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

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 from any of these Q&A explorations will end up finding their way into the book series that Robin’s writing and this topic is central to mini book I – Dynamic Teaching and Facilitation – The Foundations because Shared Agreements really is foundational to any group and a necessary subject for all group facilitators to have a handle on.

Find Robin on Patreon here

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 to their additional goals, eventually also affording art and design work, professional editing as well as some contribution towards production costs for the hard copies and e-book creation.

One big gift out of this was a one off donation of $500 that will be put directly to editing of the first mini book, Dynamic Teaching and Facilitation – The Foundations. Yeah! Thank you everyone.

Here’s the link to the Patreon page if you’d like to have a look, view the rewards and/or choose to become a Patron.

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 public to walk.

Robin’s European tour of her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ courses last year also included, by invitation, two ‘Wise Women’s Weekends’, one in Switzerland and one in Italy. Being a lover and creator of labyrinths and wanting to include ceremony and sacred circle spaces into the Women’s Weekends, Robin naturally thought of making a labyrinth. The Sacred Union Labyrinth is quite a complex design to mark out and make so she settled on creating a simple spiral design with an opening into a sacred centre space where there could be symbols of the elements and directions and women could place objects from nature that could represent their intentions for the weekend or for change in their lives.

With the help of Kym Chi from Canada who supported Robin with both the Women’s Weekend’s and the Dynamic Groups course in Italy, the pair created a delightful and very special spiral labyrinth at each venue.

After the women’s event in Italy they went together to Damanhur for a five day visit and were very pleasantly surprised to find spiral labyrinths are a predominant feature used for healing, relaxing and conducting ceremony at the centre which is becoming world famous for it’s incredible art, sculpture, mosaics and stained glass ceilings and doors. They have pioneered selfic technology as well as the ‘music of the plants’ and their temples as like nothing else on earth. 

Here’s a link to the Damanhur Website

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 and harvested saffron plus wild harvested and home pressed lavender oil from her home region that she’d grown, made and/or picked and processed. 

Robin was joined for the Women’s Weekend and for the following 3 weeks of her tour by Kym Chi from Gaiacraft in Canada. Kym Chi’s support enabled the pair to create a beautiful spiral labyrinth and sacred circle for the women to enjoy together and also assisted Robin to be more relaxed and organised.

Highlights from the events were a giant puppet show put on by some of the participants as part of their presentations, a visit locally to an ancient standing stone and living in amongst snow capped alps and a glacier in the distance. 

Another highlight from the region was visiting the small city of Vevey on the same lake that graces Geneva. A wise decision by the city authorities sees food gardens lining the public walking and meeting spaces along the lakes edge. All food is encouraged to be harvested and eaten and is a delight to be seen and also eaten, with sunflowers blooming everywhere, beans growing up bamboo trellises and masses of kale and greens to encourage health and longevity.

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

Here is an opportunity & invitation to support a pioneering and greatly creative woman in the broadcasting of tools helping humans to be creative and highly functional together!

Robin Clayfield has been pushing the limits of creative facilitation and social permaculture for decades. She’s taking it to the next level by documenting the powerful and effective processes she has developed and collected into a book series; providing an empowering reference resource for facilitators and trainers the world round.