and people unfetter and realize their aspirations and potential - focusing around facilitative leadership and management development, and team effectiveness and creativity - as keys to enhanced organizational agility and performance.

He is a Certified Professional Facilitator (International Association of Facilitators - IAF), CPF Assessor, IAF Board member and IAF ANZ Regional Representative with broad formal and informal facilitation, training and Consulting background and experience. These are derived from corporate roles (over 20 years with Dec, Apple, HP - Training, Consulting, Sales, Marketing & Strategic Planning) and then running his outcome focused practice over Asia Pacific - with almost a decade of living in Asia -Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai. His company group - Kinnogene - uses participatory and values based approaches to bring about enduring change. These are grounded in the core values embodied in such practices as Future Search, World Cafe, the Technology of Participation, Improv....

Tom has facilitated at many Australia and Asia IAF and AFN conferences - his Asia Pacific partial client list includes the Australian NRM Facilitator network, the Royal Australasia College of Dental surgeons, Arup (Australia), Seimens, Danone, Maersk, Andarko, Kodak, Pirelli etc in interventions and capacity development roles. He also contributes to the NGO sector - and in 2006 worked with the ICA (Institute of Cultural Affairs) as part of a 7 man team to assist and capacity develop East Timorese NGO and Government bodies, and with AIESEC youth leadership development in China.

WORKSHOP INVESTMENT

*Early Bird Registration (by 1 Jul 08)
IAF Members S$350
**Non Members S$450

After Early Bird Deadline (after 1 Jul 08)
S$550 for IAF and Non-IAF members.

*Overseas registrants paying by bank draft or TT, please add S$30 for bank charges in Singapore

**IAF membership is USD85 per year for developing countries and USD175 for high income countries. In East Asia; Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Macau and Singapore are classified as high income and the rest of Asia as developing. Singapore members pay the Affiliate rate of USD165 as the local Facilitators Network Singapore (FNS) is affiliated to IAF.http://www.iaf-world.org

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

Online at: http://www.fns.sg
Payment by cheque to:
Facilitators Network Singapore Pte Ltd10 Anson Road#03-09 International PlazaSingapore 079903

REGISTRATION ENQUIRIES

Tel : (65) 9099-4655 or (65) 9833-3515
Email : admin@fns.sg

Facilitation Around the World

All Facilitators in Singapore,

Please find here information on the forthcoming conferences, as far as their dates are known, as well as on IAF Certified Professional Facilitator assessment events .

Africa 23-24 July 2008
Hurry with booking, only 1 month away! (Hyperlinked to text underneath here, from where the link then can go to the respective conference website.)

Asia 27-29 August 2009 On-line registration still ongoing!

Europe 2-5 October 2008 On-line registration opened!

Australia/New Zealand 26-28 November
Early bird rates still available!

North America 20-25 April 2009
July 1 deadline for conference and workshop submissions!

2008 IAF Global Conferences: Africa (Muldersdrift, Gauteng, South Africa), 23-24 July.

For information, to view the programme, or for on-line registration, go to www.sbs.co.za/IAF2008

Asia (Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia), 27-29 August. Asia will host its 11th annual IAF conference in Borneo with the theme of "The Savoury Spices of Facilitation." Always a popular conference in the network of IAF global conferences, the Asia conference often draws up to 25 different nationalities among the participants.

Programme details are available through www.iaf-world.org Register on-line at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OPCMbMpIkNKdLZd4pKPg7Q_3d_3d

Europe (Groningen, Netherlands), 2-5 October. The IAF Europe Conference 2008 will be held in Groningen on the campus of Hanze University of Applied Sciences, founded in 1040. The conference website at www.iaf-europe-conference.org is now open for registration.

Australia/New Zealand (Bathurst, New South Wales), 26-28 November. The theme of this year?s conference is ?Pushing the Boundaries: Facilitation Frontiers.? A three-hour drive from Sydney, the Bathurst site is accessible by air, rail, and bus. To register refer to www.afnconference.com.au. Early bird rates are available through 31 August.

IAF Certified Professional Facilitator assessment events are scheduled in conjunction with all of the above conferences, Please see the IAF website: www.iaf-world.org for details. 2009 IAF North American Conference: North America (Vancouver, Canada) 20-25 April.

The theme of the conference is 'The Art and Mastery of Facilitation: Explore Diversity'. The organizers are calling for proposal submission by July 1, 2008 for the conference and workshops.

Workshop Focus areas are: Team Intervention, Community Engagement, Alternative Dispute resolution, Enhancing Your Facilitation Tool Kit, Personal and Professional Development, and Large Groups.

