Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning Dynamic Courses, Books, Resources and Tours for Healthy Groups, People and Culture with Robin Clayfield

by Mandy Merklein 9/6/17 on FaceBook

A big thank you to Robin Clayfield for her time here on Mallorca, six workshops, PDC support, over 60 participants and sharing loads of information and materials on dynamic groups, decision-making and facilitation!

In addition we shared fun, gardening, sailing, sunsets, garden meals and inspiring stories.

Thanks to all the workshop participants for your creative involvement, and to Ana Digon for your amazing translation, and Miquel Ramis of Artifex Balear for co-hosting.

And thanks to the PermaMed and Escola Kumar team and Bruce and Elias Robson for your support!

Robin left us with lots of ideas and resources to share. Today Robin heads off to continue her tour in Europe. We highly recommend her upcoming workshops- for more information see https://snow-albatross-888556.hostingersite.com.

Locally on Mallorca Ana Digon will be offering a follow up workshop on dynamic groups June 14 at the Biogranja La Real.

We will be working on including and presenting Robins inspiring ideas into our social permaculture workshops and materials especially for educators, youths and groups interested in working together in ways that are more dynamic, effective, creative and fun.

To contact Mandy or PermaMed via their website click here or visit their FaceBook page here.

An invitation from the Education Team at Braziers Park Community enticed Robin to the experimental group work and social research community in South Oxfordshire for four days. This completed her stay in UK.

Members were interested to participate in a ‘Dynamic Decision Making’ one day workshop and Robin also encouraged some community cross pollination by giving a presentation about ‘Crystal Waters Permaculture Village’ on her last evening there.

The community is housed in a small Gothic style castle, quite an extraordinary building that was originally a farm house built in 1688 and extended with the Gothic turret type wings in 1799.

The community has a large Permaculture garden and hosts many volunteers, workshops, seminars and four festivals a year including WOOD which Robin was luck enough to participate in on her first day there.

Each day the community has a half hour morning circle where people share anything they feel to in a round then tasks and support jobs for the day are allocated. One evening a week they have a ‘Sensory Meeting’ where many things are discussed but no decisions are made and on another evening that have a ‘Executive Meeting’ where decisions are made. There are 12 places for permanent residents, lots of opportunity for one to three months volunteering and also for being part of the wider support non-residential community that looks after the building, estate and philosophy.

Here’s a link to their website

Robin’s seven country ‘Dynamic Groups’ course tour began in the UK at The Sustainability Centre in Hampshire in mid May.

The centre is an educational trust and offers facilities and experiences for adult workshops, school tours and a diversity of learning opportunities, volunteering and ways to be involved.

Half the property is a natural burial ground where people are laid to rest in a simple earth friendly way. Such a beautiful thing to witness.

The centre is also home to a delicious vegetarian cafe and Permanent Publication, a book publisher and producer of the UK Permaculture Magazine, a very quality and informative publication. Here’s a link to the centre.

There were many highlights from the Dynamic Groups course, one being a large and very colourful, facilitated group design painting. A quick simple process that created a stir of excitement and satisfaction.

We managed to gather from the participants and the Centre some paint, puppets, juggling balls, dress ups and scarves, a small library and even some clay dug from the site.

Robin’s visit to Italy promises to be fruitful and exciting with her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course and a ‘Wise Women’s Wisdom Weekend’ being organised by Francesca Simonetti.

Dates for the Dynamic Groups course are

8th to 13th July

Dates for the Women’s Weekend are

15th and 16th July

Kym Chi from Gaiacraft in Canada will be supporting Robin with both the courses and they will then have a well earned rest and visit to Damanhur Community in Northern Italy.

To see more information and express interest Click here for the Dynamic Groups course Page 1 and Page 2.

Click here for the brochure for the Women’s Weekend Page 1 and Page 2.

or Email Francesca

or Visit the Nature Designs website for the full course details and bookings.

The image here to the right represents some of the energies that will be part of the Women’s Weekend. You can see it will be full of magic and mystery. This will be a wonderful opportunity for women to gather together and retreat for the weekend while doing some deep work for themselves and having lots of fun. Come and Enjoy 🙂

Robin will be a speaker in the wonderfully crafted Regenepreneurs Interview Series! The host, Karryn Olson-Ramanujan*, created this series to highlight women leaders in Permaculture and shed light on the entrepreneurial skills that help us thrive in our regenerative right livelihoods.

The interview will be live on Friday April 21st 6pm EDT in the U.S. (UTC-4), which is Saturday April 22nd at 8am in Australia (UTC+10). Please mark your calendars, because if you attend the live interview, she will answer your questions about her approach to thriving in her work. If you can’t attend at that time, the recording will be available for 24 hours.

Click here to sign up to receive information about how to join us!  There is a small investment for listening and being. (Karryn is dedicated to mutually beneficial relationships—she and the other speakers are crowdsourcing outreach so that  all benefit from helping get the word out. The link above lets Karryn know that you heard about the interview from Robin. If you aren’t comfortable with that, you can simply go to https://regenepreneurs.com/interview-series/ to sign up.

*In 2013, Karryn wrote “A “Pattern Language for Women in Permaculture” and hosts a compilation of “Best Practices to Support Women in Permaculture.” If you haven’t read them yet, check them out on her website, under “Blog.” There are also other great interviews with Permaculture women which you can access through the link to Robin’s interview too.

