FS54 Falling Back in Love with Appreciative Inquiry with Ann Nkune
Release Date: 04/01/2023
FS 80 From Facilitation to Hosting: Creating Transformative Spaces with Peter Pula
Facilitation Stories
Todays episode explores the evolving relationship between facilitation and hosting, highlighting how both practices can create transformative spaces for individuals and communities. Peter Pula shares insights from years of cultivating community through participatory dialogue and generative journalism. The conversation delves into the distinctions between facilitation often structured and outcome driven and hosting, which embraces emergence, deep listening, and co-creation. They talk about: The difference between facilitation and hosting The use of time triads and deep listenting...
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🎙️ FS79_Julia Slay & Ending Sessions Well
Facilitation Stories
In today's episode, Olivia is joined by Julia Slay, founder of Facilitation 101, to explore an often-overlooked part of facilitation: how we end sessions well. With 15+ years’ experience across social policy, consultancy and learning design, Julia shares her journey into facilitation and what sparked her growing fascination with powerful endings. They talk about: Why endings matter,and common mistakes at the close of sessions — rushed checkouts, lack of closure, and clunky feedback moments. How to design meaningful endings, using buffer time, reflection, grounding and action planning....
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🎙️ FS 78 – Relaunch Episode: Meet the New Hosts; Umah, Sam, Olivia
Facilitation Stories
In today’s episode, the Facilitation Stories podcast returns with a brand-new hosting team — Olivia, Sam, and Umah — who share their stories, inspirations, and hopes for the next chapter of the podcast. They talk about: Why they joined the Facilitation Stories team and what excites them about podcasting as a way to connect facilitators and share learning. How their diverse backgrounds — from healthcare and construction to creative arts, community engagement and youth work — have shaped their facilitation practice. The power of collaboration and curiosity in creating spaces...
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FS 77 Facilitation in the Agile Space with Farah Egby and Çiğdem Saka Jackson
Facilitation Stories
In today’s episode Helene speaks to Farah Egby and Cigdem Saka-Jackson about Agile. They talk about: Agile as a set of working practices that prioritises people over processes and tools; Farah and Cigdem’s previous work and journeys into Agile facilitation; The roles and functions that the “Scrum Master” and “Kanban” play in Agile; Roles and techniques in Agile facilitation and tips on how to do it; "I think you need to care. You have to be a caring person. I definitely don't believe it is, it is a rule book and just a set of applicable guidelines. You have to care...
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FS 76 Chapter Chat with Andrew Spiteri EME Regional Director
Facilitation Stories
In this episode Helene talks to Andrew Spiteri, Regional Director of the IAF Europe and Middle East Region. Andrew tells Helene about himself as a facilitator, the kind of work he does and his background with IAF. He became regional director at the start of the year and shares a bit about the work he has been involved in so far, his roles and responsibilities as director, and what he would like to see in future for the region and beyond. He tells us about the regional conference in Romania in November 2025 and about what he most loves about facilitation. You can contact Andrew at: And Helene...
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FS 75 Race Ahead for Facilitators with Bianca Jones, Cat Duncan-Rees and Paul Brand
Facilitation Stories
In this episode Helene talks to Bianca Jones - Award Winning Mental Health & Anti-Racism Training Provider, MHFA England Associate and Founder & Managing Director of EDP Training, Paul Brand- Facilitator and Management Consultant, Director at Risk Solutions and IAF England and Wales board member and Cat Duncan-Rees- Facilitator and founder of Curators of Change and also an IAF England and Wales board member. She starts by asking Bianca to talk a bit about the work she does and what led her to develop EDP and the Race Ahead training She asks Cat and Paul about what led...
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FS74 Representation and Lego with Camilla Gordon
Facilitation Stories
In this episode Nikki talks to Camilla Gordon, a process facilitator , about representation in Lego and her new “Figiverse” project. They talk about How Camilla uses Lego Serious Play in facilitation The lack of representation within Lego ‘I had people of colour seeing these more representative Lego pieces and had really emotional reactions to it, because people have never seen themselves in these pieces’ ‘It has become so normalised that particular identities don't get represented in different spaces’ Improving representation and access to more diverse...
