Episode 2 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we get our nerd on with an overview of facilitation, and why it's important.

'There is no such thing as no design, just bad design. The same is true with facilitation' - Sami

Show notes, links

Other facilitation collectives:

Seeds for Change

Navigate

Tripod

Rhizome

Organising for Change

London Roots

Some facilitation resources:

Facilitation tools hand out

Online facilitation tips (R+R mutual aid session video)

Doing virtual trainings: top tips; a sample online meeting agenda

For the nerds who really want detail: a 50 page online facilitation guide; a 40 page general facilitation guide.

Transcript

Kat: This is Resist + Renew. A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Sami: So welcome everybody to the toolbox. This is a podcast where we geek out about different tools in our facilitator toolbox, where they are, when they're useful, and their limitations. But today, for this first one, we are going to do something a little bit different. This chat may be slightly longer than the normal toolbox episodes, because we're not just going to talk about one specific tool, but we're going to talk about facilitation in general. Because this is a podcast about facilitation tools, so probably/ makes sense to start with what is facilitation? So who's going to start? Facilitation? What is it?

Ali: I can start us off. So I guess the first point is facilitation, mostly just about making it easy for a group to do whatever it's set out to do. Facilitation, if you like, etymology comes from the French word “facile”, which is like to make easy. So it's basically just like, a group has an idea of like, what it wants to do. And we're facilitators, like, sets out about making that possible. That's step number one.

What else is it?

Kat: I guess it's also about making space for participation, and thinking about what are the kinds of things we can do that ensure everybody who is in the meeting or in the workshop or in the group can participate as much as they want to. And so in order to do that, we want to think about a few different things. So taking some time at the beginning and throughout the meeting, to build trust, to make people feel safe enough that they can share what they need to share. And so this could include things like doing a go round, where we find out a little bit about each other. So we might share our name, our pronoun, maybe where we've travelled from, maybe how we're feeling that day, maybe something that's happened in our week. I've also been in meetings where people have been asked to share things about like the history of their name. So you get a bit more information about people than just an initial just name check. And can also be really useful to give clear instructions, and so that everybody in the session or in the meeting knows what's being asked of them. And when you have that clarity, it's a lot easier to contribute. And then also asking open ended questions. So a closed ended question would be something that has maybe a yes or no, or a very specific short answer, but an open ended question let’s people just share whatever it is that they want to share in response to that question. And that can be a really good way of getting people talking, especially people that might not talk very much at other times. What else is facilitation good for?

Sami: So I think, as a way of doing things, and what a facilitator will often try and do is make sure that meetings, workshops, etc, are engaging, and by mixing up different activities, and different ways of engaging with different parts of the meeting, or workshop or whatever. So that could be making sure there's different mediums media, like text based stuff, and like visual stuff, pictures, drawings, etc. And maybe like videos and things where the audio stuff may be more sensory based things like touch, smell, etc. Harder to coordinate in this digital world, but possible. And then there's also the kind of like the practical bare bones, stuff of like, facilitation often involves, like having some kind of plan for what the meeting is going to be, which may take the form of like an agenda, and may involve like trying to keep to time and trying to do those things to make sure that I guess, 1. to be clear on what the purpose of the agenda, what the purpose of the thing is that you're doing and then 2. making sure that you can hold everybody accountable to achieving that purpose.

What else?

Ali: So I guess within our facilitation and a lot of the other facilitation collectives that we're aware of, like, and friends with, it's, it's also about keeping an awareness of power dynamics because as we spoke to a second ago, a lot of facilitation is about participation and allowing space for different people to participate. And because we have like a radical perspective on society and structural oppression that is throughout society, whether that's around racism, around gender around disability, or class or other forms of oppression that kind of make up the society we live in, like those dynamics inevitably show up in the groups that we organise in, even if they are groups that are against those, those structures. So I guess part of what a facilitators role is, is to keep an eye on those dynamics, and to name them when they arise and find ways to move through them that don't just allow them to be and allow them to, like, make the space an oppressive space. This is a really big one. And it's like something that just takes time and takes like experience to like, think about and practice and learn from, but I think it's like one that I personally, like want to constantly reflect on and constantly try and hone my, my approach to it.

Ali: So yeah, what would be some some good tips for someone getting started if this is the first time they're hearing about facilitation?

Sami: Yeah, so I guess, maybe, I think it's worth being super clear. Because we've kind of talked around like what is involved in facilitation, so maybe to be concrete, like facilitation is a practice of like, kind of, like, maybe, maybe a better way of explaining it, ignore that, is around like kind of clarifying facilitation by what it isn't to, like facilitation is a way of like, kind of running meetings and workshops, etc. And some things which aren't like facilitation, is like ways of like chairing a meeting is a different way of running a meeting, which is around more like having a person who is kind of the centre of the meeting, maybe conversations will go through that person, if there are questions, maybe that role will answer them, etc. Versus facilitation where it tries to be a lot more decentralised. As an example. But it's all around those kind of, it's a role that is tasked with trying to achieve some kind of meeting or workshop purpose.

Sami: And some things you can do try and do that often involves planning ahead in some way, and so that you can make sure, if you're going into something, you need to know what the purpose is, and you want to make sure you've got a plan for how you're going to stick to it. Try. Generally, these things are best not to just try and wing it. On the day, though, in practice, actually, I think, which is also useful as making sure you can stay reactive to the needs in the group and wherever they are. And if you want to get started doing like being a facilitator and facilitating some stuff away, that can be quite good, as facilitation works quite well as a thing you do with other people. And so and buddying up with somebody who's more experienced, and then like they can support you through doing that role. And you can divide up those kind of different tasks of being a facilitator, for example, and taking notes and keeping time and a thing which within facilitation, people often collect “vibe watching”, just like keeping an eye on the kind of tone over the room, and how it seems that people are feeling or people engaged people, not people, angry, people, sad, are people stressed what's going on?

Sami: And I guess, things like listening to these podcasts, and getting training from other facilitation collectives of which Resist Renew is one. And those are some other ways about how you could get started in the world of facilitation.

Sami: Well, should we maybe talk about what is it that drew us to facilitation, then? Who wants to start?

Kat: I can have a go. And so when I was a student, I was part of an activist group. And we would have weekly meetings sometimes more than once a week, and didn't really facilitate those meetings. And it was a bit of a mess. And, and we got some training from Seeds for Change who still around doing amazing facilitation trainings. And they were teaching us about how to hold a space and, and how to run a process basically, within the meetings that we were having. And something I really took from that was getting really clear about what it was we're wanting to do in those meetings. And I remember us coming up with two different kinds of purposes. So we had one that was much more about feelings and how we were doing and often needing to just rant and get a lot of stuff off our chest, and building relationships with each other. And the other was much more of a kind of organising type task sort of meeting where we had action points that we needed to check in on and support each other with and through learning these skills around facilitation, we were able to develop into a really effective and really effective group, able to do a lot of different things together.