Author Archives: orlaadmin
Jul
Spirit of Fairbridge
This week, for a change, I had a glorious opportunity to assist with delivery of an intervention, as a volunteer watchleader on Spirit of Fairbridge, the Prince’s Trust 92’ sail training schooner. The Fairbridge programme works with young people aged 13-25, helping them to develop the motivation, self confidence and skills they need to change their lives. It was a real privilege to blast down the Irish Sea, working alongside such talented professionals and motivated and valiant young people.
Jul
Final evaluation of TimeBank’s Shoulder to Shoulder project
Despite the best efforts of a disruptive mouse, I presented the final evaluation of TimeBank’s Shoulder to Shoulder project in the Houses of Parliament today. The evaluation demonstrated that the project does create tangible change in the lives of ex service men and women. The team have lots of ideas underway for the next generation of this successful mentoring model. The final report is available here – without mouseprints!
Jun
Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society
Orla Cronin has been a chartered psychologist (C. Psychol) for over a decade. She has now been granted the title Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, an award which acknowledges experience, competence and reputation in the field of psychology. This award is based on her work as a research psychologist in both the private sector, and, in recent years, in the area of monitoring, evaluation, research and learning in charities and NGOs, acknowledging her work in theoretical and applied research, method development, teaching, and knowledge brokering.
May
Group facilitation methods training
There are still places available on ICA:UK’s Group Facilitation Methods (Technology of Participation approach) training course in London on June 12-13. Further information and enrolment is through register through the website www.ica-uk.org.uk or call 0161 232 8444. Please mention Orla Cronin Research when booking.
May
Effective virtual meetings and workshops
Today was a real milestone for OCR. Thanks to wonderful training provided by the ToP Bootcamp provided by Sheila Cooke and Esther Mae Cox, we have just run our first large scale virtual workshop across 3 continents.
We now offer virtual workshop facilitation as part of OCR’s offering to clients around the world. This approach brings many benefits, including, of course, the opportunity to increase participation of staff or stakeholders, time savings as a result of reducing national and international travel time, and reduction in your carbon footprint. One of the reasons I personally am so excited is that it feels like real progress in aligning OCR’s activities with my own core values. Though it’s always wonderful to work with clients in their home base, I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the personal, organisational and environmental costs of long haul travel.
Today’s meeting (involving senior staff at a large NGO) took place with 12 individuals sitting in Germany, UK, South Africa, Brazil and the US. It ran for 3 hours and we made substantial progress on a strategic task we had started during a 2 day face to face meeting in Berlin. The team found the experience interesting and productive. We even had an opportunity for some banter!
We’ll post some FAQ soon in relation to virtual workshops. In the meantime, do get in touch if you’d like to discuss possibilities for your organisation.
Tagged | virtual facilitation
Feb
Monitoring and evaluation toolkit for information literacy training
The first iteration of the BLDS Information Literacy M&E toolkit has been released. The toolkit is based on research commissioned by the information literacy training programme of the British Library for Development Studies (BLDS) at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
This toolkit is the product of a consultative workshop held in Centurion, South Africa in February 2012 with participants ABC Project Kenya, Aga Khan University Kenya, University of Botswana, Ethiopian AIDS Resource Centre, the Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) (South Africa), University of Johannesburg, Knowledge Leadership Associates, University of Malawi and Savana Signatures (Ghana).
We were delighted to collaborate with the wider participants, the BLDS, the Research Information Network and Loughborough University in producing the current version.
Nov
Facilitation Training
We’re delighted to announce that OCR is now a licensed provider of facilitation training based on methodology developed by ICA:UK. In partnership with ICA:UK, we deliver training in Focused Conversation™ and Consensus Workshop™ (the ‘Technology of Participation™’) methodology to corporate, public sector, voluntary sector and NGO clients in the UK and overseas. Courses can be run in house, or alternatively we can assist you in recruiting enough trainees to make a course viable. More information on available courses here. Please contact OCR to discuss your requirements.
