Episodes

  • 🎙️ FS79_Julia Slay & Ending Sessions Well

    🎙️ FS79_Julia Slay & Ending Sessions Well
    Dec 5 2025
    In today's episode, Olivia is joined by Julia Slay, founder of Facilitation 101, to explore an often-overlooked part of facilitation: how we end sessions well. With 15+ years' experience across social policy, consultancy and learning design, Julia shares her journey into facilitation and what sparked her growing fascination with powerful endings. They talk about: Why endings matter,and common mistakes at the close of sessions — rushed checkouts, lack of closure, and clunky feedback moments. How to design meaningful endings, using buffer time, reflection, grounding and action planning. The power of circularity too. Extending the ending beyond the room, with follow-ups and reconnection sessions.Plus creative closing practices, from body-based grounding to sound and movement. Quote highlights "A strong ending creates a feeling of completeness." "Reflection without action feels unfinished." Links Today's guest: Julia Slay, Founder, Facilitation 101 https://www.facilitation101.co.uk/courses?tag=Intensive https://myfreelancelife.substack.com/?r=b48m9&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-slay-aa02b240/ Today's host: Olivia Bellas - Coach, Faciitator, Learning Experience Designer https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviabellas/ To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧 podcast@iaf-englandwales.org 🌐 https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales Transcript Olivia Bellas Welcome to facilitation stories. How do facilitators end up in the profession? What methods and techniques can we learn together? And we discover it all in this community Podcast, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Olivia, and today I'm talking with Julia. S. Julia is the founder and director of Facilitation 1 0 1, which began in 2023 after a simple request for a two hour session, which turned into a three day intensive. This is the course that now distills everything she wishes she'd known when she first started facilitating previous to all of this. She held a range of different roles, across social policy and charities, meaning now 15 years of experience designing and leading workshops, strategy sessions, and learning programs. So everything from away days and team development to full strategy. Retreats and international events. And in my opinion, also I must follow on LinkedIn for her generous and human sharings on navigating the world of facilitation. Julia, it's great to have you. Welcome. Julia Slay Oh, lovely to be here. And that was a very kind, generous introduction as well. Wow. Yeah. Thank you. Olivia Bellas Well, welcome. Welcome. So really looking forward to chatting today, and I know that we have a focus area. Mm-hmm. Which we will get into. So that focus area is looking at endings in workshops and why they're valuable, how we can do them. But for that, I wanted to kick off with, something that makes you smile. So thinking about your world of facilitation at the moment, what's making you smile? Julia Slay Mm, well, lots of things. I often feel like I have somehow landed doing a job that doesn't really feel like work. And surely that's like the dream. Well, it is for me anyway, that it's, , each day mostly. There are some small exceptions that mostly I feel really. Energized, focused, joyful with the work. But something that does always make me smile is when I'm running the training side of the work, I do the facilitation training through facilitation 1 0 1, and I'm in a room with really brilliant facilitators who often come from quite a wide range of disciplines, and they bring in their experience and I get to see and learn from them. Which is, which is kind of the. For me, one of the secret joys of running training is that you are learning all the time as well. And there was a course I ran a couple of weeks ago and someone who comes from a kind of theater background and has done a lot of work with, um, theater of the Oppressed was running an activity with the group and I just. Had a smile all over my face. She did an incredible job. And I kind of walked away thinking, yeah, I mean, I got to learn something new today that I've never seen before, and I absolutely loved it. So that, that brings me a lot of joy in my work at the moment. Olivia Bellas Hmm. Yeah, so you get the opportunity to, to have multiple smiles because of all of those, different perspectives of facilitators you are encountering. And actually, I'm quite. Intrigued by that. So you had someone from a theater background. , What other kinds of facilitators are you encountering? Julia Slay Yeah, well it's, it's getting much more diverse. Mm-hmm. I would say a year ago I was primarily working with and training people who were freelance. So, uh, self-employed, , people who often had a combination of kind of coaching, ...
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    34 mins
  • 🎙️ FS 78 – Relaunch Episode: Meet the New Hosts; Umah, Sam, Olivia

