6

MY ROLES

The definition of a workshop facilitator is 

• To plan and run a successful workshop.

My role as a workshop facilitator/leader included having discussions on how to be a successful workshop leader, planning a workshop and finally leading a workshop with people we had recruited from the area. 

First in groups we discussed what a successful workshop would be and came up with:

• Organised- because a successful workshop cannot be improvised and a lot of effort and organisation has to go into the structure and the core exercises of the effort. Including timings, exercises, aims, explanations. 
• Focused- If the workshop leader is not focused then the people attending the workshop will not be focused either. 
• Age friendly- You need to cater your workshop for different ages as, for example, pensioners will not want to play splat, and young kids may not be able to keep up with a more complicated game such as the invention game. 
• Creative- It needs to be creative to engage your audience. 
• Planned- To reduce confusion for you and for the people attending. 

We also discussed the attributes and skills needed to undertake a community workshop/project and we came up with: 

Overall you need a positive friendly attitude to everyone in the group. You need to show confidence and have authority but not undermine those that you are working with. With a community project a lot of the time it involves working with groups of people who you need to be empathetic for and not judgemental as they want to achieve the same thing as you. Punctuality and organisation are important because it sets an example to those you work with and sets the standard of how you want them to act. And most importantly, be open- as you can be working with all ages and all types of people and at the end of the day you are all working towards the same goal.