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Advanced Facilitation Shadow Experience

Katelynn Branciforte

HDF 413
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Student Organization Leadership Consultants

D.R.I.V.E. Retreat
November 16, 2018

Group: D.R.I.V.E.
Group Contact & info: Sandra Gradoia, sandra_gradoia@my.uri.edu
SOLC Contact: Bridget Nobiletti
Goal of Retreat: The goals of this retreat are team building, bonding,
communication, and we want new and old members to get to know
each other better.
# Participants: 20
Date: 11/16/18
Time: 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Location: MU Atrium 2
Facilitators: Robert, Anna
Shadows Kate, Dana, Sydney
Food Requests: none
Special Requests/Needs: none

Retreat Agenda:

Time/ Topic/Activity Facilitator Notes/Supplies needed

location
5:30 pm Intros + Waivers Bridget Pens
Extra Waivers
5:40 Name game: Iron Curtain Kate Blanket or tarp
5:55 Energizer: True That, Double True Dana
6:05 Full Values Contract Robert Gears, Paper, Markers
6:35 Initiative: Stepping Stones Anna and Robert Poly Spots, Blindfolds
7:15 Closing: People Watching Anna Paper, Pens, Paper Bag (beginning)
Handouts:
Waivers
Evals
General Supplies Check list:
Pens
Blanket
Gear cutouts
Paper
Markers
Poly spots
Blindfolds
Paper Bag
On Friday, November 16th, I shadowed a retreat. A little tidbit about my facilitation career is that I

have shadowed and facilitated a retreat during my time at URI. However, I was abroad one semester, and

the following semester I was not able to attend meetings, so I was on a leave of absence. Even through I
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have been in a facilitation position before, I am glad that I was able to get a little refresher on facilitation

before having a co-facilitation.

At this retreat, I shadowed for the organization Diversifying. Recruiting. Inspiring. Volunteering.

Educating. (D.R.I.V.E.). The goals of this high functioning group were team building, bonding,

improvement on communication, and for the new and old members to get to know each other better.

Based on the given information, we planned a retreat that we thought would accomplish all of their goals.

We started by doing the name game called Iron Curtain, which is where one at a time, members from

opposing teams go and stand on either side of a ‘curtain.’ When the curtain is dropped, the opposing

members have to say the other member’s name, and whoever says it first is the winner of that round - the

other person has to join them on their team. We thought that this would be a good name game because

this organization is fairly familiar with each other, which makes it easier since they know most people’s

names.

The initiative that we chose was called stepping stones, and we chose this because we wanted to

present the group with a challenge. The group was split into two teams; each team was only given eight

poly-spots to cross the ocean. If they left a spot without a foot, that spot was taken away; if they fell off

the spot, they had to go back to the beginning. The goal was for the teams to realize that they needed to

use each other’s poly-spots in order to complete the task, since they didn’t have enough to cross the ocean

with the number they were given.

During this retreat, I noticed that most of it went well. It was easy to get this organization

engaged, and they were able to keep the conversations going during debriefs, which made that aspect of

the retreat easy. To elaborate a bit on what went well, I thought that Robert and Anna both took on this

facilitation well. Because of their ability to adapt to situation, it went smoothly. During the initiative,

Anna realized that she missed an important instruction and quickly made sure to pause what was going on

and correct herself. It was a good reminder that people do make mistakes and that the group does not

mind if that happens. They were also quick to make modifications to the initiative when conditions
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became unsafe. Another thing that Robert did well was his debriefing of the full values contract. He was

able to just re-provide them with words that they used and the debrief took off from there. The other thing

that went well was that both facilitators kept referencing challenge by choice instead of just saying that

people had to participate. That encouraged everyone to participate and everyone ended up doing the

things they were comfortable with.

With a well-done retreat also comes some things that could be changed. For the name game Iron

Curtain, the curtain we used was too small. In the future, a different curtain should be used so that both

teams cannot see who is approaching the curtain. Another issue we found was that sometimes the

opposing teams were using window reflections of each other and were able to see who was up to the

curtain. The only other thing we discussed was that when giving instructions for the full values contract,

the facilitator should make sure that they are letting the group know that it is a serious part of the retreat

and that they should be quiet until the discussion portion comes about. Because this was not done during

the retreat, Robert had to remind them multiple times that they should be quiet. If the standard was set in

the beginning, then I don’t think we would have run into that issue.

Throughout this retreat, I got a refresher on how to do many different things throughout a retreat,

but I also learned a few things. The first thing I took away from this retreat is that I realized it is okay to

admit your mistakes as a facilitator, and the group probably won’t care. The other takeaway I got was

how far you can drag a debrief and that you can pull in anything that has happened in the retreat to the

debrief. During the initiative debrief, the facilitators were able to pull the full values contract in and

further the conversation. I thought the way they did that was very interesting and done effectively.

In the future, I hope to be able to gain the skill to take the words that people say during an

initiative and apply them to the debrief. I get so interested in what people have to say that I forget to

collect words in my brain and use them. However, I know that is one of my weaknesses and I want to

actively try and improve it.

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Overall, this retreat was a success. We planned well for the group we had and executed each

event well. While there were some things I would be conscious about changing in the future, I thought

that the good parts of the retreat heavily outweighed the bad. Being able to shadow this retreat brought a

new perspective on facilitating that I am glad I got to experience.