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Groupwork Centre Blog

How to remain self-aware and centred when triggered

Posted by Steve Ray on July 18, 2024 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Self awareness, Working well with others,

Steve Ray charts a roadmap to staying wise One of the biggest questions that people ask in our facilitation training, is “How do I know if I’m acting from that wise owl place, or if a bear is at play? I want to be wise, but sometimes I’m not sure if it’s me or the […]

The man who placed process at the heart of groupwork

Posted by Jim Buckell & Virginia Gough on July 18, 2024 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Self awareness, Thresholds of the soul, Working well with others,

Arnold Mindell Psychologist, therapist, group worker, author 1 January 1940 – 10 June 2024 A tribute by Jim Buckell and Gini Gough Facilitators the world over have drawn on the groundbreaking work of a giant in the field of psychology, Arny Mindell, who died at the age of 84 last month. Many of our Groupwork […]

When a facilitator became a senator

Posted by Janet Rice on June 16, 2024 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Management Gems, Self awareness, Working well with others,

Groupwork graduate, facilitator and community activist Janet Rice recently retired from the federal parliament. We asked her to reflect on how she was able to put her facilitation skills to use in the Senate. It’s now almost two months since I finished life as a senator, after 10 years in the job. When I was […]

What’s teen sex got to do with it?

Posted by Jim Buckell on June 16, 2024 in Facilitation, Facilitation resources, Management Gems, Working well with others,

Collaboration, says the meme, is a bit like teenage sex: “Everyone is talking about it. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it. Those who are doing it, aren’t doing it very well. Despite that, everyone says how good it feels.” Spot on! It’s funny (and, let’s be honest, salacious) to think about collaboration in this […]

Should I say something?

Posted by Tanya Edlington on May 16, 2024 in Facilitation, Self awareness, Working well with others,

As facilitators, we spend a lot of time with groups. Still, no matter how well we read the room, it can still be easy to overlook the challenges and feelings that can arise for a participant in any group. Spending time as a participant – with someone else facilitating – helps us better understand the […]

Look! It’s a blind spot

Posted by Jim Buckell on May 6, 2024 in Facilitation,

I found a blind spot and had a good look around I was feeling uncomfortable. My gut was telling me something was wrong, but I couldn’t see or hear what it was. I could only feel the presence of an obstruction, a blockage that needed my attention. My training led me instinctively to the Wise […]

Israel and Palestine… Superman’s not coming

Posted by Steve Ray on April 10, 2024 in Facilitation,

We have a way, we humans, of breaking things into parts, as a way to understand what’s happening. Take the human body. It’s one amazing structure that has many parts which all function together. While we can get a sense of the special function of that thing when we isolate it – an organ, or […]

Normalising: How do we handle sensitivities around this microskill?

Posted by Jim Buckell on April 10, 2024 in Facilitation,

Who wants to be normal? It was a question I often asked myself in my youth. Normal to me meant straight, mainstream, suburbia. As a queer kid growing up without any role models, I didn’t know too much. But I knew this was not my thing. “Normality” often equalled repression or worse, oppression. The imposition […]

The course that changes lives

Posted by Jim Buckell on March 3, 2024 in Facilitation,

As we prepare for our next intake in the advanced program of group facilitation, we’ve been thinking about what this six-month course offers and why so many of our graduates refer to it as “life-changing”. That’s a big call, we know. It’s best summed up by a participant in our first intake in 2001, Victorian […]

Facilitating in the social media scrum

Posted by Steve Ray on March 3, 2024 in Facilitation,

Doom scrolling the other day I noticed not for the first time, the high-voltage passion with which people engage in content that has some kind of social change conscience to it. There are strong opinions, judgments and deep concern about a range of issues, the most recent being the human tragedy of Palestine. Unfortunately the […]

Making Magic

Posted by Nancy Nuñez on February 2, 2024 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Thresholds of the soul, Working well with others,

What does good collaboration look like? Nancy Nuñez reflects on a maternal health project in Melbourne’s west that could be a model for others There’s nothing quite like being part of a group that’s humming along and making tangible progress towards its goals. This is the magic that we facilitators know can happen when we […]

Singing the praises of Pub Choir

Posted by Andrea Jones on February 2, 2024 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Self awareness, Working well with others,

Andrea Jones finds ‘groupness’ with a songsheet in one hand and a chardonnay in the other Over many years I’ve sung in choirs in my local area and I’ve always found community, connection and fun. I recently stepped into another singing space – Pub Choir , a phenomenally successful event that began in Brisbane […]

Our year of transition

Posted by Virginia Gough & Jim Buckell on December 14, 2023 in Facilitation,

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” — Albert Einstein This year we reinvented ourselves at Groupwork Centre, embracing social change at our very heart. It was a year for dreaming and reimagining our future. We were alive to the fact […]

Our Advanced Program for 2024 is bigger and better

Posted by Henry Fowkes on November 28, 2023 in Facilitation, Facilitation resources, Working well with others,

We’ve launched our Advanced Facilitation course for 2024 with updates designed to deepen the learning experience. The course has evolved significantly in the past few years, adapting to online delivery during the pandemic and now returning to a blended format. This course still rests strongly on its foundations, guiding participants to develop the competence, confidence […]

Virtual heat – Facilitating tricky social media conversations

Posted by Tanya Edlington & Virginia Gough on November 28, 2023 in Facilitation, Self awareness, Working well with others,

Many of our group interactions and encounters happen within social media platforms these days. Depending on the forum, there is often a set of rules that members sign up to when they join the group and there are “admins” or “moderators” who have the job of addressing problems and complaints raised by members. We’ve noticed […]

Our response to the Voice referendum result

Posted by Jim Buckell & Steve Ray on October 20, 2023 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Self awareness, Working well with others,

Jim Buckell and Steve Ray We need to find a way out of the impasse we are in. Pausing to reflect on what happened and how this came to be is the first step. The resounding No to the referendum has deeply disappointed a lot of people. Others are feeling relieved. Regardless of how we […]

How I was frozen out of a group process

Posted by Hala Abdelnour on October 20, 2023 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Management Gems, Self awareness, Thresholds of the soul, Working well with others,

What’s going on when our basic needs in a group are overlooked? Hala Abdelnour runs a temperature check over a recent chilling experience. It was the first morning of the first day of a five-day residential program. We participants were sitting in the usual horseshoe formation budding with the excitement, angst and nerves that sprout […]

Why we all need principles

Posted by Steve Ray on September 19, 2023 in Facilitation,

Definition: A principle is a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of beliefs or behaviour or a chain of reasoning We all have principles. Principles lie deep within us ready to be leant upon, to guide us and to help us find our way forward when we are being […]

Embracing discomfort on our facilitator’s journey

Posted by Henry Fowkes on September 19, 2023 in Emotional resilience, Facilitation, Management Gems, Self awareness, Working well with others,

At the midway point of our revamped advanced facilitation program, Henry Fowkes reflects on the learnings – for participants and educators We’ve just completed the third module in our Advanced Facilitation Course, and what a journey it’s been. The setting for this immersive experience was the earthy CERES in Melbourne, a backdrop that perfectly complemented […]

Graduate network takes shape

Posted by Tanya Edlington on July 27, 2023 in Facilitation, Facilitation resources, Working well with others,

As we reconfigure ourselves at Groupwork Centre to meet the needs of clients and members in the post-lockdown world, one of our big ideas – an alumni network – is starting to take shape. The concept came from a graduate of the advanced program, Tanya Edlington, and it was so well presented, we decided to […]

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