Submission forms are now posted on the IAF North America web site (www.iafna.org). If you have any questions about the overall process for submitting workshop proposals, please contact the Program Team Co-Chairs, Taralee Hammond (Taralee.hammond@nscc.ca) or Coleen Davidson (davidsoncm@ccrsb.ca).

Enhancements to the FNS Website

We are pleased to inform that to serve you better, we've enhanced the FNS website.

To minimise your time of registering for our events, the website is now able to retrieve your contact details after it has been provided once.

When you submit a registration for the first time, please provide your contact details to enjoy this value added service.

If you have any feedback on the website, please email admin@fns.sg

We look forward to your continued support for our events!

Facilitators Network Singapore

24th Singapore Facilitators' Forum

Date: 12 Jul'08, Saturday

Time: 8:30am – 1:00pm

Place: Focus Conference Room,
#15-08, Sim Lim Towers,
10 Jalan Besar,
Singapore 208787
(This is NOT Sim Lim Square!)

Agenda:

8:30 am Arrivals & Registration
9:00 am Part 1 – Divergence Problem Solving Tool – Reverse Brainstorming for Idea Generation
10:30 am Tea Break & Networking
11:00 am Part 2 – Convergence Problem Solving Tool – Compound Decision Matrix
12:30 pm Special Announcements
12:40 pm Closing Circle
1:00pm End of Session

Outcomes:

Have you ever tried running a Brainstorming session for a repeated 'die-hard' problem in your organisation with the same group of people? What's the outcome of the session? Have you ever generated a long list of possible solutions for a project but were unable to arrive at a satisfactory solution with your team? This session is designed for you if you ever faced any of the above challenges.

Part 1 – Reverse Brainstorming. Most of us are familiar with Brainstorming as a idea generation tool. Reverse Brainstorming is conducted in a similar way but instead of thinking of solutions to solve an issue, team members are to think of ways how to make things worse for a defined set of problems. With the negative solutions, the team then analyse what are the root causes and then finds a solution to each of the problem identified.

Part 2 – Compound Decision Matrix. The Compound Decision Matrix cascaded a series of simpler Decision such as the Grid Analysis and the Paired Comparison Table to allow teams to explore all possible options before arriving at a conclusion based on a set of pre-defined conditions.

The Facilitator

Ms Cynthia Zhai is a trainer in customer service and part-time facilitator. She's a member of IAF.

She's active in Toastmasters and a regular volunteer at Changi prison. She's also a NLP Practitioner and dedicated to bringing NLP in her training. Cynthia was born in China. She has a Masters degree in Management and worked in Human Resources in Shanghai before.

Fees:

Early bird registration 1 week before forum date or earlier:

Full-time tertiary students S$5.00
Others : S$10

Normal Rate after registration deadline:

Full-time tertiary students : S$15Others : S$15

Please register online via FNS website at http://www.fns.sg/current_programs.htm

If you are unable to register on-line please email our Forum administrator - Ms. Emily Ng at emilyng_fns@yahoo.com.sg

Fee is payable at the door. Once registered, the forum fee would be payable regardless of actual attendance. Cancellation or withdrawal is not permitted. We welcome replacement.

If you require directions, please log onto the following website to download the map of the venue.
http://sg.pagenation.com/sin/Sim%20Lim%20Tower_103.8545_1.3037.map

If you have enquires, please email our Forum Administrator - Ms. Emily Ng at emilyng_fns@yahoo.com.sg .

11th Annual IAF Asia Facilitator Conference - An Update

Missed signing up for the Kuching conference? ... come on and join the 107 from 19 countries who will be there...

Countries

AUSTRALIA 4
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM 3
CHINA 1
GERMANY 1
INDIA 5
INDONESIA 6
KOREA 1
LAOS 3
MALAYSIA 30
MYANMAR 6
NEPAL 1
NEW ZEALAND 2
PHILIPPINES 2
SINGAPORE 33
SOUTH KOREA 1
TAIWAN 3
THAILAND 1
UNITED KINGDOM 3
USA 1

Total participants as of 7 June 2008 = 107

Download Conference brochure at http://www.iaf-world.org/files/public/Kuching%20Conf%202008.pdf

Register on-line at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OPCMbMpIkNKdLZd4pKPg7Q_3d_3d

From Conference Organising Team
11th Annual IAF Asia Facilitator Conference
The Savoury Spices of Facilitation!
August 27-28, 2008
Kuching, Sarawak,
Damai Puri Resort & Spa,
Sarawak,
Malaysia