Awakening the Dreamer Changing the Dream Symposium
Facilitator Training Program
Working Draft – Winter 2010
Summary Flow of Facilitator Training
(Two-Day Format)
Notes: a) This Agenda/Flow design is, of course, subject to the leaders’ sense of what is “called for” in your training—feel free to change this Flow if something else is needed.
b) Time estimates are approximate, and assume focus!
Optional (and recommended, if possible): Start the night before the first full day, after dinner, and complete I.A-I.C and II.A, or whatever else you choose.
FIRST DAY
I. WELCOME AND COMING PRESENT
A. Welcome, overview of day (15 min.)
B. Acknowledge Sacred Space, personal objects on the altar (10 min.)
C. Participants Introduce Each Other to the Group (40-55 minutes)
D. Who’s here, how to be here (10 min.)
E. Complete on Preparation Assignment (10 min.)
BREAK (15-20 min.)
II. THE CONTEXT AND STATE OF BEING OF OUR WORK AS FACILITATORS
A. Background of The Pachamama Alliance and the Symposium (15 min.)
B. The Context for Our Work (20 min.)
C. Pass out Training Notebooks: P & IR for Training (20 min.)
D. Discussion: What Moved You From Your Symposium? (20 min.)
E. Review: P & IR for Symposium (15 min.)
LUNCH (60 min.)
F. Notes To Ourselves In Designing the Symposium (60 min.)
III. THE SYMPOSIUM AND BASIC MANUAL
A. Taking the Flow of the Symposium Into Yourself (40 min)
B. Presentation of, Orientation to, the Basic Manual, 3 sentences (30 min.)
C. Walk-through of the Basic Manual (150 minutes)
BREAK in middle of Walk-through (15-20 min.)
DINNER (potluck, catered, or out)
Option: meeting with local community group members
D. Going Deeper with Social Justice (50 minutes)
E. Relational Presence (30-40 minutes)
SECOND DAY
(Note: There is extra timing space in the Second Day agenda below, to allow for any important material that was not completed the day before, or for adding something that you create, or for just being spacious! For instance, if you chose to do “Two-minute shares of Who I Am,” you may need to add completion time for this on Sunday.)
IV. MAKING IT HAPPEN!
Opening (20 min.)
A. Creating & Holding the Space (20 minutes)
B. Presentation of 5-minute sections of Symposium (60 minutes)
C. Spiritual Fulfillment & Blessed Unrest As Change Agents (25 minutes)
BREAK (some time in morning) (15 minutes)
D. Next Steps & Resources to Support You (40 min.)
E. Completing Your Training (10 min.)
F. Finding Your Group Name (15 min)
LUNCH (60 minutes)
G. Meeting in Regional/Community Groups to Plan Next Steps (45 min.)
H. Conversations about the Symposium (30 min.)
I. Feedback Forms (20 min.)
V. Completion Ceremony (30 min.)
Possible: followed by potluck lunch meeting with local community
FLOW OF THE TRAINING
FIRST DAY, MORNING
Team Meeting:
o Review checklist at end of Flow Document to see that all jobs are covered.
o Have you learned how many people have not yet done a Symposium, and who?
o Get clear on what training completion options will be offered to trainees and how: 1) mentors or “resource team,” 2) formal Symposium run-through day, 3) introduction to local Community Group(s) and opportunity to be on Symposium teams.
o Find out name of local indigenous people, to use in acknowledging sacred space.
Production Team:
o Roster contact info corrected as people check in
o All payments completed in full, or arrangements made
o Purpose of Symposium on flip chart paper
o Community Bulletin Board set up
o Agenda on flip chart
o Someone trained to ring bells in a respectful way, as a timer.
NOTE TO LEADERS: Any words written below are intended to “hold a place” or to remind you of general content of the message to be communicated—as long as you get the essential message across, please let your own words come to you in a way that is authentic for you. When a message or idea is especially important, it is printed in boldface type.
I. WELCOME AND COMING PRESENT
(15 minutes)
I-A. Welcome and Overview of the Day (______)
o Thrilled to be here, recognizing their commitment (or other positive lead-off)
o Leaders introduce selves
o Introduce Production Team
o Overview of the Day
o Logistics: bathroom, breaks, cell phones off
(10 minutes)
I-B. Acknowledge Sacred Space (______)
o Acknowledge Sacred Space (refer to local indigenous people) to bring people present (see Modules Document for suggestions about opening Sacred Space)
· Major points, covered in whatever way is right for you: 1) let go of anything tugging at your attention, 2) come present, 3) consciously connect with each other and why you are here, 4) give thanks for any spirit or guide that assists us.
o Have everyone come forward at one time, and mindfully place object on altar in silence.
o If you have time, invite each person to say their name, where from, what energy they bring, and one sentence (or whatever time you can spare—but set the boundary clearly) about the object they are putting on altar. This can be a great “coming present” exercise.
(15 minutes plus 2-1/2 min. per pair—for 30 people, about 55 minutes)
I-C. Participants Introduce Each Other to the Group (______)
SET UP PROCESS:
o Ask each person to pair up with someone they don’t know, five minutes to interview the other person (10 minutes total), bells will ring at “switch” time. Be creative in questions, including “What drew you to be here today?” Take notes, or not. Try to get at the essence of the person.
o Find something you have in common, tell us about it when you introduce that person.
o Then come up in pairs, one minute to introduce the other person. Try to give us the essence.
o Suggestion re bell timing: 1) one soft ring when 10 seconds to go, 2) one ring at one minute, 3) one ring every 10 seconds afterwards (so it is their choice if they go over, but it is publicly acknowledged—this keeps the boundary in a consistent way).
o When begin introductions: explain context for keeping time, how bell will work. Purpose of time boundaries:
§ to make weekend work for everyone, in the limited time we have
§ learn how to stay within time boundaries
§ sometimes more magic comes out in a limited time!
