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 epsode Bogdan tells us about himself as a facilitator and trainer, what it means to be a playful facilitator and his journey into facilitation.
He tells Nikki and Helene about how IAF Romania and how it all began, from joining IAF in 2018 to getting intouch with other facilitatrors in Romania. With the start of the pandemic 2 years later and everyone had more time he found out what was needed to start a chapter, and started IAF Romania with Bogdan as the Chair.
Since 2020 the chaoter has grown to 27 members, with more facilitators wanting to be a part of the community. The growth has happened in terms of quality of events as well as numbers.
Facilitation is not well known in Romania and not well known in organisations.
Bogdan talks about engaging new people to the world of facilitation, organising events and enabling people to make connections and talks in more detail about some of the events they have hosted for example Open Space in HR.
They also have a group mentoring programme and how that works.
They have two types of approaches - one for the community and one for the IAF Romania members. Most events are co-facilitated so there is a lot of learning.
Some examples of the events are:
Training about having impact in online facilitation - Nelson from Portugal.
Pop up sharing around a particular topic.
Facilitators Studio - where someone can bring a new design to try out.
Facilitator Lab - helping two facilitators to create something together. An example of this is AI and facilitation.
The core members of 10/12 come up with the ideas for all the events and build the ideas together.
They plan to have their first in person event - a facilitation festival in the autumn.
Bogdan talks about collaborations with other IAF Chapters and explains how these have worked:
Twin Chapters with IAF Italy
Facilitation Lightening Talks, some of which were with IAF Ireland and IAF Italy
He talks extensively about the collaboration with IAF Japan and the 9 or 10 meetings that were needed to set this up and the cultural learning points.
Helene asks Bogdan to talk about his role in IAF Europe and Middle East as part of the share and learn team and the benefits of bringing together different cultures and facilitation experience.
Bogdan talks about what next for IAF Romania - elections, continued focus on mentoring, sending chapters from the Power of Facilitation book out in their newsletter which they have translated into Romanian.
Bogdan lastly talks about his hope for the future and the facilitation festival.
To contact Bogdan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdangrigore82/
IAF Romania:
https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/romania
The Power of Facilition:
https://facpower.org/2021/06/01/what-is-the-power-of-facilitation-and-why-is-it-important/
Lightening Talks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcOrr9Sj17U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tluzc03l4sM
Celebrating Diversity with IAF Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FctxQou8F9w
Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/
Find Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/
Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/
Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org