In epsode Bogdan tells us about himself as a facilitator and trainer, what it means to be a playful facilitator and his journey into facilitation. 

He tells Nikki and Helene about how IAF Romania and how it all began, from joining IAF in 2018 to getting intouch with other facilitatrors in Romania. With the start of the pandemic 2 years later and everyone had more time he found out what was needed to start a chapter, and started IAF Romania with Bogdan as the Chair. 

Since 2020 the chaoter has grown to 27 members, with more facilitators wanting to be a part of the community. The growth has happened in terms of quality of events as well as numbers. 

Facilitation is not well known in Romania and not well known in organisations. 

Bogdan talks about engaging new people to the world of facilitation, organising events and enabling people to make connections and talks in more detail about some of the events they have hosted for example Open Space in HR. 

They also have a group mentoring programme and how that works.

They have two types of approaches - one for the community and one for the IAF Romania members. Most events are co-facilitated so there is a lot of learning. 

Some examples of the events are:

Training about having impact in online facilitation - Nelson from Portugal.

Pop up sharing around a particular topic.

Facilitators Studio - where someone can bring a new design to try out.

Facilitator Lab - helping two facilitators to create something together. An example of this is AI and facilitation. 

The core members of 10/12 come up with the ideas for all the events and build the ideas together.

They plan to have their first in person event - a facilitation festival in the autumn. 

Bogdan talks about collaborations with other IAF Chapters and explains how these have worked:

Twin Chapters with IAF Italy

Facilitation Lightening Talks, some of which were with IAF Ireland and IAF Italy

He talks extensively about the collaboration with IAF Japan and the 9 or 10 meetings that were needed to set this up and the cultural learning points. 

Helene asks Bogdan to talk about his role in IAF Europe and Middle East as part of the share and learn team and the benefits of bringing together different cultures and facilitation experience. 

Bogdan talks about what next for IAF Romania - elections, continued focus on mentoring, sending chapters from the Power of Facilitation book out in their newsletter which they have translated into Romanian. 

Bogdan lastly talks about his hope for the future and the facilitation festival. 

To contact Bogdan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdangrigore82/

IAF Romania:

https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/romania

https://www.linkedin.com/company/iaf-romania-international-association-of-facilitators-romanian-chapter/?originalSubdomain=ro 

The Power of Facilition:

 https://facpower.org/2021/06/01/what-is-the-power-of-facilitation-and-why-is-it-important/ 

Lightening Talks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcOrr9Sj17U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tluzc03l4sM

Celebrating Diversity with IAF Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FctxQou8F9w

Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/

Find Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ 

Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/  

Email: [email protected]