    🎙️ FS 78 – Relaunch Episode: Meet the New Hosts; Umah, Sam, Olivia
    Nov 21 2025
    In today's episode, the Facilitation Stories podcast returns with a brand-new hosting team — Olivia, Sam, and Umah — who share their stories, inspirations, and hopes for the next chapter of the podcast. They talk about: Why they joined the Facilitation Stories team and what excites them about podcasting as a way to connect facilitators and share learning. How their diverse backgrounds — from healthcare and construction to creative arts, community engagement and youth work — have shaped their facilitation practice. The power of collaboration and curiosity in creating spaces for reflection, learning, and human connection and what underpins their hopes for this podcast series And, of course, an important conversation about pets, TV guilty pleasures, and favourite biscuits! 🍪 "It's about creating space where people can make sense of their own stories — and find belonging in shared spaces." "Sometimes, facilitation is about slowing down, thinking, and making time for the conversations we don't usually have." Links Today's guests are the hosts themselves: Olivia Bellas https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviabellas/ Sam Moon https://www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123/ Umah Ganeshalingam https://www.linkedin.com/in/umah/ To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧 Email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org 🌐 IAF England & Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales Transcript Helene Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helene Jewell and for the last time I am introducing the podcast because I'm going to be passing the baton onto this wonderful new team. We have Sam Moon, Olivia Bellas, and Umah Ganeshalingam. In this episode, you're going to hear Sam, Umah and Olivia talk about their hopes for the Facilitation Stories podcast, some of the work they all do, the kinds of things they're interested in hearing about, and the conversations they're hoping to have. And it just leaves me to say thanks to everybody that I've worked with on this podcast. Pilar Orti, who started the whole thing, Nikki Wilson, we worked together for ages and it has been absolutely fantastic working with both of them and to Rena Kosh as well, who does all the graphics and stuff that go out alongside the podcast and pretty much everybody else that's been listening, all the guests we've had over the last few years, it's been fantastic. Umah Thank you, Helen, and thank you to you and the team for everything that you've done today and handing it over so nicely to us. Helene Good luck to you all. Sam We'll be standing on the shoulders of giants. Thank you Helen. So I'll kick off with the question. What brings you here, Olivia, to the new crew, why was it important for you to be here? Olivia Podcasting as a format really works for me, so it's definitely a medium that I enjoy for work, for fun. The idea of being part of a crew, a team, building a podcast is really, really exciting to be a bit more behind the scenes. I remember I was at the IAF conference in April in Birmingham earlier this year and seeing this call out to see who's interested. And that was one reason. And then the other reason was actually I tend to collaborate a lot. This year, I haven't been really up until that point and was like, oh, what's missing? And it was that feeling that I was actually, as a facilitator, doing lots of solo work, which I think has value sometimes, but I was really missing more closer collaboration with others. Yeah. What about you, Sam? Sam I think it's curiosity, which is often very much my kind of North Star towards things and serendipity and an interest in being with others, exploring and discussing what I enjoy and the room and the space to do that with others, and also an excitement and interest in talking about, talking with and sharing conversation with other people who are in the facilitation world. And I think just the opportunity to play with those ideas and experience other people's experiences. Learn a little bit about this realm of podcasting, which I'm not massively familiar with myself. I'm here with openness to the curiosity of what is possible. Really. So Umah, come to you. What brings you here, and why was it important for you to be involved in the IAF podcast as a as a new crew member? Umah Mine all started with a conversation with Paul, where I had joined as a IAF member and as part of the intro, he spoke to me about the IAF, the podcast and said, oh, if I'm keen, I could be involved in it. And almost the day I joined as a member, I say, yeah, I'll happily get involved with the podcast too. And then it was about finding other people to do it with us, and he mentioned it at the conference, which unfortunately I couldn't attend,...
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    28 mins
  • FS 77 Facilitation in the Agile Space with Farah Egby and Çiğdem Saka Jackson

    FS 77 Facilitation in the Agile Space with Farah Egby and Çiğdem Saka Jackson
    May 20 2025

    In today's episode Helene speaks to Farah Egby and Cigdem Saka-Jackson about Agile. They talk about:

    • Agile as a set of working practices that prioritises people over processes and tools;

    • Farah and Cigdem's previous work and journeys into Agile facilitation;

    • The roles and functions that the "Scrum Master" and "Kanban" play in Agile;

    • Roles and techniques in Agile facilitation and tips on how to do it;

    "I think you need to care. You have to be a caring person. I definitely don't believe it is, it is a rule book and just a set of applicable guidelines. You have to care about the people you work with and the team you're working with".

