Jack Ricchiuto sent out 12 emails to convene a meeting to explore the
state of "facilitation" in NEO and 40 or so people showed up - 20
more said they can't come but want to come to a future event... all here are
interested to know each other. He convened this group to determine who are
facilitators in region, how may they work together as a "practice
area" and how can we help our community and clients understand what we do
and the value to the community. So he asks four questions:

1. Our stories - how we got
   interested in facilitation and when we feel best in our work?
2. What would make a local
   facilitation community of practice valuable for us?
3. How can we raise the
   visibility of facilitation and communicate its value in organizations and
   the community?
4. What kind of work most attracts
   you: what works for you - what inspires and energizes your success?

Introductions and then we will get into groups of 8-10 sharing our stories.

Group is diverse - many are trained in facilitation, e.g. Gestalt, many deal
with interpersonal facilitation, many work in organizations and businesses and
many are cross organizational consultants - some seem process driven and others
clearly spiritual - some in health services - some sustainability - community
relations - academic - sudden realization facilitation is a
"business" - appreciate opportunity to collaborate here.

In two sessions we break into smaller groups and brainstorm on how we got
interested in facilitation and when we feel best – and how we can raise the
visibility of facilitation. We then addressed four questions – What is purpose
of facilitation? How to sell facilitation as stand alone business/process/structure?
How do we quantify value? What is the demand for facilitation?

As a group we then explored next steps. Attendees sign up for mentoring roles, participation in a facilitation practice area group and developing that group.

Jack distributed the following note shortly after the session:

From: Jack Ricchiuto
[mailto:jack [at] designinglife [dot] com]
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 8:00 PM
Subject: Today's Facilitator Community of Practice Launch

Thanks
to the 35 people who contributed amazing energy and presence to our launch of a
Northern Ohio Facilitator Community of Practice. Not knowing how everyone's
technology handles attachments, I've started posting from the gathering at http://designinglife.com/index.php/NorthernOhioFacilitation/CommunityofPractice.

So
far, there is the list of the 35 people who participated, the 20
people who expressed enthusiasm but couldn't attend, the 10 people who signed
up to be a Facilitator mentor, and the 15 people who signed up to be on the
planning team to get the Community of Practice going here. All 35 people
attending signed up to participate in the ongoing local Community of Practice.
Given the conversations and introductions today, the learning potential here is
unlimited. At one point we surveyed the collective years of facilitation
represented in the group and it was just over 400 years.

Soon
to be added are the notes from the Community of Practice design discussion and
the notes from the Open Space conversations on how we can market, promote and
otherwise raise local consciousness of the profound value of facilitation to
organizations and communities. I will be in touch with the planning team people
next week to get the process moving.

In
the meantime, thanks to all who helped make this successful, and stay
tuned.

Jack

~~~~~~~~~~

jack
ricchiuto

two.one.six/three.seven.three/seven.four.seven.five

www.designinglife.com / www.appreciativeleadership.org