I presented a workshop entitled Creating Dialogue; Turning the Words we use into Action for the Hastings and District Interfaith Forum on Saturday 13th March. Twenty people attended this introductory skill-building workshop, forum members and others, and they really engaged with the subject. As ever with a half-day event, comments from the group said it was too little time to do justice to the topic. Still, people said they took away a new understanding, and felt that they had new skills they could start to use. I’d like to thank everyone who attended; I was very impressed by the level of engagement and the quality of discussion and debate.
I started planning this workshop after I attended a conference in Hastings last year where dialogue was talked about but nothing was said about how to do it. This dialogue workshop confirmed that there is wide interest, and building on this there are plans to run another event in three months. The topic has yet to be decided, but from discussions we had at the workshop it looks as if Managing Conflict would be popular.
Tim Miller, Chair of the Hastings Interfaith Forum said: “After Barry’s short talk on ‘Dialogue’ to our Interfaith Forum last year we were eager to invite him back so that we could explore how the Forum could manage dialogue which could constructively face points of real difference between faiths. Barry’s half day workshop started us on the course to discover how to listen with full attention and offer support as a reflective team. Participants are looking forward to build on this beginning through future events.”
Very interesting afternoon but I wished my friend,another HIFF member, could have been there. She is a counsellor and what we learnt would have been more USEFUL to her than me. Hopefully we shall BOTH be at your next session.
Thank you for your comment. The next session will be on 22nd May, the working title is ‘Conflict and Bridge Building’. Please tell your friend, see you there.