Robin Clayfield

Robin Clayfield is an international teacher, facilitator and author who is passionate about healthy groups, organisations and communities, their structures and governance and most importantly, their facilitation and group dynamics. She presents and consults all around the world to support global health, well-being and whole systems change through using Permaculture, Social Permaculture and ‘Dynamic Groups’ methodology. Robin is a Permaculture Pioneer and Elder who has lived at Crystal Waters Permaculture Eco-Village in SE Queensland, Australia since 1988. Her books and resources include ‘You Can Have Your Permaculture and Eat It Too’, ‘The New Permaculture Principles Card Game’, ‘The Creative Community Governance and Decision Making Resource Kit’ and the ‘Creative Process Wild Cards’. She is also the co-auther (with Skye in 1995) of ‘The Manual for Teaching Permaculture Creatively’ plus several resources and card games for teachers and facilitators.

News from IPC (International Permaculture Convergence) in India

The IPC in India recently was a feast of colour, culture and fabulous Indian cuisine with interesting presentations, much networking and diverse learning opportunities as 1200 people from over 70 countries gathered for the week near Hyderabad. The two day Conference was held at an agricultural research college on the edge of the city and was brimming with Indian farmers. 350 people had travelled around the globe to be be part of the event and other came from all over India. Robin set up a small stall with her books, card games and resources and get to be set up in between Indian seed sellers and traders of Indian crafts and baskets. She also made a valuable contribution to the Conference by presenting a panel titled ‘Are Women Leading the Change’ as the finale program item for the weekend. One of the sub themes of IPC was ‘Women Leading the …

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Group Agreements to be next Patreon Q&A Zoom Session Topic

Group Agreements and how to navigate this successfully with groups of all sizes and persuasions seems to be a hot topic at the moment. It’s important not just for community group, organisations, learning and education group and businesses but also for anyone in a family or relationship who values clarity and shared understandings. Robin has fielded several questions from interested people over recent months about this topic or people have asked for more guidance about her ‘Group Agreements Icon Set’ that she uses in her courses and with groups. Now the interest will be taken into a Q&A Zoom session for an hour of exploring together with any of the Patreon Patrons who would like to join, contribute, question and unravel this essential topic. The session will be on Tuesday 23rd January at 7am Qld, Australia time (so people from Europe and UK have a chance of joining). Learnings and contributions …

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Patreon Support Growing to Meet First Goal

The Patreon Platform that Robin launched late last year, with much help and support from Erin Young, is slowly building and showing that it will be a great support for getting the ‘Dynamic Teaching and Facilitation’ book series written and produced. There are now 26 of you wonderful people, most of whom have done Robin’s ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ training, who are supporting her through Patreon. THANK YOU. Together you are contributing $544 per month which is just $56 short of the first goal of $600 per month. Robin said that “when we reach our goal of $600 that it will enable a percentage of the administration and social networking support required for the project to be engaged”. Erin is already working to support the project and will now begin to gain some ‘right livelihood’ for her efforts and Robin will get more support from her as  they get closer …

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Spiral Labyrinths for Community and Personal Ceremony + Damanhur

Robin’s Sacred Union Labyrinth design is now know to many, having been created as an art and ceremony instillation at Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland these last five years. Robin woke up in a huge rainstorm one morning in January 2011 with the image in her mind. She attributes Labyrinth maker Mark Healy as being a spark of inspiration for her to conceive this design. Here’s a link to the Sacred Union Labyrinth page on FaceBook Labyrinths have appeared throughout history in many cultures and many forms. Perhaps the easiest to make and use is a simple spiral design which turns out is the predominant labyrinth type at Damanhur in northern Italy which is a federation of communities with a spiritual basis. They have created underground temples carved our of the hills and an abundance of stone spiral labyrinths above the cave systems, some of which are open to the …

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Switzerland Hosts ‘Dynamic Groups’ and ‘Women’s Weekend’

Passionate Italian Permaculture woman, mother and PDC Diploma Assessor Barbara Garofoli hosted Robin in the little Swiss alpine village of La Forclaz last year to offer her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ 6 day training for Permaculture people from across Switzerland and also to follow this by facilitating a Wise Women’s Wisdom Weekend. The experience of being at 1300 meters for two weeks in a traditional village with the venue being a delightful old school building was a big highlight of Robin’s three month European tour. The course was definitely one of the best ever, and that’s certainly saying something, with every participant giving outstanding feedback at the end and so inspired and on fire to take the inspiration and many learnings back to their groups and work places. The food was outstanding and created by Barbara’s mum Antonella from Italy. She brought with her home dried herbs including specially grown …

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Exciting Patreon Platform Launch

The excitement was building for weeks up to Robin finally launching on Patreon recently. The idea is to invite you all to support, on a monthly basis, to produce the ‘Dynamic Teaching and Facilitation’ book series. The money received will pay Robin’s team for their much needed and wonderful skills – Rob Clark, Young Erin and Eve Witney.  In exchange for your support there is a range of rewards that you can choose from. The end result will be all of us enhancing and multiplying our skills, knowledge, confidence and ‘toolboxes’ for the empowerment of ourselves, our groups and our world. Please have a look at what’s on offer. Click to view the Patreon ‘About Us’ page

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