Robert Romoff

HDF 413

Co-Facilitation Experience

As a part of the Student Organization Leadership Consultants (SOLC), I had to co-

facilitate a retreat. After shadowing a retreat and facilitating an energizer at a SOLC meeting I

signed up to facilitate a retreat. I was ready to continue my journey of becoming a leader and a

facilitator. The China Pre-Departure Orientation reached out to SOLC to have a small retreat

during their meeting. They are a group of students that are going to be a part of an

international program and will be traveling abroad together. They asked SOLC to help have the

group of 11 students and 2 staff members get to know each other more. The goal of the retreat

was ice breaker and getting to know each other’s names.

The program was led by two other facilitators and me. We each had a single initiative to

lead and had 30 minutes to work with the group to get through. We planned to have the first

two be name games and the last initiative to be a fun end off the retreat game. The first name

game was “you me, me you”. I felt that this was a great way to start a retreat like this. It

allowed for all the members of the group to interact with one another and to learn each other’s

names. This also got everyone moving around acting as an energizer at the same time.

I led the second initiative/name game. I took the name game “circle name” and created

a new variation of it to better associate to the goals of the group that we were working for. In

this new variation I had where person A would say the name of a person B and then start
walking towards person B. Person B would then say attempt to find another person, a person C

and say their name and start walking to person C before Person A had gotten to them. This

would continue until someone got caught unable to think of someone’s name to say. I started it

off with a practice round for everyone to get a feel of the game and then got into a competitive

round. Not many of the members of the group got eliminated and were very successful at the

game. By having the first name be a name game that had all the members interact with on and

other it allowed for the second game to be implemented successfully. The third initiative was a

fun game to finish off the evening with the group, it was “honey do you love me”.

The retreat went well. The group seemed to have already been in the same class

together throughout the semester and already know everyone’s name. this might have made

our name games a little uninteresting to the group as they already knew each other. For the

second name game during the competitive round only one person from the group was

eliminated throughout the duration of the game. This was due to how well they knew each

other’s names defeating some of the purpose of having a game like that one. Also, it seemed

that only one of the staff persons was involved with the group and the other member was

setting up for later, having that member not be involved in the retreat at all. The facilitators

worked very well together and made good use of the time and small amount of space that was

provided for the retreat.

My characteristic strengths allowed me to work as a facilitator with the ability to work in

different situations. My strength of futuristic allows for me to plan out for how an event will

play out. This also helps that I think of the words that I am going to use before I use them and

ensure that my vocabulary is inclusive in what and who I am saying it to. By foreseeing what I
am going to do I am able to execute my actions with confidence. My strength of command

allows me to take charge of a situation comfortably and to direct. After my explanation of my

initiative was not perceived correctly by the group and they started to enact the game

incorrectly I used command to take charge of the situation and correct my previous mistakes.

With my strength of positivity, I kept a smile on my face and enthusiastic about the tasks. I

brought a positive energy that made it feel like I wanted to be there and to help facilitate the

group that I did.

As being a part of SOLC and facilitating a retreat I am helping the community. The

Servant Leadership theory revolves around the ability of an individual to help a community of people

without intruding on their way of life. You, as a servant leader are there to serve, not to fix. Being a

facilitator is to enact this leadership theory. We are at the service of the organizations that come to us, and

if there is an underlying problem that is the cause of them coming to us it is the groups that resolve it within

themselves with us just serving as a guidance towards this.

I learned during this facilitation how to prepare going into a retreat with others to create a retreat

that flows well. With the new knowledge that I gained from facilitating I hope to continue facilitating other

groups in the future. Facilitating was a large step in my journey as a leader but a larger step forward would

be to continue with facilitating and improve with every retreat that I facilitate.
SOLC AGENDA: China Pre-Departure Orientation

Lead: Ryan Heck

Facilitators: RZ, RR
Date: 11/12/19

Time: 6PM-6:30PM

Location: Hoffman Room of Swan Hall

Group: China Pre-Departure Orientation

Contact Info: na

Number of people:13

Goals: getting to know you

6:00pm Group Arrival

6:01pm Intros

6:03pm Group opening (RH)

6:05pm You Me, Me You (RH)

6:13pm Name Circle (RR)

6:20pm Honey Do You Love Me (RZ)

6:28pm Closing
6:30pm Group Depart