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

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

The PermacMed organisation in Spain has invited Robin to offer her full 6 day ‘Dynamic Groups’ Creative Teachers and Facilitators course there in late May.

Dates are 28th May to 2nd June.

Robin ran a one day introduction to ‘Dynamic Groups’ in August 2015 and everyone there loved it and wanted her to come back and offer the full program.

This promises to be a rich and action packed experience offering many diverse and dynamic skills, processes and relevant information.

Here’s the link to the PermaMed website page with all the info

A creative teachers and facilitators toolbox obviously gets shrunk to a minimum when flying, catching a bus or train, car pooling or cycling to a venue for work.

Robin regularly flies around Australia or overseas to offer her Dynamic Groups course and can’t take her usual van load of resources, library books and instruments that she supplies for her course when she’s offering them within driving distance of her home.

So what are the essential things she would pack with a 30kg luggage limit which also needs to include clothes and personal items?

• 1 x 24 pack of coloured felt pens (ask participants to bring some too)
• 2 x Red, blue, green. orange, light blue, pink, purple. brown Chisel Point Markers (and ask organiser to supply some as well but they often can’t supply this diversity of colours)
• A calligraphy pen (for writing on certificates)
• A DVD marking pen
• 2 x Pieces of ‘Sticky Carpet’ (1200cm x 1800cm) if you work with this kind of stick on material as a medium for attaching visual material
• 30cm Velcro hooks (for Sticky Carpet)
• Packs and sets of facilitation resources like card games, sticky carpet mind map sets, partner cards, role play instructions etc
• Small variety of ‘Sticky Notes’/’Post It’ Notes (and ask organiser for more)
• 6 x light weight puppets, your favourite ones (ask participants and organiser to bring some too)
• 12 x small hand held, light weight percussion instruments (ask participants to bring some too)
• 1 set of juggling balls (ask participants to bring a set each or ask the organiser to supply 3 x tennis balls per person)
• Several sheets of coloured card board of different colours (ask organisers to supply a diversity of colours and several sheets of each)
• 1 x small pack of Plasticine (ask organiser to supply some clay for modelling and/or Plasticine. Take a recipe for play dough just in case and ask for some flour, food colouring and salt)
• 1 x strip of ‘Blue Tack’ (ask organiser for more)
• Small quantity drawing pins (ask organiser for more)
• 1 pair scissors (ask organiser to supply several)
• 1 lightweight rope or string (ask for a couple more solid ropes from organisers)
• 2 large Bulldog clips (plus ask for at least 4 or 6 more)
• 1 small pack of coloured chalk (ask organisers for some coloured pavement chalk)
• A few sheets of A4 paper (ask for a whole ream from organisers)
• USB’s with Hand-outs notes and key info
• Computer and power lead
• IPod (ask for an IPod player to be provided)
• Hard copy of each Hand-out notes you want done (and ask about photocopying in advance)
• 1 x large table cloth (ask organisers to bring several if possible, sarongs, sheets etc)
• 3 or 4 special relevant books if there is room (Favourites are a ‘Mind Map’ book by Tony Buzzan, ‘Serious Creativity’ by Edward de Bono, ‘Learn Faster Now’ by Jeff Hodges and ‘Grounding Vision- Empowering Culture’ by Robina McCurdy. Even taking this many is an extravagant)

  

• 1 copy of each of my books, cards games and products
• Business cards and promo material
• Posters, charts and display info

Note: In some situations it can be realistic to send a box of resources forward before the course or pay for excess baggage on an airline (not so for some like Singapore Airlines and not really possible if travelling to more then 1 or 2 countries with different weight restrictions for each transport option). Always good to check well in advance and to budget that in.

There’s also a whole list of things to ask the organisers to supply too. Email Robin if you’d like this list.

Now, is there any room left for those clothes, shoes, towel etc??? Hummmm!

Robin will visit England for the third time in May and be back at the Sustainability Centre near Petersfield in Hampshire. She visited there in August 2015 offering her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course with Looby Macnamara as the organiser and special guest facilitator.

A week later she joined Starhawk, Looby, Robina McCurdy and Peter Cow to offer a five day Social Permaculture workshop. It was a fabulous trip and wonderful experience as part of the pre IPC (International Permaculture Convergence) Course schedule.