    • How Agile can be applied in different contexts including personally.

    "There are things that you can also apply to your own life individually, you can stop and have a moment to reflect, even if you don't do it with a formal process".

    Links

    Today's guests:

    Farah Egby:

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/farah-egby/

    farah@tuntara.co.uk

    Cigdem Saka-Jackson:

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/%C3%A7i%C4%9Fdem-saka-jackson-7885a111/

    cigdemsaka@gmail.com

    To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter:

    Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/

    And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org

    IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales

    The Facilitation Stories Team

    Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/

    Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/
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    42 mins
  • FS 76 Chapter Chat with Andrew Spiteri EME Regional Director

    FS 76 Chapter Chat with Andrew Spiteri EME Regional Director
    Mar 25 2025

    In this episode Helene talks to Andrww Spiteri, Regional Director of the IAF Europe and Middle East Region.

    Andrew tells Helene about himself as a facilitator, the kind of work he does and his background with IAF.

    He became regional director at the start of the year and shares a bit about the work he has been involved in so far, his roles and responsibilities as director, and what he would like to see in future for the region and beyond.

    He tells us about the regional conference in Romania in November 2025 and about what he most loves about facilitation.

    You can contact Andrew at: rep.europe@iaf-world.org

    And Helene at helene@jewellfacilitation.com

    To contact the podcast team: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org
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    39 mins
  • FS 75 Race Ahead for Facilitators with Bianca Jones, Cat Duncan-Rees and Paul Brand

    FS 75 Race Ahead for Facilitators with Bianca Jones, Cat Duncan-Rees and Paul Brand
    Feb 18 2025
    In this episode Helene talks to Bianca Jones - Award Winning Mental Health & Anti-Racism Training Provider, MHFA England Associate and Founder & Managing Director of EDP Training, Paul Brand- Facilitator and Management Consultant, Director at Risk Solutions and IAF England and Wales board member and Cat Duncan-Rees- Facilitator and founder of Curators of Change and also an IAF England and Wales board member. She starts by asking Bianca to talk a bit about the work she does and what led her to develop EDP and the Race Ahead training She asks Cat and Paul about what led the IAF England and Wales Leadership Team to ask Bianca to deliver this training course online in October and about their key takeaways. Cat and Paul talk about the RA4F special thread at the IAF England and Wales conference Facilitate 2025 this year and where the idea came from? Bianca shares some examples of specific impact or changes she's seen in a facilitator's approach after attending Race Ahead Bianca gives some more details her session at the conference and the training course she is offering the day before. All the guests then talk about why a focus around racial equality at the conference is important and why active race awareness matters in facilitation and what anti-racism might look like for facilitators. The guests also talk about their hopes for longer term initiatives in teh facilitation communicty around anti-racism. To book onto the RA4F course on 24th April 2025: To book onto the Facilitate 2025 conference To contact Bianca - bianca@edptraining.co.uk To contact Cat - cat@curatorsofchange.com To contact Paul - paul.brand@risksol.co.uk To contact Helene: Helene@jewellfacilitation.com To contact the conference team: conference@iaf-englandwales.org Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helene Jewell, and today we're going to be talking to Bianca Jones, Cat Duncan-Rees and Paul Brand. Bianca is an award winning mental health and anti racism training provider, MHFA England associate and founder and managing director of EDP training. Paul is a facilitator and management consultant, Director at Risk Solutions and IAF England and Wales board member and Cat is also a facilitator, founder of curators of change, and also an IAF England and Wales board member. Welcome everybody. So nice to see you all. Okay, so we've got a little bit of introductory stuff out of the way. I am going to dive in with my questions, and my first one is to you, Bianca, tell us all. Tell us about the work that you do. B.J Oh, thank you so much. So I am Bianca Jones. I run a company based in Bristol called EDP training, which stands for Empower developed people, although we deliver training all over. We are eight years old, and we started by delivering Mental Health First Aid training. I retrained with Mental Health First Aid England, and through my work, I saw that there was massive inequalities in the workplace with black and brown people or racially minoritized individuals is the language that I will use, and I wanted to do something about it. So I started pulling together the race ahead suite of courses all around race, equity and allyship, to help people really understand what they're being an ally to. And that's been since 2020. We've been delivering our race ahead suite of anti racism and allyship courses . H.J Great, and what kind of people come to these race ahead training courses? B.J So first of all, anybody can sign up, because we have digital options as well, and anybody who's interested in kind of racial inequality. But we started focusing at corporate organisations, so mainly businesses, but I work with so many different types of organisations, small organisations to really, really large you know, with over 500 people, we work with charities as well, nonprofits, and we have lots of different options for if it's just an individual that wants to do some training, they can access our digital self-led options. And then we also have a train the trainer, because other trainers wanted to be able to train in this course and be able to deliver it as well. So we started that in 2022 in September, I believe. So we've currently got 15 other instructors out there that are delivering the race ahead suite of courses as well, but we tried to have lots of different options to make it accessible for anyone that wants to learn about this very important and vital subject. H.J Wow. So it's not just you. In fact, there's quite a large group of you then. B.J Absolutely taking over, spreading the message with the mission of race equity and allyship. H.J Fantastic. Okay, and I've met you before, along with some of the IAF leadership team, because you delivered your race ahead training course to us, didn't you? And so I'm going to turn to Kat and Paul now to just remind us, or ...
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    44 mins
  • FS74 Representation and Lego with Camilla Gordon

