Training to talk cock: DF 1 year programme

Albert and I met over dinner on Wednesday to talk about the details of the Dharma Friends Workshop that the 30th MC would like to have on 21 Sep Sunday Morning at the end of their MC retreat at Cheng Beng. We also hammered out a rough program to train the DFs holistically.
(How many times have we said that we wanted to do that?? For once, it looks like this time it's going to happen!)

There will be at least 3 DF Worshops, maybe 4 if the 30th MC would like to squeeze in one in Sem 2 mid term break. These will be the outline of the DF Workshops:

DF Workshop 1 - Intro to Facilitating
- Facilitation as a Professional Skill
- What is Facilitation?
- Difference between facilitating and presenting
- Benefits of being able to facilitate
- Changing your mindset about being a facilitator
- Stages in a group discussion
- What are the stages from beginning to rounding up
- What to do at each stage to move on to the next
- Dealing with different Characters
- Eight most commonly seen personality types at DCs
- How to deal with them
Trial DCs
- 3 runs, 2-3 trial faciliators, 6-7 group members, 20 min
- Topic each run will be non-Dharma, close to personal experience
e.g. "Childhood experiences", "Amazing Friendships", "How do I spend my weekends?", etc.
- Non-participants will sit outside the circle, observe, make notes
- 10 min feedback from all, how to improve, learning points
Takeway: "(1) Be confident, (2) go in with a plan!"
Alumni: Hidayat, Albert, Kwek

DF Workshop 2 - Sharpening facilitation skills
- Recap on objectives of facilitations
- Styles of engagement: Different ways of facilitating
- Troubleshooting: what to do with those people and their responses
Trial DCs
Takeaway: Hone basic skills to be an even more effective facilitator
Alumni: Cindy et al.

DF Workshop 3A - Public speaking
Takeaway: Applying facilitation skills to presentations to be an engaging speaker to a small audience
Trial presentations
- Discussive-nature topics
Alumni: Albert et al.

DF Workshop 3B - Public speaking 2
Takeaway: ?Being an engaging speaker in various scenarios, e.g. impromptu, forum panels, etc.?

Another sector that Albert and I thought of exploring is encouraging "Dinner Dharma" among the Dharma Friends and sub-comm with their DDs.

e.g. This week's DC topic is "Calmness amidst the Storm". The actual topic is about concentration and relaxation meditation. In the week(s) before this DC, DFs and sub-comm will have a dinner with DDs and share info that they have read on the net, heard from talks or read from books about Samatha meditation and Anapanasati. or They can combine 2 weeks' worth of DC topics into one dinner topic.

Along the way it would be good to have comments and changes from you guys, and one year later we'll review this again, and try again for another year. Then we should have a steady DF program fit to sell!

Will be meeting Jacinta and Eddy this Friday 5pm to hammer out the year's DC topics and speakers, updates will be up after...