Group Process

Nick Osborne from the Transition Network in the U.K. coming to Amherst, MA on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 21 & 22 to give his popular training. Nick is only doing three training weekends in the U.S. and the other ones are in California. The training is very affordable, and spaces are filling quickly. There’s room for only 26 people for the weekend, and 10 for the Training of Trainers one-day course on Monday, Sept. 23.

Effective Groups is a 2-day skills-building training for individuals and teams. It started with Transition Town groups in mind, but evolved into a course on collaboration that has been popular with people doing a wide variety of social change efforts.

Effective Groups is a dynamic and engaging training course which covers key skills for collaboration.
It will help you:

• Create systems for teams to work effectively together
• Develop an enjoyable and fair atmosphere to work within
• Make order in the chaos to find freedom within a structure
• Utilize diverse perspectives as an advantage instead of a problem
• Balance achieving goals with keeping your team healthy and effective
• Manage conflicting needs and paradoxes, both within and outside the team
• Develop the skills & mindset to cross stony ground without falling out (or over) with each other!

Where & When:
2-day Effective Groups: 9/21&22
1-day Training of Trainers: Monday 9/23

For scholarship info contact:
carolyne@transitionus.org, (707) 824-1554

Costs & Info:
$125 for the 2-day course (max 26 participants)
$125 for the 1-day Training of Trainers
(customized for up to 10 participants)

Info and registration:
http://transitionus.org/event/effective-groups-amherst-ma

About the facilitator:
Nick Osborne, a leading trainer from the UK with the Transition Network, will be in the U.S. to give his 2-day Effective Groups weekend workshop, plus his 1-day Train the Trainer training, in three locations.

The Effective Groups (aka Effective Collaboration) weekend workshop is Nick’s labor of love for Transition Initiatives – helping community-based Transition Initiatives develop stronger group skills. It comes from integrating 20 years experience of working with leadership models in social change projects, intentional communities and Eco-villages, and conventional and cutting edge organizations. The course is open to anyone involved in any kind of social change work, with preference given to groups using the Transition model to inform their work.

The Train the Trainer training on Monday will be for people who already have training and facilitation skills who want to deepen their understanding of the material and use it to train other Transition Initiatives and social change organizations. Participants in the Monday workshop must attend the weekend workshop and meet criteria which demonstrate they are already experienced group facilitators and trainers.

Here’s the buzz about the course:

“The inspiring training helped me massively as I worked with my core team…we grew from a loose bunch of activists dashing around to a neatly knit constituted body capable of receiving grants.”
Ed Mitchell

“We were soon picking up practical tips on welcoming new people into our groups, running shorter and more effective meetings, and coming to decisions which everyone could support”.
Sustainable Brampton

“A very thought-provoking and insightful workshop into the dynamics of what happens when people work together”.
Transition Town Totnes