Essential Faciliation Core Skills Workshop

Louise O'Meara, Regional Director for IISC Ireland brings us information on their public workshop "Essential Facilitation ® Core Skills for Agreement-Building". This three day programme will take place on November 27, 28 & 29, 2007 in Dublin. The Workshop focuses on the essential strategies and skills for helping groups solve problems, resolve conflict and build agreement - and provides participants with a solid foundation of facilitation theory and practice for immediate use.

Louise writes...

Chances are, the more responsible you are for organisational or community outcomes, the more meetings you will need to facilitate and the more agreements you will need to build. Facilitation is critical to success whenever a decision involves several people. Essential Facilitation® provides a solid framework and proven techniques for resolving conflict, creating buy-in, and building lasting agreements – skills as valuable in every day life as they are in organisational settings.

Benefits for Participants

In this three-day intensive facilitation workshop, participants will learn the essential strategies and skills for helping groups solve problems, resolve conflict and build agreement. Led by expert practitioners, the workshop will provide participants with a solid foundation of facilitation theory and practice for immediate use. After completing this workshop, they will be able to:

• Keep discussions on track

• Design results-focused agendas, group processes and implementation plans

• Design and conduct planning sessions and team meetings

• Use collaborative problem solving tools to make decisions more easily

• Respect and make best use of diverse points of view and communication styles

• Share ideas, responsibility, and success in a way that values everyone’s contribution

• Use win-win thinking to resolve conflicts

• Model behaviours that help others improve group interaction.

Over three days, participants will have numerous opportunities to practice what they’ve learned including facilitating a number of discussions in ‘practice meetings’ using tools presented. In activities and exercises they will be encouraged to focus on real-life issues facing their organisations for immediate application. With an average participant-to-trainer ratio of 10:1 participants will receive considerable attention with both group and individual feedback and coaching. This approach produces immediate gains in skills and awareness. We will tailor the workshop to the levels of experience of participants, creating the opportunity for both novice and more advanced facilitators to improve their skills.

Benefits for Communities / Organisations

Effective facilitators unlock the power of the individual and show groups how to reach their desired goals. When development officers and leaders model skillful facilitation, they put their commitment to participation and collaboration into practice. As facilitation skills improve throughout an organisation or community, everyone involved becomes more creative and productive, and is better able to seize opportunities for significant improvements in how work is done in order to achieve more effective and sustainable results.

Workshop Topic

• The Interaction Method™
• Meeting Planning and Agenda Design
• Listening as an Ally
• Resolving Conflict
• Tools for Building Understanding and Agreement
• Mastering the Strategic Moment
• Facilitative Behaviors
• Collaborative Problem Solving

Who Should Attend

Anyone who leads groups, teams or meetings needs to be able to act as a facilitator. Participants may include:

• Directors, CEOs and managers of organisations
• Formal leaders who are responsible for the performance of others
• Team leaders and supervisors
• Development officers & project leaders
• Neighbourhood and community workers & leaders
• Informal leaders such as development consultants

DATES: 27 - 29 November 2007, 9:30am – 5:00pm

LOCATION: Youth Work Ireland (formerly National Youth Federation), Dublin

COST: €595/Stg£395, includes all materials and lunch

For more information or to register please contact:

IISC Ireland, PO Box 969, Belfast BT5 9AN

EMAIL: lo’meara@interactioninstitute.org

WEBSITE: www.interactioninstitute.org

Please mention Wilderness Foundation UK when replying. Thank you.

Wilderness Training

Our wilderness trails division, the Wilderness Leadership School, is looking to offer another run of its highly popular Wilderness Training Course in January 2008. This unique 21 day programme offers participants the chance to study the following modules and disciplines:

• Animal Identification and Behavioural Interpretation
• Bush Lore and Tracking Skills
• Environmental Literacy
• The Nature of Wilderness
• Personal Growth Development
• Minimal Impact Camping Skills and Techniques
• Trail Mechanics
• Interpretation of Landscapes and Earth Sciences
• Individual Leadership Development
• Group Dynamics and Assessment
• Environmental Responsibility and Accountability
• Emergency First Aid and HIV Awareness

The whole course is delivered with an underlying emphasis on Wilderness Ethics which is the core of the Wilderness Leadership School philosophy.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to explore the interdependence of all things, especially between the human and non-human elements of the Earth and undertake a personal journey of discovery.