She also taught an ‘Advanced Permaculture Creative Teachers Facilitation Course’ at Redfields Community with Skye back in 1998 and she’s very happy to return to UK again, this time as part of a seven country ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ tour.

The Sustainability Centre education team are hosting her this time and it promises to be a great course. Many thanks to Suz for her great organising.

The dates are 15th to 2oth May

Click here to see the website page

or click here to see the FaceBook event invite or help by inviting friends to the event.

Robin’s and her upcoming course in Germany, hosted by Declan Kennedy, Heidi Winkler and the Education Team at Lebensgarten Steyerberg Ecovillage has received this honouring quote from Declan.

“We are really fortunate to be able to host Robin Clayfield’s ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ Course for the first time in Germany. She is co-author of ‘Teaching Permaculture Creatively,’ which was hugely influential on the pathway for permaculture teachers in the UK and globally. This course promises to be full to the brim of creativity and empowerment. We look forward to seeing you on the course.”
Declan Kennedy – Lebensgarten Steyerberg Ecovillage, Germany

Course Dates are 9th to 15th June.

Click here to see the course details of the event

or Click here to see their website

by Erin Young

The Brus Ecovillage ‘Village Development Program’ (VDP) guides 120 people through Ecovillage design education for five weekends over 12 months.  As part of the facilitation team currently bringing this potent curriculum to an enthusiastic group of future Ecovillage residents, it has not only felt natural but also very necessary to utilise ‘Dynamic Groups’ processes to support the content to be fully conveyed and received.

Small group work is an effective way to navigate a group of this size to support the intention for robust individual and group engagement.  Grouping processes have been essential, energising, and connective.  The group is invited to mill about each other, sharing smiles and recognition, having them bopping to fun lively music in the background.  They are invited to connect “five right thumbs” to which the group excitingly scurries to create.  They ’are back to milling about as the next instruction comes through.  “Connect three right elbows”.  After a few rounds of getting into the groove, the final configuration is invited: “Connect four left feet”.  Knowing we would need groups of eight, the groups would then fuse with one other group to create their collective for the next exercise.  This process is invaluable when placed amongst sessions of high content transfer (especially after a PowerPoint presentation): the movement and interaction are energising and allow a graceful connectivity amongst future community co-residents.

Sociograms have also been effective for helping everyone explore the make-up of the VDP group.  For a group this size, we’re located with adequate space to move around while exploratory questions are issued to collectively grasp the dynamics of the individuals who make-up the whole.  On a marked-out scale of 1 to 10 (least to most) covering approximately 10m in length, questions are posed and the people map themselves in 3D : “Place yourself according to how much community experience you’ve had”, “How far have you come today?”, “How many people do you know in this group?”.  Everyone can observe the clusters in responses, getting a feel for the ‘lay of the land’ in the human landscape.  Once again, the dynamic of the whole group moving around each other has been vital in group connectivity.

We’ve even taken dynamic processes into the facilitation team’s evaluation of our role in facilitating the weekends.  As the team lives in various locations around the Northern Rivers and South East Queensland, we work with a spreadsheet set-up with Edward de Bono’s ‘6 Hats’ to thoroughly and creatively explore how we’ve performed and what can be tweaked for next time.  Six columns are colourfully headed-up according to each of the 6 Hats.  The rows are labelled in relevance to the aspects of our facilitation role: content, presentation style, equipment and resources, teamwork, and facilities.  Each of the facilitators then fills-in the matrix on their own spreadsheet tab with feedback, providing space for different perspectives and provoking creative ideas.  We all have an opportunity to see what each facilitator has offered, allowing a thorough harvesting of the diverse group’s insights and innovation.  

Working with the VDP group at this scale is a first for me and has very much helped me develop a deeper appreciation for my dynamic process toolkit. Calling on the diversity of simple yet powerful processes that can be scaled up and down according to the group size has helped me be a more fun, engaging and effective facilitator, while bringing-out the same qualities in the group experience.  I can’t think of any other way to do it for everyone to be in fulfilment and enjoyment with the experience.