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

Being part of the five person facilitation team for the Social Permaculture course in the UK was a major highlight of Robin’s whole year. Months of planning and Skype meetings across five countries saw the group find their flow and direction together and create the bones of the program. The Sustainability Centre in Hampshire was the perfect Permaculture venue and many people camped and enjoyed the surrounding woods. Here’s a few definitions of Social Permaculture by some of the facilitators.

Starhawk

• “Preparing people to step into positions of power and leadership
• “Social Permaculture is creating new sets of principles and guidelines for groups”
• The art of social permaculture and facilitating groups is to be aware on as many levels as possible of what is happening under the surface
• The goal of social permaculture is to bring tools and skills to communities impacted by the most destruction or do not have access”

Robin Clayfield

• “Social Permaculture supports people care and healthy group culture and uses our Permaculture principles and applies them to social design and social situations”

Looby Macnamara

• “Social permaculture is about design, principles and ethics
• Relating things specifically to this
• How we can use a design framework that is specifically catered to people based designs”

Robina McCurdy

• “Social Permaculture is the application of Permaculture Principles to the design of

sustainable social systems, for the creation a healthy, well-functioning society where all can thrive”

Click here to see the booklet produced from course materials and photos. Acknowledgements follow.

It’s Title is – Exploring Social Permaculture

Delvin’s Words – “Social Permaculture is a new wave of activism and inspiration pouring forth from permeable edges of the Permaculture Movement. Those surfing the wave of this evolution can cast an eye towards a hopeful future where all beings and things are cared for. It’s up to each of us to make a personal commitment and dedication to play our own part in co-creating the harmonic and healthy future, helping take Social Permaculture beyond the edge and into ‘the everything’.”

Collaborative Design – Dana S Wilson, Delvin Solkinson, Kym Chi, Annaliese Hordern

http://www.gaiacraft.com

Source Code –

Looby Macnamara http://loobymacnamara.com

Robin Clayfield https://snow-albatross-888556.hostingersite.com

Starhawk http://www.starhawk.org

Robina McCurdy http://www.earthcare-education.org

Peter Cow http://www.livingincircles.com

Photos – Dana Wilson http://www.gaiacraft.com

Text – Delvin Solkinson http://www.gaiacraft.com

Thanks to All Course Participants

Created on Location – The Sustainability Centre http://www.Sustainability-Centre.org

Click here to watch the musical slide show made by Dana Wilson, Delvin Solkinson and the Gaiacraft team

Since returning to Australia Robin facilitated a one day workshop on Social Permaculture in Melbourne and will offer a weekend Social Permaculture workshop with Robina McCurdy on 10^th and 11^th September when she’s over from NZ. Stay tuned to Robin’s website and FaceBook wall for details or express interest by emailing Robin. Click here.

Robin attended the Australasian Facilitators Network (AFN) Conference in Ballana, Nth NSW in early November last year. This annual gathering of peers, along with the approaching ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course in mid-November in SE Qld, were used as the launching pad for Robin’s long dreamed of ‘Creative Process Wild Card’ set. Beautiful graphic design by Robin’s partner Rob Clark and thorough editing and brilliant InDesign tuition by Eve Witney made the project possible and supported Robin to achieve a high standard result.

The Cards evolved out of a long used ‘Dynamic Groups’ course activity that’s designed to challenge participants to try out new and creative processes to teach or present on a topic. This evolved from an original process that Skye and Robin began using 25 years ago to great effect. For example, if you are a little tired of teaching your pet topic the same way each time or you notice people seem bored or tired when you offer it, imagine you shuffle the cards and ask, “What processes will I use to teach … (Soils or Healthy Eating or Mud Brick Building or Project Management or …) next weekend?” or “Which processes shall I use to facilitate tomorrow night’s meeting for the two major agenda items?” Pick a card, or two. Maybe you’ll get Puppetry or Large Scale Chalk Drawing or Quiz Shows. Perhaps you’ll draw Music/Dance/Movement or Recipes, Water Play or L.O.V.E. You trust that you’ll rise to the challenge, take a deep breath and after a good planning stint your presentation becomes motivating, engaging and fun for your participants and their ability to take in and remember the information is greatly enhanced. Plus you discover many new ways to present, teach and facilitate.

The set contains 60 cards in total. 50 Creative processes and 10 more conventional ones that Robin feels she can’t live without or that have a creative edge or don’t take much to make them so. They are printed on high quality card, printed locally and come boxed in a 100% recycled cardboard box that is coloured using soy based inks. Click this link if you’d like some

Thanks to the awesome graphic design skills and willingness of Robin’s partner Rob Clark ‘The Manual for Teaching Permaculture Creatively’ now has a brand new colour cover. Very fitting seeing as the iconic 320 page text, written by Skye and Robin in the early 90s and published by their business Earthcare Education in 1995, is turning 21 this year. Yeah! Many hundreds of people have purchased the Manual and it’s enjoyed in over 65 countries.

In recent times it’s become available as a PDF through a DropBox Folder system. It was originally designed as a solid ring binder so it could be a huge ‘Tool Box’ to be added to over and over by its new owners as they witnessed, created or adapted processes that they wanted to remember and find easily. This hard copy is preferable to most people though click this link if you’d like to purchase the PDF version and enjoy!

Robin recently completed a massive five week teaching and facilitation journey in Victoria, timed around an invitation to present at ‘Rainbow Serpent Festival’ and also enabling her to present at ‘Sustainable Living Festival’ and display her relevant books and resources there while helping out in the Edible Garden Area.