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December pause
Facilitation Stories
Hello! We're pausing for December and so there won't be an episode this month. We'd like to thank everyone who chatted to us this year and all of our wonderful listeners. We hope your 2024 ends well and we look forward to bringing you another Facilitation Story in January 2025. Helene and Nikki
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FS73 Reflections on being Chair of IAF England and Wales with Jane Clift
Facilitation Stories
In this episode Helene talks to Jane Clift about her role as the Chair of IAF England and Wales. They talk about: How Jane got involved with the IAF and the facilitation community “the game changer for me was coming to my first IAF conference,I had never met so many people interested in facilitation” How Jane became the Chair of IAF England and Wales Highlights and challenges since becoming the Chair The importance of the IAF and community events “I think there's been a recognition in our chapter, in our community, we can all learn from each other.” And...
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FS 72 Working as an Internal Facilitator with Cath Brooks from the Environment Agency
Facilitation Stories
In this episode Helene talks to Cath about her role as Senior Engagement Advisor and internal facilitator with the Environment Agency (EA) Cath tells Helene a bit about the EA and the type of work they do. She explains how her role as Engagement Advisor includes facilitation and also how she works an an independent internal facilitator for other projects withing the EA. Cath gives some examples of what she really enjoys about her role as a faciliator including working with the public on a climate adaptation project and working alongside external independent facilitators that the EA also use....
info_outlineIn today’s episode Nikki talks to Ann Nkune about her rediscovery of Appreciative Inquiry.
Ann is a facilitator working with charities, social enterprises and the public sector helping people to increase their impact and be sustainable. Her work over the last 10 years has been parent friendly start up and career development programmes for women operate in the environmental and social impact sector.
Ann describes a Linked In post that she recently wrote about Appreciative Inquiry (AI) where she was able to connect with other AI enthusiasts to talk to about it, help her work through the complexities and challenges and think about what more she could do when facilitating. And how she had fallen back in love with it having not used it for a while.
Ann talks about the premise of AI and how most theories of change are about identifying a problem or risk. Whereas AI says that change is much more likely to happen when people understand where their strengths and the strengths of an organisation are, and can have a level of enthusiasm and optimism that change is possible. So AI increases the positive energy that comes from a group even when there are tricky things so they can see their way through the difficulties.
She describes some examples of AI and the process which starts with a topic and going through 4 stages; DISCOVEREY (proud/pivotal moments and skills and qualities), DREAM (allows people to step back and see the big picture and how she encourages people to be creative) - Ann shares an example of creating playdough toilets! DESIGN (what is the reality and what are the options) and DELIVERY (commitment to action and major projects that are required to get to the dream stage).
Ann tells Nikki how she had rediscovered AI in lockdown when doing goal setting online. She remembered how she first started to use it several decades ago and how she was initially quite cynical about it, but that AI gave the people she was working with a new perspective.
She shares her observations and different uses; for individual discussion e.g. mums of young children as a way of capturing their strengths, bringing together people in teams to build relationships in new ways. She describes how energising it is in a group and to be visionary even if they don’t think they are.
Nikki asks how her thinking about it has evolved....Ann says she has a recognition that where situations are complex and there is anxiety or conflict that there needs to be a pre-briefing, something that happens pre-process so that people have an opportunity to vent and get things off their chest, and process so they can decide what is crucial to bring in and what can be left out, and to understand what is going to happen in the process.
She also describes how she discovered Time to Think by Nancy Klein and the thinking environment and how this requires a particular type of listening and questioning. Operating the AI process using thinking environment principles really improves it. She also considers conflict and Non Violent Communication as a potentially something to use before AI. She is also a fan of mindfulness as a way of preparing for these conversations.
Nikki asks about the preparation and getting to know the context when using AI . Ann says she doesn’t do this as much as she used to when she felt she needed lots of facts. But now she needs to know that people are in the right frame of mind to do the process. She prepares well but doesn’t get too bogged down in the details.
Ann shares some examples of using AI – individual work with women who have taken the leap from prevaricating to putting something in place and taking practical steps (using AI and the Lean Canvas). In terms of organisations she has done quite a few team building sessions, building relationships between board members and staff, allowing them to work more effectively.
To connect with Ann Nkune on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-nkune-6a08b211/?originalSubdomain=uk or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bloomsburybeginnings/?hl=en and her webasite is: https://bloomsburybeginnings.org/
You can connect with Nikki Wilson on Twitter @NiksClicks
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