The Best Laid Plans

This weeks suggested topic hits close to home with my group. Over the past weeks I have been trying to figure out the right balance between planning and facilitating a conversation. I usually prefer to facilitate an improvised conversation with minimal planning. however, in the last 2 weeks I have found that my lack of planning leads to a tinge of awkwardness in the conversation and a lot of silence.

This week I did zero planning for my facilitation. Our group had decided to hold this weeks meeting at the Arb and I thought I could just create conversation around the nature of the Arb. We talked about the Arb for about 10 minutes then the conversation spiraled into silence. I then suggested that we walk from the top of the Arb down to the river and back up. On the walk the group naturally broke up into small groups which was great, however, the problem was when we reached the river in the arb and everyone stopped the conversations stopped. I tried to start the conversations up by asking questions but the conversations kept dying out. I felt the need to kickstart the conversations with a funny story related to the topic, but then I just find myself talking more than everyone else which should not be happening. I believe that in order for me to talk less I need to create a more organized conversation session by planning out questions and activities ahead of time.