International Association of Facilitators Forum

International Association of Facilitators Forum

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What are the Ground Rules for this Forum?

1. Your posts must pertain to the topic of group facilitation.
2. Training is different than facilitation. See the FAQ “How Can I Distinguish Between "Facilitation" and "Training?" for more info. Training related submissions should be posted on training oriented discussion groups (such as TRDEV or Training Ideas).
3. Do not quote an email message that you received privately or from another list without first obtaining permission from its author.
4. Don't send personal messages to the entire discussion list. Be careful when replying – if you don’t change the address, your "Reply" will be sent to ALL members.
5. Quote only the pertinent material from the post to which you are responding. Provide enough to give context, but edit out the rest.
6. Avoid signatures longer than four lines.
7. Self-promotion is not permitted on the Forum. Offenders will face suspension from the list for this offense. Your postings should be about the topic under discussion, so feel free to share your experiences, lessons learned, references that have helped you and other observations. However do not use the Forum as a platform to advertise your company or services.
8. Although advertising and self-promotion are prohibited, announcements of books and newsletters provide valuable information to subscribers and may be posted to the group. However, since the number and length of announcements could be bothersome to those not interested, their impact should be minimized. Such announcements should conform to the format below:

Title of book (or newsletter):
Author (or editor):
Publisher:
Year (or frequency) of publication:
Description (up to 15 lines):
For more information contact:

9. Recommendations of products and services of interest to facilitators may be made by those without a vested interest. For information about paid sponsorships, please contact the IAF Office at office@iaf-world.org.
10. IAF members can list upcoming events -- conferences, classes, workshops –on the Forum Events Calendar. Do not post these items as threads within the Forum. Non-IAF members who wish to advertise should send their postings to the IAF Office at office@iaf-world.org.
11. Job Opportunity announcements may be posted by IAF members on the “Find Job Opportunity” Forum. Non-IAF members who wish to post job opportunities should send their announcements to the IAF Office at office@iaf-world.org. Include the following items:

The Title of Job Opportunity
Date the opportunity expires
A brief description of the job
Links to access for more info
Who to Contact

12. When offering to provide additional materials, remind requesters to respond privately and include your name and email address.
13. Large attachments (e.g., over 15Kb) should be made available only on request. Many subscribers pay for email based on message length, or have limited mailbox space, and are bothered by lengthy messages.
14. Members who are not current with IAF dues will lose access to the Member section of the Forum.
15. The International Association of Facilitators assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, currency, completeness or usefulness of information in any material on the discussion list and it does not endorse any opinions or recommendations posted by members.

Are Messages Public?

Yes, messages posted to the Forum are publicly available. If you do not want your response distributed widely, do not reply or post to the Forum.

How Do I Get Access to the IAF Member Section of the Forum?

If you are a paid member of the International Association of Facilitators, simply click here and select the “Join Group” button to request that you be added to the Members Section of the IAF Forum. Our Member Forum Moderator will check your membership status and give you member privileges to add Events to the calendar, view Job Opportunities, and join in the “Members Issues and Ideas” discussion group.

If you are not a paid member of the International Association of Facilitator and would like to join, click here and you'll be redirected to the IAF website.

Can I Format my Postings?

Yes. The Forum allows you to bold, italicize, underline, add bullets or number text in your postings. You can also apply smilies which allow you to use small icons to convey emotion. All postings viewed on the Forum will display these effects. However this formatting may not show up when the user receives a message via email. The format displayed in email is dependent on the users email system set up (i.e., plain text vs. html).

These special formats use vB code. For more information about vB code, click here.

How Can I Distinguish Between "Facilitation" and "Training?"

The following is a working distinction between the terms training and facilitating as used by this Forum.

TRAINING is a process primarily to transfer information or skill (content) between a trainer and a participant group. Training issues include: the delivery and organization of content and the administrative aspects of such courses.

FACILITATION focuses primarily on processes in which information is exchanged among the participants in a group. The facilitator "eases" this exchange, using structured techniques and communication skills. Examples of facilitated events are: strategic and other planning, decision making, conflict resolution, problem solving, creative development, and team initiatives.

Some training issues are also relevant to facilitators, and are therefore valid threads--for example, dealing with resistant participants or train-the-facilitator discussions. However, training-specific topics should be directed to training oriented discussion groups (such as TRDEV or Training Ideas).

Who Sponsors the Forum?

This Forum is owned and operated by the International Association of Facilitators (IAF). The IAF is a non-profit association dedicated to enhancing the skills of group facilitators and encouraging the use of group process methodologies world-wide. It was formed by a team of 70 professionals desiring an avenue for interchange, professional development, trend analysis and peer networking in Alexandria, Virginia in January, 1994.

The Forum is open to both members and non-members of IAF who want to share ideas, ask questions, or get advice on group facilitation, problem solving and decision making, group development, running meetings, and related topics with facilitators around the world. The Forum is moderated by IAF volunteers.

What is GRP-FACL and How Do I Access the Archived Threads and Resource Files?

The Electronic Discussion on Group Facilitation (also known as GRP-FACL) was a moderated discussion on the practice and theory of group facilitation hosted by the University at Albany, State University of New York. It was started in 1995 and was adopted in 1997 as the official electronic discussion group of the International Association of Facilitators.

The IAF Group Facilitation Forum is a continuation of the discussions previously held on GRP-FACL. If you would like to view the historical archives, please click the following link and register as a member of GRP-FACL (if you have not already done so).

To access the Group Facilitation Discussion List Archives, please click the following link:

GRP-FACL ARCHIVES

The GRP-FACL Resource Files include topics such as: facilitator competencies, definitions of terms, book lists, professional organizations, journals/newsletters, facilitation training and seminars, brokers for trainers and facilitators, electronic meeting systems, experiential exercises and ground rules, and more. To access the Group Facilitation Discussion List Compiled Resources, please click the following link:

GRP-FACL COMPILED RESOURCES

How Do I Access Old Yahoo Group Messages?

Some of the IAF Member-only forums previously used Yahoo Groups. If you are a member of the IAF Board of Directors or E-Team and would like to view messages that were posted on Yahoo, please read the Announcement posted within your Forum titled “If You Want to View the Old Yahoo Group”.

What’s the Difference between a Registered Member of the Forum and an IAF Member?

A "registered user" is one who has registered (set themselves up with an ID & password) on the Forum. As a registered user of the Forum a person can participate in the Public Forums, email other registered users, and send private messages. A person who is not registered on the Forum cannot do any of those things.

An IAF member is someone who has paid their dues to become a member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF). This membership entitles them to additional features and functionality within the Forum. They can access the Job Opportunities forum and post events on the Events Calendar, as well as participate in specialized discussions relevant to the Association. To become a member of the IAF, click here.

Are My Messages Reviewed Before They are Posted to the Forum?

No. All messages submitted to the Forum are processed by the V-Bulletin software. When the Forum receives a submission it first determines if the sender is on our subscriber list. If so, Forum automatically distributes or "posts" the message.

However, any subscriber who posts inappropriate material (e.g., advertising, personal attacks, personal replies, cross-posts, technical questions about Forum operation, etc.) may have future submissions reviewed by the moderator before they are posted.

If the sender is not a Forum subscriber (or if the sender is using an email address other than the one he or she used to subscribe to the list), the submission is rejected. It is by this means that we screen out off-topic submissions as well as spam (unsolicited, mass-distributed email, typically advertising).

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