Identifying Facilitators
Climate Circles need two facilitators, one primary and one secondary. Both facilitators should be familiar with Climate Circles to an extent, but the secondary facilitator is meant to take some of the pressure off of the primary facilitator while becoming more confident in potentially taking on a leadership role in a future Climate Circle. We imagine you’re planning to host Climate Circles as part of a pre-existing group or organization.
At the very least, you should begin with a partner, so that your event can have two people who’ve reviewed this material, attended a prior climate circle, or participated in a workshop event. We attempt to model a non-hierarchical form of facilitation that avoids centering anyone as expert or therapist, and that actively invites participants to become facilitators for subsequent events. Facilitation is a responsibility that can be shared and a skill that we can practice together. The invitation extended to participants is not just to join a Climate Circle as a passive guest, but to potentially take on shared stewardship of the project as it evolves.
Promoting the Event
Many of us already have promotion strategies in place that make sense for your organizing work or campus context. Go with whatever usually works for you, but here is a sample blurb that we’ve used in promoting our events:
“We would like to invite you to attend a small gathering that we’re calling a “climate circle.” Together, we will create an informal, open, and respectful space to safely share emotional responses and reactions related to the climate crisis and environmental emergency. The Circle is meant to be a quiet and reflective space to explore thoughts, feelings and experiences. We will be present, we will tell stories, and we will be vulnerable. We will not be solving or innovating. We will simply be–together. We hope to see you there!
(Our event is modeled after the Climate Cafe, created by the Climate Psychology Alliance.)”
We recommend using some form of a registration process, as attendance at each individual circle should be capped around 12. If the group gets any bigger, there isn’t enough time for everyone to share without feeling rushed. We recommend Eventbrite or Google Forms to organize this registration process, and there are likely other effective tools out there.
Training facilitators
Before you host a Climate Circle, the facilitators should be familiar with the facilitation guidelines and tips outlined later in this packet. The Climate Circles can often be the first opportunity that someone has to practice facilitating a space, so it’s important to emphasize that this is first and foremost a learning experience and not something to be extensively rehearsed. Leading with vulnerability makes space for people to share their own authenticity.
Finding your objects
The primary storytelling prompt will be a selection of natural objects that facilitators will collect ahead of time to bring to The Circle. What counts as “natural” is open for interpretation. We’ve used an array of objects which include: driftwood, crystals, a small rattling gourd, seashells, a bird’s nest, a nutmeg seed, a ceramic cow, and a wooden bracelet. Feel free to be creative in your selections and consider different directions of storytelling that may arise from different selections of objects.
Create a good vibe
Before people arrive, you should make the physical space feel welcoming. If possible, you’ll want to host in a calm and quiet setting where participants can sit in a circle and face one another. Non-academic settings are strongly suggested because spaces like lecture halls and classrooms may steer participants into an academic headspace as opposed to an emotional one. We typically serve tea, refreshments, and some snacks to welcome participants in, and we like to keep low/ambient lighting which is especially helpful in differentiating from the fluorescent lighting and sterile feeling of schooling and working environments. A circle of seats or cushions with the storytelling objects on a table in the middle would be ideal.
Name tags can be helpful in allowing for people to relate to one another directly. You might also choose to print out some other materials, like our storytelling prompt on quarter sheets to have available for participants.
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