Support Robin and yourself by listening to the interview and engaging with this valuable sharing. Feel most welcome to share this link with your networks and friends. Thank you 🙂

Robin will escape Australia’s winter this year while being hosted to offer her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ Creative Teachers, Facilitators and Group Leaders course in six countries across Europe plus in the UK.

She’s also been invited to offer a Wise Women’s Weekend in Switzerland and Italy.

Beginning at The Sustainability Centre in Hampshire Robin will enjoy to present her course and stay here for the second time in two years.

ENGLAND 15th to 20th May

Click here to go to the Course Page on the Sustainability Centre’s Website.

Mallorca will be next, a lovely island in the Mediterranean off the east coast of Spain. The highlight there, as well as the course hosted by the Permacultura Mediterrianea, will be visiting and spending time with RuMi who lived and worked with Robin supporting with her business, home and garden for a year, several years ago.

SPAIN 28th May to 2nd June

See the details here on the PermaMed Website

Declan Kennedy and the Education team at Lebensgarten Steyerberg Ecovillage, will host her in Germany where she visited briefly 19 years ago. Robin will get plenty of Circle Dance practice staying with this wonderful community in Northern Germany.

GERMANY 9th to 14th June

Here’s the link to the course page

In Switzerland Robin will get to experience the Alps a little before beginning her course with Barbara. It will be held at 1866 La Forclaz (VD) and is being offered as a six day training but with an option for four days only. While there she’ll also get to catch up with Wronka who did an internship with Robin for her University studies about 20 years ago.

SWITZERLAND 22nd to 27th June

Contact Barbara on email by clicking here

Kim Chi from Gaiacraft in Canada will join Robin for a month and be her support person.

SWITZERLAND 1st and 2nd July – Women’s Weekend

Contact Barbara also to enquire about the Women’s weekend

The two adventurous women will then make their way to Italy where Franci will host them for both the ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course followed closely by a Women’s Weekend. Both will be held at Artaban Community in Northern Italy.

ITALY 8th to 13th July – Dynamic Groups 

ITALY 15th and 16th July – Women’s Weekend 

Click here to find out more about either event.

There will then be a rest and exploration time where anything is possible. Most definitely a visit to Damanhur and possibility a Social Permaculture course close to Italy.

Then off to Slovenia hosted by Gina. The venue is yet to be confirmed.

SLOVENIA 28th July to 2nd August

Contact Gina by email if you’d like more info

Robin’s journey will culminate in Greece hosted by Alex where she’ll get to relax and enjoy the country for a couple of days before heading home.

GREECE 5th to 10th August

Email Alex for information

A huge trip. Wish her well 🙂

After a huge tour of UK and Europe Robin will be happy to be home and present her six day ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course at Crystal Waters EcoVillage from 16th to 21st October.

It’s a good time to flag it in your diary and make a deposit before Robin goes overseas in mid May. This will ensure your place.

Here’s the link to the poster.

and the website for more information.

“If you’re interested in professional development and working with groups, this course is awesome. Robin Clayfield is an amazing teacher and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to take this course several years ago.“

Anne Gibson, The Micro Gardener

The group at Gaiacraft, an amazing collective of younger, very experienced and motivated Permaculture educators and creatives have spent many. many hours over the last 18 months documenting, filming, writing, editing and distributing some video interviews and crafted magazine articles that grew out of their participation in several courses in the UK in 2015. Robin’s ‘Dynamic Groups’ course and the Social Permaculture course she facilitated with Starhawk, Robina, Looby and Peter were a big part of this.

They have been focusing on several Women Pioneers of Social Permaculture and supporting them and the work of Social Permaculture to have more presence in the world. There’s been links to the videos featuring Robin in previous posts and e-newsletters. Now the wonderfully written articles are beginning to appear.

Here’s a link to ‘Surfing the New Edge of Permaculture’ which appeared in the International Communities Magazine and featured Robina McCurdy, Rowe Morrow, Looby Macnamara and Robin with a special mention of Starhawk who had a separate article in the same magazine.

Written by Delvin Solkinson, Annaliese Hordern, Dana S Wilson and Kym Chi

Here’s the recently written ‘Pioneers of Permaculture’, an article published in the new Permaculture Magazine North America. 

Written by Delvin Solkinson in collaboration with Kym Chi, Dana S Wilson and Annaliese Hordern. Written to help spread the new edge of Permaculture perspectives from six inspiring Women Pioneering Permaculture : Robina McCurdy, Maddy Harland, Rosemary Morrow, Looby Macnamara, Starhawk and Robin Clayfield. 

‘Getting the Most from a Permaculture Course’ published in the Permaculture Magazine by Maddy Harland and team from UK and written by Delvin Solkinson and Annaliese Hordern, this is also a great article published last year.

‘Permaculture Pathways’ is a short article written by Delvin. He interviewed Permaculture Grandmothers Robin Clayfield and Rowe Morrow for the meta Projections magazine created by Nick Petch and his team, released at Rainbow Serpent and including photography from Scott Corman. It’s a free magazine produced for Rainbow Serpent Festival.

“Gaiacraft are an amazing, talented and an incredibly honouring and delightful group of people. Our world is safe and more alive and caring in their hands, thanks to their presence, creativity and commitment.” Robin Clayfield 

Gaiacraft’s website link and Facebook