GROUP SHARE:
What was that like for you?
(10 minutes)
I-D. Who’s Here & How To Be Here (______)
o Acknowledge breadth & depth of experience & wisdom here
o Today, not about being leader or being seen—that won’t work for everyone, in the time we’ve got
o Request & recommend: be a sponge, empty vessel, to get the most out of today. May be hard for some!
o Guidelines:
o Self-manage time, return from breaks on time (we’ll ask for volunteers to ring bell and get us back in seats); focus your shares.
o And focused listening is powerful, too
o “Step-forward, step-back” suggestion (if you find that you are sharing or talking more than others, “step back;” if you find you’re sharing or talking less than others, “step forward.”)
o Request permission to give them the “please focus” sign (hands pointed down, tips of fingers touching)—and production team may give it to us occasionally!
o Ways to acknowledge others rather than clapping: American sign language for clapping, Namaste with hands, hand on heart and bow of head
o Don’t have to stay seated—free to get up and move, stretch—take care of yourself & your body!
o If you feel the need for movement in the group, check inside to see if it is the right time to suggest, and, if it is, suggest it!
o Who loves movement? Are there some volunteers who would be ready to lead us in 2-3 minutes of group movement when we need it? (Write down to use in future, or meet with them at break to explain more)
o OPTIONAL: Invite the Movement Team to prepare 10-15 minutes of movement that will start the day on the second day. (Suggestion: coach them to come up with exercises that generate energy and have the group connect as a single unit—for instance, less free-form individual dance movement, and more relating/connecting/laughing together)
(10 minutes)
I-E. Completion of the Space of the Preparation Assignment (_____)
o Purpose of the Preparation Assignment: to begin (or continue & go deeper with) the process of educating yourself in areas covered by the Symposium
o Good news: no matter how much of it you did, you all get an “A!” (Note: this is important so that what follows does not sound like it is about “checking up” on them.)
o So now that’s established, we can acknowledge where we are and go forward:
§ How many feel they did all or nearly all of it? Great!
§ How many feel they did most of it? Wonderful!
§ How many did a good chunk, but less than half? Great!
§ How many did just a little or don’t know what we’re talking about? OK, good!
o It continues to be relevant—you can continue to read these articles, and others—make the continuing process of educating yourself a natural part of being a Facilitator.
DISCUSSION: Any part of Preparation Assignment you really enjoyed, want to tell others about? Especially any of the articles you’d like to recommend? What did you learn?
(15-20 minutes)
BREAK—(OPTION: get agreement to come back on time, self-manage—turn bell over to one of participants and give them job of supporting everyone in being back on time)
II. THE CONTEXT AND STATE OF BEING OF OUR WORK AS FACILITATORS
(15 minutes)
II-A. Background of The Pachamama Alliance & The Symposium (______)
TRANSITION: In designing this Training, we realized there are three different aspects to this role of being a Facilitator, someone who helps bring forth a New Dream with this tool called The Symposium: those aspects are Knowing, Being, and Doing.
o Knowing is the information or content needed—what you know with your head or intellect.
o Being is who you are, the spirit and awareness that you come from when you fulfill that role.
o Doing is the ability to bring it all together and make it all work together, to make it happen.
In our culture, we often think that “knowing” comes first, we assume that’s what it is really about. But actually “being” is more important, and comes first—because it changes the way you relate to everything, it actually changes the effect of what you say. So we’ll spend the rest of this morning and part of the afternoon primarily on “being,” move into a focus on “knowing” this afternoon, and focus on “doing” on Sunday.
TELL STORY:
o The Call from the Achuar (more notes are in the Modules Document)—“change the dream of the Modern World.” (See Modules Document) End with something like this: And it wasn’t just a call from the Achuar, but from the rainforest, and ultimately from Life itself. And it wasn’t a call to Bill and Lynne Twist, but to everyone who can hear it—in fact, it is possible that your being here today is your response to that Call.
o Two-part Mission Statement of TPA: 1) to protect the world’s tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians, and 2) to contribute to a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all.
o The Symposium was composed from hundreds of people giving input, not a creation of one person: truly a product of group mind or collective wisdom.
o Important goal of today: that you get some sense of that collective wisdom and truly begin to find it or take it within yourself in your relationship with the Symposium, so that any changes you make to the Symposium in the future are not guided by a personal agenda but rather by a further expression of that collective wisdom that created it in the first place. You are free to make changes after you’ve tried it the way it is written 2-3 times—we only ask that you do the best you can to make sure all changes are guided by that spirit of collective wisdom, and that you tell us what works!
o First Symposium in April 2005, has gone through several major changes based on thousands of inputs: from seven hours delivered by presenters with some video (S-1), to a flexible-length approach (C-1), to a version with most of the content delivered by powerful video modules and the facilitator free to focus on processes & exercises (V-1), to the next version that will be truly world-wide instead of Americo-centric (V-2).
o In five years, about 2400 trained Facilitators in U.S., Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, U.K., Ireland, Belgium, France, Spain, Russia, South Africa, Ghana, Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, India, Australia, New Zealand,—and growing. Delivered to at least 100,000 people, probably many more.
(20 minutes)
II-B. The Context of Our Work (______)
NOTE: Please consult the training video “The Context of Our Work.” You are free to show this video in the training, or to use it as a source for your own presentation on the context of our work. Have them consider the following: