I am big fan of story and performance based structures such as the Story Spine. These are great ways of providing a group a structure and can be used in strategic planning, project planning and evaluation. Recently I wrote my own story spine to generate new ideas about where my own business ‘could’ go in the future. These structures can invite possibility! I learned another structure last week when facilitating the ACAPTA Flashpoint Forum. This is the structure used by many street buskers … you know, they attract the attention of the crowd and then involve audience members in a …

Here are some other games we played as a group on Day 1 of Open Space at the ACAPTA Flashpoint Forum in Sydney. The games were run by Dan Aubin, Artistc Director with CirKidz. As I said in my previous post, seeing a whole group of people at a conference make room to just ‘play’ (and move other conversation topics to prioritise this) was so refreshing. I noticed a significant change in the connection between participants after this 2 hours of play – a new social-contract between people seemed to emerge. Here is a copy/paste of Dan’s Open Space offering …

Most times when we talk about ‘spaces’ to run conferences and gatherings in, we talk about the size, number of breakout rooms, location to accommodation and public transport, access to wifi and other logistical features. Rarely do we talk about texture. The texture of a space gives it a certain feel and atmosphere. It’s purely subjective I know, but it can make a big difference to the ‘experience’ that individual and group has. I am facilitating the ACAPTA Flashpoint Forum at a great venue called ‘Legs on the Wall‘ in the suburb of Lilyfield in Sydney, Australia. It is a …

I am facilitating a 4 day forum (The ACAPTA Flashpoint Forum) with a great bunch of people from the world of Circus and Physical Theatre. We have people here in sydney from street performers to federal funders … trapeze acrobats to administrators. Today in Open Space, the whole group came together for 90 minutes to simply play and share games. Viv has written about this urge here and here … for me it seemed the group was yearning to step away from the ‘intellectual’ stuff and ‘connect’ with each other in deeper and more human ways – and so they …

I fly to Sydney tomorrow to work with ACAPTA on their big, bold Flashpoint Forum. ACAPTA’s dynamic CEO is leading change and a new way of meeting together. ACAPTA is the peak body group for a group of people who make up the Circus & Physical Theatre field. We have 3 days together to meet, have conversations, eat, perform and leave working together in new ways. As I imagine myself opening space on Thursday morning, it makes sense to reflect (and share) some of thinking has has gone into the deign of this gathering. All of it comes from my …