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to The course will be run subject to sufficient numbers of participants. die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau

To register your interest in a place and learn more about the programme, please contact the UK Office by emailing info@wildernessfoundation.org.uk or calling us on 01245 443073.

Masters Degrees at the University of Edinburgh

Dr Robbie Nicol, Programme Director for Outdoor Education and Outdoor Environmental and Sustainability Education at the University of Edinburgh has sent us news of two new courses on offer:

In addition to our long-standing Outdoor Education programme we are now accepting applications for two new Master’s Degrees:

Personal and Social Outdoor Education

Outdoor Environmental and Sustainability Education

There are exit points at Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma and MSc levels.

As a number of the courses are taught in five-day blocks, these new programmes may be particularly attractive to those who want to keep working (and who perhaps live some distance from Edinburgh) while they study part-time.

For further details keep an eye on our website where we will be updating information on these new programmes soon: www.education.ed.ac.uk/outdoored

Please remember to mention Wilderness Foundation UK when contacting the University. Thank you and good luck!

Environmental literacy

Across the pond, in the US, Utne has an interesting feature on "Leaving No Child, or Adult, Inside" - about the importance of getting not just children but also adults outdoors:

"Though children's education may help environmental literacy in the future, current trends indicate that adult education programs are desperately needed, too. A 2005 report by the National Environmental Education & Training Foundation (NEETF) (PDF) found that, "45 million Americans think the ocean is a source of fresh water." Many Americans realize that environmental issues are important, but the NEETF found that only 12 percent could "pass a basic quiz on awareness of energy topics." So while educating children on environmental issues is important, neglecting adults might minimize the initiatvies' effects. According to the NEETF, "Effective environmental education is not a panacea for all of society's problems, but it is a responsibility that we owe both ourselves and future generations." - Full article and useful links.

We agree - that's why we bring young people and adults alike out into nature - and specifically the most potent form of it: Wilderness.

If you're a teacher or run a cadet group, learn more about our trails - or maybe you're an individual adult looking for Wilderness Training - In either case, head to http://www.wildernessfoundation.org.uk/ to learn more about our work.

Ride Earth in Geneva - and how to watch their podcast

Now six weeks into their 41.000+ mile journey, Ride Earth have hit Geneva. Do read the full account of progress so far.

If you haven't already checked out Episode 1 of their podcast then now's the time to do it. It can be watched 'in-page' here: http://www.ride-earth.org.uk/podcast/ but we recommend subscribing via iTunes or the excellent and somewhat lighter Miro player. That way you'll get the latest automatically and you'll be able to watch it in full screen.

If you already have iTunes, click here to subscribe or simply launch iTunes and select Subscribe to Podcast from the Advanced menu and copy-paste this into the box that appears: http://podcast.ride-earth.org.uk/podcast.xml - That's it. Every time you launch iTunes it'll check for updates.

If you use Miro - Just highlight the URL above, switch to Miro and then use the shortcut Ctrl+N to add a new channel and the dialogue box should have the URL ready to go. Click OK and it'll pick up the most recent podcast. Ctrl+F for full screen during playback.

Whilst we're on the subject of moving images with sound... Here are a couple of recommended green channels:

Life on Terra "is a collaborative filmspace and laboratory exploring the questions and ideas on the cutting-edge of science and at the farthest horizons of the natural world. TERRA films have been downloaded over one million times." - TERRA on iTunes • TERRA on Miro

Films4Conservation "is a collaborative non-profit initiative bringing together activists from social and environmental groups, and helping them get their message heard at a national and international level." - Blog • Films4Conservation on Miro

Wilderness Foundation TV - That's right, you can get our occasional videos directly into Miro. Add channel to the player by clicking here.

Find more Open TV channels for the Miro Player @ https://channelguide.participatoryculture.org/

Earth Story

BBC Television has announced that it will be broadcasting a new series later in the year, charting the full story of our planet.

