Pre-Conference Workshops

Build confidence, self-awareness and practical skill for real-world facilitation. Designed for people who are asked to facilitate groups and want to do so with greater confidence, self-awareness and skill — this workshop focuses on real-world facilitation challenges, including tension, silence, strong personalities, competing views and complex group dynamics. You'll explore the facilitator's role, how to work with power in the room, and how to balance task, process and relationships.

• Greater confidence in real-world facilitation
• Practical tools for participation, dynamics and hot moments
• Clearer personal facilitation principles

Your facilitators

Nancy Nuñez

Nancy is a passionate, skilled facilitator with a deep commitment to harnessing the power of groups to drive meaningful change, working across community, First Nations, government and corporate settings in Australia and internationally — including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Her expertise spans conflict resolution, strategic planning, collaborative decision-making and community engagement, grounded in a belief that the best work happens when people bring their whole selves to the table.

Sarah Norton

Sarah Norton is an Associate at the Groupwork Centre, working as a facilitator and educator. Her style is lively, engaging and participatory, creating spaces where people feel heard and diverse perspectives are explored to find practical, wise ways forward. A committed practitioner of trauma-informed facilitation and an Assistant Director of Psychodrama, Sarah brings a grounded, compassionate presence built on more than 20 years' experience across environmental management, education and community consultation in the UK and Australia.

Science-backed insight for leadership, culture and performance. This workshop is for anyone who leads groups and wants to work at a more advanced level: reading what is happening in the brains in the room and choosing what to do about it. Sue draws on neuroscience, emotional intelligence and positive psychology to show why groups engage, decide and commit, and turns the science into practical behaviours, conversations and decisions you can use with your next group. This is an applied, science-backed learning experience focused on translating complex ideas into practical behaviours, conversations and outcomes.

• Frameworks for building positive, high-performing cultures
• Practical ways to strengthen emotional intelligence and wellbeing, for you and the groups you lead
• Sharper judgement in the moment, and the neuroscience to explain why it works

Your facilitator

Sue Langley

Sue Langley is the Founder and CEO of the Langley Group and creator of the world's first government-recognised Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing. A speaker, master trainer, global consultant and leading advisor on neuroscience, emotional intelligence and positive psychology at work, Sue holds a Master's degree in the Neuroscience of Leadership and has taught thousands of leaders across six continents to turn brain science into practical tools they can use immediately. She has led long-term culture projects with organisations including Oracle, Schneider Electric and Perpetual, and was the emotional intelligence expert on the ABC TV series Redesign My Brain (aired in the US as Hack My Brain).

🎙 Listen to the podcast episode with Sue →

Rather than simply learning new activities, the focus is really on learning how to facilitate those activities in ways that create meaningful learning and lasting outcomes.

Great experiential facilitators know that the activity is only the beginning. The real impact comes from how you frame the experience, sequence it for learning, and guide conversations that help people discover their own insights. In this highly interactive workshop, you'll experience powerful activities, then step behind the curtain to learn exactly how and why they work. You'll leave with practical tools, ready-to-use activities, and the confidence to facilitate meaningful learning in any setting.

Many facilitators leave conferences with pages of new activities. Few leave knowing when to use them, how to introduce them, or how to debrief them so participants leave with meaningful insights and practical takeaways. In this workshop, you'll learn the facilitation skills that transform activities into memorable learning experiences.

Whether you're new to experiential learning or already use activities in your practice, you'll leave with practical techniques you can apply immediately in workshops, meetings, leadership programs, and team development sessions.

• A toolkit of 20+ ready-to-use activities
• Stronger confidence facilitating off-script
• Clear design principles for experiential learning

Your facilitator

Michelle Cummings

Michelle Cummings, M.S., is the Big Wheel and founder of Training Wheels, a known leader in the team building field, and Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer for Personify Leadership, a global leadership development course. An accomplished author and sought-after speaker and consultant in leadership, team building and experiential learning, Michelle has created a wide variety of facilitation, debriefing and team building activities that have collectively changed the way trainers and educators work — one of North America's most sought-after experiential facilitators.

🎙 Listen to the podcast episode with Michelle →