AP presents Westminster work at European Network conference

Appreciative Inquiry; The Work

Participants on the Westminster residential create their dream maps...

Appreciating People has now finished its residential course with staff and residents from Westminster Council’s hostels, and director Suzanne Quinney will present a talk about the sessions at this month’s European Network conference in Manchester. The conference, which starts on Wednesday 2 November, will see more than 80 Appreciative Inquiry practitioners from all over Europe converge on Manchester for the Awakening within, awakening without-themed meeting.

AP staff followed up two-and-a-half days of training sessions – which included training staff and residents from nine hostels in Appreciative Inquiry and The Work of Byron Katie, and helping them develop practical applications of what they’ve learned – by taking 20 staff and residents on a three day residential course at a youth hostel in north London.

 

When asked about the three things they’d most enjoyed on the course, answers included:

  • togetherness of the group; truth; understanding
  • visions; group work; meeting other guys from other hostels
  • the discussions; group activities; group interaction
  • meeting new people; learning to speak in public and not worrying about it; even staff are human and have problems
  • listening to others; Byron Katie; the whole programme
  • being able to share with other people; learning that I’m not alone in the way my life has gone; that the staff are just the same as me
  • meeting new people; having a vision; discussion
  • meeting new people; talking about how I felt; and the feedback
  • looking at myself; challenging my thinking; watching others doing the same
  • the Byron Katie videos; group work; team building
  • being away from London; new people; learning more about AI
  • the tranquility of this place; sharing visions as a group; tools I can use for the appreciative journal

One hostel staff member, who saw the residents return from their three-day residential, said participants were ‘glowing’ on their return to the hostel, and commented on how ‘all of the guys themselves have been raving about how great it was!’