Earth: The Biography will air on BBC Two. Programme host Dr Iain Stewart, will be visiting some of the planet's most remote areas in a bid to explain some of the events that have shaped the development of the Earth.

The focus of the series will be the delicate balance of life on Earth and how our planet's history has

cycled from disaster to recovery.

Executive Producer Phil Dalling says:

"This is the story of the Earth and how, even if humankind may not last forever, our planet is a born survivor".

We will post further details of the series as they become available.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk
Published: 24/04/07

Walk the Talk...

The Wilderness Foundation supports the work of the Centre for Human Ecology - we thought this new initiative might be of interest:

"CHE and Openground take the sustainability message into the wilds - A new training course gets people out of the seminar room and into the mountains to explore sustainability and social justice. 'Walk the Talk' is a journey into Scotland's wild places where participants will be inspired by the natural world and will develop practical strategies for organisational change. Designed to support organisational learning in businesses, public agencies and more-than-profit organisations, Walk the Talk is a collaboration between Sam Harrison of Openground and Osbert Lancaster of the Centre for Human Ecology. Sam is a human ecologist and outdoor educator experienced in the transformative power of wild places. Sam explains "The power of Walk the Talk is way beyond a simple outdoor team building exercise. We leave behind dry facts and prophesies of doom that are so often the staple of the training room. Actively experiencing the natural environment inspires new thinking about our relationship with the ecosystems on which we - and our organisations - all depend." Osbert is the executive director of the Centre for Human Ecology. "If sustainability is already part of your organisation's strategy, Walk the Talk will take you to the next level," explains Osbert, "and if you're just starting to explore the issues it will start you on your journey with a clear view of the landscape and the tools to starting mapping the route ahead."Walk the Talk is currently in development, with pilot courses planned from April 2007."
- Further information is available on the CHE website here.

The Wilderness Foundation knows from direct experience how powerful learning in a wild setting can be - the Wilderness Leadership School in South Africa has over the years run a host of Opinion Leader Trails, including a programme for tailor made for South African MPs.
- Read Andrew Muir's '99 article on this in the International Journal of Wilderness.

At One TV - Leader Series

The Wilderness Foundation is one of the founder members of At One - a coalition of youth development organisations - and we thought their new Leader Series, a set of five interviews might inspire. One of those is with Deji Odunlami from TeachFirst:



Why do we like this one specifically? Apart from the fact that we agree with a lot of Deji says, it is especially because TeachFirst has an initiative we think the young people taking part in our trails may be interested in:




We actively encourage the sharing of wilderness experiences through writing, talks, pictures, sound - any which way one can use to get a message across - and this competition for under 18's is an ideal opportunity to get writing! http://www.teachfirst.org.uk/events/youngvoices

To what what other young people have written about wilderness, see this post or click the 'diary' label below.

Watch the rest of the interviews here: http://www.AtOne.org.uk/TV - To learn more about the At One Foundation and its work, read the launch report here.

Wilderness Foundation in The Herald

"A SANParks environmental education programme is raising awareness in an attempt to turn local communities into guardians of indigenous forests and commercial plantations.

A joint programme between Mountain to Ocean, the Wilderness Foundation and SANParks, the Khula Nam programme targets children living in communities near plantations." - Read the full story here.

OU Course on Environmental Decision Making

For the academically oriented, we thought this from the Open University might be of interest:

"Postgraduate Programme in Environmental Decision Making: This programme is designed to meet the challenges of decision making in environmental contexts in your working life, your community and your home. It will enhance your understanding of environmental issues and skills in decision-making processes. The prospectus gives details of the courses in this modular programme of study, which is designed to meet the needs of practitioners and aspiring professionals who wish to study part-time for a diploma or masters degree." - Learn more here.

If you're more of an in-the-wild type of learner then you can of course also attend our Wilderness Training Course at the Wilderness Leadership School in South Africa. The dates for next year can be found below.

Dates for 2007 - Wilderness Training Course

Time to plan for the new year! Here are next dates for the Wilderness Training Course:

• January 10th-31st 2007


• February 7th-28th 2007


• March 10th-31st 2007

Learn more about the course here.

Please contact our office if you'd like to learn more or book a place - info (at) wilderness foundation.org.uk or 08081786931/+441245443073