Books and resources

A new documentary celebrating the past, present and future of Crystal Waters is just being released. It is possibly the most extensive exploration of an ecovillage in a documentary yet produced… I’d love to hear of other examples. In 2018, Crystal Waters, a world-first permaculture settlement and wildlife sanctuary, is now 30 years old – located near Maleny, South East Queensland. Given a UN Habitat Award in 1996, Crystal Waters is known worldwide for its permaculture related educational courses. Community members run monthly markets, bakery and cafes, bamboo and timber plantations, a fire brigade, cinema, even a cemetery. A visitor park offers cabins, caravan sites and tent sites. Over 100 dwellings and community buildings showcase diverse building methods – rammed earth, mud brick, straw bale and pole construction. The flow of the program entwines history and present views in a colourful and engaging manner. It may not answer all your …

How often do you take time to review and renew your course design, your session plan that you work from to present regularly, your meeting agenda design or your event program? Do you tend to repeat the same session over and over or use similar processes to deliver the content you’re working with? Or do you challenge yourself to try new things, throw out the routine curricular or procedure, swap a standard process for a more creative one and dance on the edge of growth and expansion with each new challenge you give yourself? Do you get bored with what you offer to your groups? Are you tired of doing things the same way? Do your participants seem bored or disengaged? Or are your groups, meetings, events and sessions fun and exciting, receiving great feedback and motivating participants to thrive and shine. Do you complete and celebrate a job well …

Here’s a wonderful example of one woman living and breathing the challenge of ‘Dynamic Groups’ by using the ‘Creative Process Wild Cards’ and many of the learnings and processes from the ‘Dynamic Groups’ course and integrating that with her existing programs and group work. Thanks Shannon for such a rich offering of your work and stepping up to the challenge. “Robin’s Dynamic Groups Creative Facilitation course has inspired and energised me to deliver even better training and professional development for the Aquatic industry. I present courses and professional development and have always done things a bit “differently”, for example cross crawling and playing my ukulele. The creative processes we learned throughout the course have grown my toolbox exponentially! Each time I run a course now I consider how I did it last time and which processes I can use to engage the participants and really involve them in their own …

Robin’s ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course in Italy last July was supported magnificently by Kym Chi, a vibrant and creative young woman from Canada who travelled specially to Switzerland and Italy to spend 3 weeks supporting Robin with her Italy course and also two Women’s Weekends. On returning home Kym Chi wrote, collated and created this valuable resource which gives a good insight into the ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ Methodology and the kinds of activities, experiences and learning that people receive in Robin’s creative facilitation and teacher training courses. Robin supplied Kym Chi with some of the content explanations from her upcoming book that show the meanings associated with the Jigsaw Puzzle of ELFy, the mascot who supports Robin piece together all the elements which support group work and learning to be empowering, fun, memorable, supportive and effective. Click here to view the Notes which have many photographs and great …

Here’s a wonderful production of best practices and top tips for teachers of any subject. A free offering to the World Community as a download at printable resolution and available professionally produced from an on demand printer.    Explore :www.permaculturedesign.ca/teachersnotes Permaculture Design : Teachers Notes Envoy : Delvin Solkinson Design : Onbeyond Metamedia Editing and Contributions : Kym Chi Core Team and Contributions : Annaliese Hordern, Dana Wilson & Tamara Griffiths     Source Inspiration and Contributions : Rosemary Morrow, Robin Clayfield, Looby Macnamara. Core Insight and Contributions : Larry Santoyo, Max Lindegger, Robyn Francis. Core Inspiration and Insight : Jude Hobbs, Tom Ward, Geoff Lawton, Douglas and Sam Bullock, Michael Becker, Scott Pittman, Dave Boehnlein, Starhawk, David Holmgren, Dan Palmer and here’s the new Link for Delvin’s latest eNewsletter

What does it take to be an empowered, effective group leader, teacher or facilitator? How do we develop the skills and gather the tools, courage and attitude to be a leader yet also support the empowerment of our groups, each and every participant and honour ourselves at the same time? Robin has been living these questions and discovering some of the answers for close to three decades now. She’s written two pertinent articles in recent years that could be valuable to revisit, especially in the lead up to her new book series ‘Dynamic Teaching and Facilitation’. Both of the articles and her upcoming books address these questions. Five years ago she wrote a blog about her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ Methodology entitled ‘Magic Happens in Dynamic Groups’. Many of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that she talks about in this article help to answer the questions that we’re focused …