    FS74 Representation and Lego with Camilla Gordon
    Jan 21 2025
    In this episode Nikki talks to Camilla Gordon, a process facilitator , about representation in Lego and her new "Figiverse" project. They talk about How Camilla uses Lego Serious Play in facilitation The lack of representation within Lego 'I had people of colour seeing these more representative Lego pieces and had really emotional reactions to it, because people have never seen themselves in these pieces' 'It has become so normalised that particular identities don't get represented in different spaces' Improving representation and access to more diverse Lego pieces 'recognizing that these forms of representation shouldn't be separated from the more traditional Lego pieces, but actually should be a core part of those packs' Camilla's new "Figiverse" project including how it started and future plans A full transcript is below. Links: Today's guest: www.Camillagordon.co.uk www.Figiverse.co.uk To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter: Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team: Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript N.W Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name's Nikki Wilson, and today I'm going to be speaking to Camilla Gordon. So welcome, Camilla. To get us started would you like to tell us a little bit more about you and what you do. C.G Sure. So I am a freelance facilitator, and I'm a process facilitator. So focused on getting groups from A to B, I am what I would call sector agnostic. So work across a range of different sectors with lots of different clients and groups from unaccompanied children, refugees and asylum seekers all the way through to corporate boards, and part of my approach in doing that work is trying to facilitate processes that are more inclusive, kind of recognizing power dynamics and hierarchies and rooms. I'm really clear that I'm not a D&I facilitator. For me, that's just the core part of how I work, rather than it being a kind of defined piece. And so, yeah, I do lots of kinds of work, lots of different places, lots of different processes. N.W Great. And so the focus of today's conversation is Lego. So how and why do you use Lego in your work? C.G So I'm a Lego Serious Play facilitator, or what I usually like to say, I'm trained in Lego Serious Play. I say that because I use elements of Lego Serious Play in my work. But I'm not wedded to it in a strict way, in relationship to the process and how it works. I like to take bits and pieces of different methods and tools to make it work for the group, and so use Lego in a range of different ways within the different processes that I run from using Lego Serious Play in its most formal sense, but also using Lego as a tool to explore different parts of conversations and in different ways. N.W And so while you like to use some Lego, I believe you noticed there was something that you didn't like about it. So could you tell us a little bit more about that? C.G Yeah, definitely. I started using Lego Serious Play about seven years ago, and one of the first things I noticed was the lack of representation within Lego. I saw lots of yellow faces, I saw lots of yellow hands, but I didn't see any representation of black and brown heads and hands. I didn't see any representation of disabled people. I didn't see representation in many ways, in the Lego that I was using. Following on from that, I spent a lot of time looking for some of those pieces, looking for ways to bring representation into my kit, because the groups that I work with were because the groups that I work with are from a huge range of different backgrounds with a huge range of different identities. And on that journey, I realised part of the reason I didn't have that in my kit to begin with was because very little of it existed in the world. I ended up on Lego resale websites, talking to Lego dealers, and while there were a few representations of black and brown heads, a lot of them were double printed with happy and angry on either side. And I was very aware of the stereotypes and tropes that come along with racial stereotypes, and I didn't want to feature that in my kit. And in the end, I had to get them custom printed, so I bought a whole load of heads with the formal colour being reddish brown or medium Nougat, which is the term the colour definition from LEGO. I had to get them custom printed. And obviously, recognizing representation isn't just about racial representation. I also spent a lot of time looking for other identities that could be represented. And looked at things like...
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    22 mins
  • FS73 Reflections on being Chair of IAF England and Wales with Jane Clift

