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

Participants from Robin’s ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ courses go back into the world, back to their groups and into their workplaces and communities with a huge toolbox of processes to try out, adapt and share with their groups plus the confidence and ability to create whatever they need for any group or learning situation.

Several past participants from the courses attended Robin’s session at the Permaculture Convergence in Tasmania recently and took on Robin’s challenge to jump in the deep end and lead the group of 35 people with a favourite processes they’d gleaned, modified or adapted from the Dynamic Groups course. Tamara Griffiths, Permaculture teacher from Victoria was one of them. She used a card game. Pete the Permie had some fun with puppetry and Dick Copeman from Northey Street City Farm had us cross crawling as an energiser. Here’s what Tamara wrote about the process she used.

“I’ve done three of Robin’s DG courses now. Its probably why I love teaching so much – because its so creative and my brain loves it. I think the students love it too, my classes are pretty fun – even for serious topics like earthworks! The process I showed in Tassie stemmed from my trip to Antarctica last summer. I found an Antarctic food web sheet of stamps at the only post office in Antarctica, in Pt Lockroy. I immediately thought I’m going to use this as a teaching tool for ecology in my PDC. So I blew up the stamps onto A3 and cut out individual animals. Then came the fun part – on the back of each animal I wrote up what it ate and who ate it. Down there krill is the keystone species so I made sure I had variations available on the phytoplankton populations that vary with ocean temperature. I used abut 100m of ribbon (in different colours of 10m each) and asked who has phytoplankton – they then read out the card. I handed them the ribbon. Then I asked who eats the plankton – someone said “yes” and read out their card. As it was a connection I gave them the ribbon and repeated the process until everyone had had a go and the whole group was connected as in an ecosystem. I then said that the ocean was warm that year and there were less diatoms – which is the krill’s favourite food. The person holding the krill dropped the ribbon and then it cascaded through the ecosystem showing how collapse works.”

More than a year has passed since Robin began in earnest writing the first in a series of books documenting over 20 years of training teachers, group leaders and facilitators.

Book I, outlining the methodology and giving examples, activities and some processes to use, is almost half written. It has attracted a dedicated team of proofreaders, assistants and an editor over the months, namely Ange Jackson, Erin Young, Tracy Adams and Eve Witney. Robin’s partner Rob Clark is working on the artwork for the cover and for two card games that will be ready for launching before the book is completed. Prof Stuart Hill is reading the book with a view to writing the forward. It’s still early days, though Robin aims to have it in print in the first half of 2016.

Here’s a sample activity from the ‘Empowerment’ chapter in Book 1 under the section of ‘Working from the Heart’. 

ACTIVITY: Have a conversation with your heart. Begin a journalling exercise starting with the question “Heart, one who really knows what’s best for me, what work brings me the most satisfaction? What brings me joy? What am I most passionate about?” 

State writing down spontaneously any answers that come to you. Do your best not to ‘think’. Don’t stop. Just keep writing even if it’s not all making sense or fluent. Stop only to read the question over again and begin writing once more.

Take time to reflect at the end.As a result of what you’ve written, now consider if there are any things you may feel to add more of into your life or allow to drop away.

Contact Robin if you’d like to register interest in the books or to support with funding the initial print run of Book I. Email – robin@earthcare.com.au

Woodford Folk Festival, held in December for 6 days each year, is the biggest and most acclaimed festival of it’s kind in Australia. For the last two years Robin and her troupe of installation artists, ceremony weavers and musicians have made her design of ‘The Sacred Union Labyrinth’ as a 10 x 10 meter meditative walk that patrons can experience any time during the festival. A magical pathway leads through a bamboo construction heart entranceway and via a series of pennants that give instructions about how to walk the labyrinth. Four times during the festival she and Mark Healy, who was the spark behind Robin designing the labyrinth, with support from Christine Clegg, Rob Clark and Stephane Cazard, lead sacred community ceremonies accompanied by a merry band of four musicians to the delight of everyone involved. The whole installation was embellished with Rob Clark’s amazing sign art and this last year by Glen Christie’s beautiful sculptural art pieces. Facilitating community ceremony is one of Robin’s big passions and it is no doubt hoped, by the thousands who walked the Labyrinth, that it becomes a permanent feature of the festival for years to come. Fingers crossed! There’s now a special FaceBook page for the Labyrinth. Click here to like the page. 

What a surprise! The opening evening saw Robin and 13 others acknowledged and honoured as Elders of the Permaculture Community. It was explained that you had to be over 55, contributed substantially over many years to Permaculture and be present at the Convergence. Robin accepted the plaque with tears in her eyes and a joyous heart. 

Robin was one of four key note presenters at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence in March. She presented directly after David Holmgren on the first day and led the 200 attendees in an interactive greeting, icebreaking, networking and theme building session entitled ‘Social design and the culturing of Permaculture.’ It was obviously enjoyed and appreciated by all with everyone feeding back their theme groups suggestions with enthusiasm and team support. A lot was achieved in the one hour session and the energy of it carried out into the rest of the convergence.

Robin’s workshop the next day ‘Expanding the Edge of Teaching Permaculture Creatively’ drew a full to bursting room. In the midst of the workshop several of the people attending, having previously been to one of Robin’s ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ courses, were invited to jump in to present a snippet of one or two of the processes that they’d gleaned or evolved from doing the course. They were on the spot, facilitating the group and showing how they were using and expanding ‘Dynamic Groups’ tools and processes. Lots of fun, activity and colour kept everyone awake in the after lunch session.

 The closing afternoon saw Robin lead all the completion activities, including the now traditional ‘Jumping’. Many of the attendees stood up on stage, spoke a strong intention they were taking on to action over the next period of time, handed Robin the microphone and jumped off the stage. Some jumped in pairs, teams or regional groups to the applause and joy of the audience. Robin also led a healing ceremony in honour of the co-originator of Permaculture Bill Mollison with everyone feeling love and care in their hearts and sending that out to him via a specially made plaque. The final closing ceremony was a beautiful spiral dance which Robin lead to the wonderful funky music track by Deva Presence entitled ‘Source of Life: Permaculture’. Here’s a link to check out his album ‘in Abundance’.

Robin’s offering just 2 ‘Dynamic Groups’ Courses this year as she’s busy writing a series of books on ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’. 

23rd to 27th August in UK at The Sustainability Centre, Hampshire ENGLAND with Looby Macnamara as a Special Guest. Enquire and Register with Looby at www.designedvisions.co.uk   

Click here to see the poster and details

15th to 20th November in Australia at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village, SE Q’ld. Enquire and Register with Robin via email – robin@earthcare.com.au 

Click here to see the poster and details

ROBIN CLAYFIELD Permaculture Solutions to Climate Change IPC11 Cuba

This Guest Presentation by ROBIN CLAYFIELD at the International Permaculture Conference in Cuba gives an unconventional Talk about Permaculture Solutions to Climate Change – IPC11 Cuba.

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