‘Rainbow Serpent Festival’ was a fantastic and wildly different event which mostly catered to young people out to dance and party hard. The more recently introduced ‘Lifestyle Village’ area opens the festival to a wider more conscious audience which is where Robin was invited in to be part of. It’s replete with a visionary art gallery, two ephemeral temple spaces, a small and a quite large presentation and workshop venue as well as a Permaculture garden area, Indigenous village, free healing and massage zone and children’s area. Robin presented two workshops on Permaculture design and Social Permaculture and was the only woman and only Australian on a five person panel which explored ‘Future Thinkers – What Comes Next for the World?’ as the culminating presentation of this years Lifestyle Village. In amongst fiery debate and strong masculine presence Robin held her own and brought a balanced, informative and much needed nurturing touch to the panel of international speakers and brought Permaculture and other important streams forward passionately. 

A full house welcomed Robin to present her ‘Social Permaculture’ one day workshop for several Transition Towns groups, organized by Julie French and Transition Banyule. Great feedback was received and Robin enjoyed meeting and working with the group very much.

Robin swapped hats for three days and became a student while being hosted by her dear friend and training assessor Virginia Solomon. She spent much of the time documenting everything she could manage to prove her competency in 11 Diploma of Permaculture units to show RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning).

Next up was a ‘Dynamic Decision Making’ one day workshop and a six day ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course up in the Dandenong’s at Telopea Mt Permaculture hosted and organized by Pete the Permie and Sylvia on their Heritage Fruits farm, nursery and teaching site. Wow! What an amazing example of Permaculture in practice and bringing Permaculture right into the heart of Social Enterprise with a goodly dash of Spirit Care on the side and many tasty farm treats for the satisfaction of all.

A highlight of the ‘Dynamic Groups’ course was having two gentlemen over 70 in the group and a diversity of mature women mixed with more youthful energy. Also, witnessing Pete’s naturally supportive way of applying ‘Natural Succession’ in a Social Permaculture sense through mentoring and active encouragement with many opportunities for his students, supporting the next generation of teachers in his area. Brilliantly done. Visit Telopea Mt Permaculture website by clicking here

Robin’s presentation at SLF (Sustainable Living Festival) was next to Federation Square, on the banks of the Yarra River. It was very well received and attended by founding members of both Common Ground and Moora Moora Communities as well as Murundaka Co-housing members. Titled ‘Seeds For Change – Social Permaculture’ with the subtitle ‘Permaculture, Social Design and the Environment, ‘The Shed’ was the perfect venue and allowed Robin to turn it into a socially designed space, in a circle with rotating rings so most people could see and interact with each other in the creatively facilitated session. Click here for more about session & SLF

 Melbourne Permaculture business wizz and mentor Ed Walter whisked Robin away at the end of the festival to drive her, and all her luggage and left over books and resources, to her next engagement, a guest teaching spot in David Holmgren’s PDC at Rocklyn Ashram near Creswick and Hepburn. Ian Lillington extended the invitation and Robin jumped at the opportunity of presenting on ‘Health and Spiritual Well Being’ in a Permaculture course, this topic being one of the domains in David’s much revered book ‘Permaculture Principles – Pathways Beyond Sustainability’. The peace and tranquillity of the gardens, buildings and the residents made a perfect setting for the course and Robin’s visit was timely, well received and inspiring to many. 

After a few days visiting family in Western Victoria Robin completed her journey with three restful and lovely days catching up with Permaculture friend Wendy Marchment in Geelong where she got to visit a community garden, a recycled shipping container café and spend a little time with Wendy supporting Robin’s work on her new book.

All in all a fantastic, fruitful and richly satisfying adventure.

Robin would like to thank all her hosts, the organisers of her courses, workshops and presentations, those who drive her around and showed many kindnesses, friends old and new, the participants in all her sessions and all who bought her books and resources. THANK YOU 🙂 It is through your support and the shared journey that we all make together that social enterprises like Robin’s are able to grow and evolve and support our beautiful world.

Things are moving slowly with Robin’s writing of the five book series, though the two card games that are part of the project have been successfully launched – the ‘Permaculture Principles Card Game in September last year and the Creative Process Wild Cards in November. All the wild cards fed straight into the chapter that’s being worked on at the moment in Book 1, the ‘Tool Box’ chapter. As well as the 60 Creative Processes in the card set, the chapter will highlight many other processes, some that act as ‘Glue Processes’, serving the function of supporting the group to work well together, meet and greet and make the most of the material and the time spent together. Ice-Breakers, Name Games, Grouping Processes, Revision Processes and Check-In’s are a few examples. 

Also included will be many conventional processes that, even though not creative or participatory, still are valid as ways to present content or teach specific information. Ways to tweak them to be more engaging, fun and memorable will be outlined to support teachers, facilitators and group leaders to have the biggest and best tool box ever.

To register interest in staying in touch for when the first book in the series is launched email Robin by clicking here

Every year Robin facilitates at several gatherings, festivals and conferences around Australia and sometimes overseas. Two gatherings that are closest to her heart and that’s she’s also involved in the behind the scenes support and the ceremony creation and energy holding are ‘The Joining’ held around the spring equinox and ‘Being Woman…’ held close to International Women’s day. 

This year’s Being Woman… gathering had the powerful theme of ‘Freedom to Fly’ and supported approximately 70 women relax, deepen, share, create, empower, dance, release, heal, cry, laugh, hug and generally have a wonderful 2 ½ days away on retreat in the Mary Valley.

Click here for a link to the FaceBook page

and Click here to go to the Website

The Joining is fast approaching this year and promises to be an expansive, deep and nourishing time. The theme is ‘Weaving the Invisible Threads of Community’. Men and Women come together to connect, explore, heal, communicate, challenge themselves, have fun, dive deeply and grow. The next gathering is from 22^nd to 25^th September.

Click here for the link to the Facebook page

and click here to go to the Website