    FS73 Reflections on being Chair of IAF England and Wales with Jane Clift
    Nov 19 2024
    In this episode Helene talks to Jane Clift about her role as the Chair of IAF England and Wales. They talk about: How Jane got involved with the IAF and the facilitation community "the game changer for me was coming to my first IAF conference,I had never met so many people interested in facilitation" How Jane became the Chair of IAF England and Wales Highlights and challenges since becoming the Chair The importance of the IAF and community events "I think there's been a recognition in our chapter, in our community, we can all learn from each other." And future plans for both the IAF England and Wales chapter and Jane A full transcript is below. Links Today's guest: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-clift/ Email: chair@iaf-englandwales.org To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter: Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team: Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to facilitation stories brought to you by the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helen Jewell, and today I'm going to be talking to Jane Clift, consultant, coach and facilitator and Chair of IAF England and Wales. Welcome Jane. J.C Thank you very much, Helen. I'm very happy to be here. H.J So I've got lots of questions for you, mostly about your role as chair, but before we do that, it'd be really nice to hear a little bit more about you as a facilitator and the type of work that you do. J.C Very good opening question there. So I have facilitated in quite a wide range of contexts, and I think I was doing it before I knew it was called facilitation. So I'm currently have my own business, but I've also worked a great deal for organisations, originally in sort of technology and consulting roles. So I think I was setting up and running workshops well before I knew that there was a term called facilitator, or that facilitation was a thing. So I would say that my practice started very, very organically, very organically. It's H.J It's funny, if I listen back to all the different podcasts we've done, we've done, I would say that that kind of thing is a real thread through all of them that people have kind of come into facilitation accidentally, organically, or discovered that it is called facilitation after they began doing it in the first place. J.C Exactly, yeah, something that I've also, I've always really loved stationery and stationery shops, like I really, really enjoy going into rymans and places like that. So obviously, when you're working as a facilitator, you have got the best reason in the world to be stocking up on colourful stationery craft materials. So there's something about that aspect of it that I don't know, just I've always really, really liked that idea of bringing, like, colourful stationery or objects into the workplace and having a reason to use them. And that reason is facilitation. H.J I love it. That's a great reason. I am also a self confessed stationery nerd, so I totally, I'm totally on board with that. Is there a particular type of facilitation that you enjoy doing, or that you feel is your kind of forte? J.C So I've done a lot of facilitation around agreeing, like a strategy or a road map, or like, identifying things that are getting in the way. So one of the areas that I've actually facilitated on quite a lot is risk management, which is really an important topic if you're doing large scale programs or projects, which I've done quite a lot of in my career. So I actually really like that as a topic, whether you do that in person or online. I have done quite a lot of those workshops where you end up with a room covered in pieces of paper, covered in sticky, you know, in post its and so forth. But during lockdown, like many people, I became very adept at online facilitation, and that's probably the space that I've worked in the most over the last few years, and I, I really, really like that, and I'm amazed that it works, because you're connecting up people that can be all over the world, and you're just in this virtual space, and yet you can, you can make magic happen if you can facilitate it well, and I find that an incredible and unexpected gift that came out of lockdown. Having said that, there is nothing like the energy of being in a room with people. I also absolutely love that I had the great pleasure of being facilitated myself recently, large scale workshop, 30 of us in a room, all talking about something, and it was just so much fun. So I'm not sure I've really got a niche. I'm quite a versatile person, but I tend to be better with topics that are a ...
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    36 mins
  • FS 72 Working as an Internal Facilitator with Cath Brooks from the Environment Agency

