• 'Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning' Creative teachers, Facilitators and Group Leaders Courses

    6 day trainings, shorter workshops and consultancy

  • Robin's Full Re-edited, Reformatted 3rd Edition Book

    Now over 5000 copies sold

  • Robin's New Dynamic Groups Book Due for Release Mid 2016

    Robin's partner Rob Clark has just produced a stunning flier about it

  • Brand New 'Permaculture Principles Card Game'

    PLUS 'Creative Process Wild Cards'

  • Introducing ELFy The Magician to the World

    DaDarrr! Mascot, champion and colourful jigsaw puzzle symbol for Dynamic Groups

  • 'The Love Feast' Dynamic Relationships Retreat and Methodology

    Shorter workshops and private couples sessions available

Recent Posts

The Planting Festival is Awesome

The cover of the program booklet for The Planting

If you’ve never been to ‘The Planting’ Festival before and you live close enough to have three days away over the first weekend in May, you’ll get to experience and participate in a delightful diversity of environmental, social and creative workshops, talks, wanderings and activities along with ceremony and of course great music. It’s held at the Woodford Folk Festival site and grew out of the tree planting weekends that have supported the site be a shady and beautiful wildlife and people haven.

The Labyrinth at last year’s ‘The Planting’ with the split bamboo garden edge surrounds.

For the second year running Robin and her troupe of labyrinth makers, ceremony weavers, workshop facilitators and musicians will create a luscious space for patrons to experience the serenity of labyrinth walking and guided ceremonies, accompanied by divine music at The Sacred Union Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is now its own unique venue after six years at Woodford Folk festival and now, in a much smaller and simpler version for The Planting, offers a split bamboo and banana fibre making and weaving workshop to beautify the labyrinth to begin the activities in the space.

Robin is also presenting a workshop in The Grove Venue entitled ‘Growing Community’. Growing healthy community needs the same love and care as a veggie garden or a food forest. Like all of us humans, it requires a supportive group environment in which to thrive. What are the elements that grow community and assist our groups, teams, organisations, businesses and families to be at their best? We’ll garden the answers together and harvest the gifts of our collaboration.

Hope to see you there. It will be a lot of fun 🙂 Here’s the link to the website

The Time of the Great Remembering

It’s just been ‘Earth Day’ and to honour that Robin rekindled this quote she wrote back in 2015 after waking up full of passion and care for our Earth and a better world while working in the UK on a course.

The Glasshouse Mountains on the Sunshine Coast, Qld, Australia
with a beautiful rainbow tail illuminating the mountains and the misty plains.

“It is the time of the Great Remembering…

Remembering as humans that we are part of the Earth. Remembering our nature intelligence. Remembering we are part of a symbiotic and amazing ecosystem that bubbles and pulses with life. Yes, we have evolved beyond our hunter-gatherer roots, yet we can still purposefully gather all the tools, resources and companions to connect together for a healthy world. We are powerful, creative and co-creative beyond measure and we are a tiny speck in the web of life.

May each speck be a spark of illumination and remembering of our ancient roots and deeply intimate relationship with Earth and all beings… for a better world.” – Robin Clayfield

Robina McCurdy from NZ Aotearoa Visiting OZ

The wonderfully creative and clever Robina McCurdy from Aotearoa NZ will be visiting Australia in late May early June and we’re very fortunate that she’ll be up on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland so she and Robin can collaborate on a day workshop called ‘Growing Community’.

It will build on the material from Robin’s workshop at ‘The Planting’ and take participants deep into the realms of what it takes to foster healthy, vibrant, successful communities – intentional ones and also neighbourhoods, community groups, families, work cultures and any sub-cultural and cultural gathering and collectives that meet and gather over time.

Photo by Robyn Rosenfeldt of Robin Clayfield doing her signature process ‘Group Handshake’

Robina can also ‘do this type of workshop with her eyes closed’ and it’s been both hers and Robins life work to support and facilitate group and community well-being and success. They will both have their eyes fully open to be deeply present and achieve the best possible outcome for their group workshop.

It will be held on Sunday 2nd June at The EcoCentre at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village.

In the evening there will also be a special night on offer which will include a Community Building game by Robin and a glorious slide show of many of Robinas great photos of the keys to Growing Community.

Here’s Robina’s Bio for your information and enjoyment.

Robina McCurdy from Tui Community in NZ

Robina McCurdy is a professional community development facilitator, Permaculture educator, organic gardener, and pioneer-resident of 30 year-old Tui Community & Trust in rural Aotearoa/New Zealand (www.tuitrust.org.nz).  She is also the founder of The Institute of Earthcare Education Aotearoa. 

www.earthcare-education.org

For the past 30 years she has been engaged in community development of various forms. During this time, she has produced a range of environmental education resources and participatory processes for decision-making and collective action, culminating in the publication of her community facilitation manual, ‘Grounding Vision, Empowering Culture’. She also has chapters in: ‘Creating Harmony: Conflict Resolution in Community’, and ‘Living your Passion’.

Robina has facilitated community-building in 10 different countries since 1992, as well as regularly in her own country, Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Her community facilitation work encompasses ‘midwifing’ new initiatives, squatter settlement re-development, long-term conflict resolution, rebuilding community post natural disasters, the training of community leaders as ‘cultural change agents’, participatory planning of orphanages, mentoring of new ecovillages, social renewal of existing ecovillages, and strengthening the community culture within existing organizations. 

Social Permaculture Video Interview with Robin Clayfield

Russ Grayson’s filmed this great interview with Robin on Social Permaculture at the APC 14 in Canberra in 2018. APC = Australasian PermacultureConvergence.

Russ also took this great photo of Robin and Robina McCurdy at APC WA in 2016

Australian Labyrinth Network Conference in Canberra

Robin was the special guest at the Australian Labyrinth Network Conference in Canberra in March. Being a recently formed network, the ALN was holding their 3rd annual conference and decided to have an Australian special guest this time rather than invite someone from overseas.

The second step in the process
of creating Ceremonies

It was a fabulous conference and Robin’s workshop on ‘Facilitating Ceremony, Ritual and Transformation with the Labyrinth’ was very well received. It took people through nine steps of creating Ceremony and encouraged people to bring more ceremony into their Labyrinth facilitated walks. She also used The Sacred Union Labyrinth as an example of the progression through the steps and how following them builds a solid and powerful plan to hold more free flowing and spontaneous facilitation with a group.

Robin, together with Mark Healy, created a Ceremonial Labyrinth, the circular version of the Sacred Union Labyrinth, and designed and led an evening candle let Ceremony on the grass outside in a lovely courtyard. Such a delight. Additionally, Robin was asked to lead a group warm up exercise on the first morning and be on a panel about Community Building though The Labyrinth.

If you’re interested in the national network, here’s the link to have a look and join if you’d like to. The conferences are certainly worth attending if you love Labyrinths.

Delvin Solkinson’s Teachers Notes Handbook

This wonderful collection of ideas, tips and information is the result of all Delvin’s notes from the numerous courses and workshops he’s participated in and especially what he’s gleaned from Robin Clayfield and Rowe Morrow. There’s also info from Looby Mcanamara and Robyn Frances. Well worth a read and available as a download for free. Delvin is so incredible generous like that and he also, above anyone else I know, acknowledges the source of his learnings and inspiration so generously and astutely. My huge Thank You goes out to Delvin and his team.

www.visionarypermaculture.com/teachersnotes