Why this training and why now?

We are all interrelated, with each other and with all life. Every action affects the whole.  If we take this as our worldview, how does it impact the way that we live and work? Many believe that it is only when we work from a deep understanding of our ‘interbeing’ that we will be able to evolve beyond the challenges present in the world today.

New ways of working are emerging and growing numbers of people want to move away from competition towards collaboration and peace. New skills and approaches are being cultivated.  Skills that tune into and are responsive to ambiguity, diversity and emergent circumstances.  Skills that foster generative conversation where diverse perspectives can collide to spark new ways of thinking and acting. Skills that invite participation and engagement in new ways, where we can tap the collective intelligence inherent in any group, system or community.

YOU ARE INVITED to the Art of Hosting, an intensive three-day participatory learning space that uses personal practice, dialogue processes and collective enquiry to support the skills needed to build dynamic, collaborative communities better able to solve the complex problems in today’s world.

Especially effective where people need to work together on knotty, interrelated problems, the Art of Hosting is a body of practice intended to build capacity for people at all levels of organisation and society to host and harvest conversations that matter and that lead to wiser and regenerative sustainable action.

What will be covered in the three days:

– Methods and process design techniques such as:  Open Space, World Café, Circle Practice, Appreciative Inquiry, Storytelling Harvesting, OPERA and Design for Wiser Action.
– Maps, models and frameworks such as:  Chaordic Design,  Living Systems Design and Ecocycle.
– Hosting and harvesting conversations as a core practice for leading change in complex systems.
– Skills for opening and holding spaces of emergence and deeper connection to meaning.
– Application of learning to real time projects or initiatives with which you are currently working.
– Space to reflect on your own personal practice and presence.

This is beyond facilitation. It’s an invitation to be inspired by practice and by a lived experience of complexity, self-organisation, collective intelligence and emergence. Our learning will grow out of everyone’s contribution and presence.  We will support each other as co-creators and co-learners using our collective experience and wisdom to create a safe and inspiring learning ecology.  Bring your questions, your projects, your experience and your dreams of the future.

Who is this for?

This training is for those who seek to engage themselves, their teams, organisations or communities in a participatory manner around issues that really matter:  forward-thinking leaders, community builders, peace-makers, managers, entrepreneurs and innovators, change agents and social innovators, consultants, mediators, facilitators, trainers, teachers, young people and anyone wishing to make a difference.

Venue: St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London

Cost:
£300 for organisations, consultants and professionals
£250 for individuals

The event is non residential, so the cost does not cover accommodation.