    FS 72 Working as an Internal Facilitator with Cath Brooks from the Environment Agency
    Oct 15 2024
    In this episode Helene talks to Cath about her role as Senior Engagement Advisor and internal facilitator with the Environment Agency (EA) Cath tells Helene a bit about the EA and the type of work they do. She explains how her role as Engagement Advisor includes facilitation and also how she works an an independent internal facilitator for other projects withing the EA. Cath gives some examples of what she really enjoys about her role as a faciliator including working with the public on a climate adaptation project and working alongside external independent facilitators that the EA also use. She explains that external faciliatators are often used when more complex conversations need to be had, or where there has been a breakdown of trust and someone independent is needed. She shares some insights as to how the internal facilitators network of aroudn 200 facilitators was set up and how she balances her work as Senior Engagement Advisor and facilitator. She tells Helene about a role play technique that really made a difference and about how asking good questions are crucial to her work as a faciliator. Cath also talks about how she keeps her faciliation skills up including attending the IAF England and Wales conferences, and local IAF meetups and EA facilitator learning days. She also shares some advice for other internal facilitators. A full transcript is below. Today's Guest Environment Agency - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) facilitationnetworkmailbox@environment-agency.gov.uk To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helen Jewell, and my guest today is Cath Brooks, senior engagement advisor with the Environment Agency. Welcome, Cath C.B Hi, yeah. Hi. How are you doing? Alright? H.J I'm good. How are you? C.B Yeah, good. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for inviting me. I'm Looking forward to it. H.J It's really good to have you on the podcast. Okay, so I have a whole load of questions to ask you, starting with the Environment Agency. I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about what the Environment Agency does and what your role is? C.B Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I hope that it'll inspire people. I've worked at the Environment Agency for almost 20 years, and I still absolutely love it. It's a great organisation. So we're a public sector organisation, and we aim, quite simply, to protect and improve the environment. We employ about 12,000 people, and some people work nationally across England, and then some people work in area offices. We've got 14 different area offices across England, so you either work on national issues or you work on local issues in one of our area offices. And I guess to create places for people and wildlife, we work on quite a lot of topics that people are deeply concerned about, and finding ways forward can be difficult on some of the issues, people have strong opinions about the environment and how we should be managing the environment quite rightly. So Facilitation skills are really important in that context, with some of the really difficult issues that we're managing. So some of those topics are things like managing major industry, making sure they're not polluting the environment, and waste, dealing with contaminated land, making sure water quality of our rivers and we've got enough water so water resources as well, working on fisheries, conservation and ecology, and my area that I work on is management of flood risk. So those sorts of issues are really interesting, and people have strong opinions about how we should be managing those issues. So there can be quite a lot of conflict, I guess, which is why facilitation is so important. H.J And so then, obviously that's quite a broad even under the umbrella of the environment, that's quite a broad range of different areas, and in your particular area then, in your role as senior engagement advisor, what does that actually involve? Sort of before, obviously, I guess facilitation is part of that, but I know you also do it sort of separately as well. What does your main role? What does your main role involve? C.B Yeah, so we've got engagement advisors. Obviously, the organisation's quite technical organisation, quite science and engineering led, but we also have engagement and communications experts within the Environment Agency, and I'm one of those. So I work alongside quite technical teams, and at the ...
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    35 mins