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Facilitation

A group of friends stand with arms around each other looking out across a valley.

Running Effective Campaign Debriefs

Every campaign is a learning opportunity. Make the most of this by planning for the post-campaign period and setting up debriefs. Here are some tips for campaigners and facilitators.

Cover of Original Power's Building Power Guide - features a drawing of a turtle in red.

The Building Power Guide

The Building Power guide is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who want to change the world. It includes several training resources to build capacity for campaigning, such as explorations of change-making, power, strategy and leadership development.

Photograph of a group of people having a meeting.

Action group meetings

This tip sheet has been written to help you and your group work well together and achieve your objectives and highlights some group habits and actions that resilient community groups have relied on: effective meetings with an agreed agenda; clearly-defined roles; mindful decision-making; accountability; and inclusiveness.

A room full of women at a forum raising their hands, photographed from the back of the room.

Facilitating for Gender Balance

Men frequently participate more than women in meetings, forums and other events. This article outlines practical steps facilitators and participants can take to ensure women are heard.

Cover of Starhawk's 'The Five-Fold Path of Productive Meetings'

The Five Fold Path of Productive Meetings

Productive meetings allow an organization to move forward, keep members engaged and give them a sense of empowerment and efficacy. There are five aspects of structure and interpersonal dynamics we must pay special attention to if we want our meetings to be truly productive: Right People; Right Container; Right Process; Right Facilitation; Right Agenda.

Front cover of Pt'Chang's Nonviolence Training Project Trainers' Resource Manual

Nonviolence Trainer’s Resource Manual

This manual aims to contribute to the body of practical on nonviolence training, and support the work of people working to increase the power and effectiveness of grassroots social movements. While it is a method for change accessible to all, to succeed, nonviolence requires organisation, discipline, persistence in the face of repression and strategic application.

Photograph of a neon question mark in a dark room.

Strategic Questioning

Strategic questioning is the skill of asking the questions that will make a difference. It is a powerful tool for personal and social change which helps people discover their own strategies and ideas for change. Strategic questioning can be valuable in campaign strategy, group consultation processes, one-to-one organising conversations, coaching and many other contexts.

Photo of protesters at Leard Blockade. Protestors have arms crossed in 'no deal' sign. There is a banner 'ANZ: Think Again'.

Facilitation at the Frontlines

This article includes reflections and tips for ‘extreme sport’ facilitation at blockades and action camps. Includes notes about logistics, comfort of participants, timing, internal organisation within the facilitation team, holding the space, and being transparent about role and power dynamics.

Photolanguage - photograph of set of photos.

Photolanguage

A process guide to be used in training workshops, planning sessions and team building. Photolanguage has many uses, including to facilitate self-­awareness; deepen engagement and relationships; stimulate connections between intellectual reflection and personal experience; and stimulate creativity in personal expression.

Photograph of a group of people standing in a circle with a beach ball.

Games and energisers

Games are great to use during a workshop. They may be scheduled into the workshop at various times or you may just toss one in when you feel that the group could benefit from playing a game. The games in this handout are separated into the categories of introductory games, name games, dynamicas (energisers) and fun ways to get people into groups.

Diagram made up of a central circle (Group Development) surrounded by 5 connected circles labelled Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Mourning.

Stages of Group Development

A handout and process guide for training workshops focused on working in groups and organisational effectiveness. The process introduces participants to Bruce Tuckman’s model of stages in group development; encourages participants to reflect on their experience of group development; and identifies and address challenges and opportunities that accompany each stage.

A group of people stand together around a ping pong table covered in paper and pens.

Diagnostic Tools for Trainers and Facilitators

Facilitators and activist educators rely on a suite of tools to diagnose the group, to learn about people’s needs and priorities, and to move the group forward. A number of tools are outlined in this resource including: One-on-one conversations; Maximise/Minimise; Ambivalence charts; Questionnaires; Sociograms; Skits, mime and tableaux; Noticings; and Evaluation.

Cover of Original Power's Building Power Guide - features a drawing of a turtle in red.

Community Resistance Timeline

This is a training process guide to introduce participants to each other, connect their own history to a larger history of social change, identify local tactics, and to rethink what success looks like. It is an excerpt from Building Power: A Guide for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Who Want to Change the World.

Photo of protesters at Leard Blockade. Protestors have arms crossed in 'no deal' sign. There is a banner 'ANZ: Think Again'.

Checklist for Non-violent Direct Action trainings

A checklist of some of the basic principles, and pieces of information, to include in NVDA training. When facilitation is shared among a number of people at large convergences it can be easy to miss things! This has been crowd-sourced from NVDA trainers and CounterAct training.

Photograph of the first General Assembly of Occupy Melbourne, October 15 2011. A large gathering of people in City Square with signs.

Facilitation at Occupy Melbourne

Insights about facilitation from the very challenging General Assembly process at Occupy Melbourne. This article will be of interest to facilitators and others learning about group process, as well as people keen to find out about the Occupy movement. These reflections were written two weeks after Occupy Melbourne kicked off in October 2011. 

In a large, dramatically lit auditorium are a crowd of people, around half of whom have their arms raised.

Checklist for a great facilitator

Facilitators help a group to get where it needs to go, whether the focus of a gathering is information sharing, discussion, generating creative options, making decisions, team building or planning for action. Here are some tips and tricks for facilitation, to help you get the most out of your next meeting.

Better Activist Meetings

Do you spend a lot of your life in meetings? Or does it just feel like it?! Meetings are a big part of working collectively but too often… they suck. One of the things that motivated me to become an activist educator and facilitator was frustration with boring and unproductive meetings. Life’s too short and […]