Category Archives: Blog Post
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.
Jul
Sports stars as role models or mentors?
A provocative recent article from Armour and Duncombe highlighting the conceptual confusion between role models and mentors. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13573322.2011.608941
Apr
Sport & Development Monitoring & Evaluation Symposium
Looking forward to presenting at the Symposium on Sport & Development Monitoring & Evaluation tomorrow at Southampton Solent University. The associated reference list is available here.
Mar
M&E Moving the Goalposts
Our work for Moving the Goalposts Kilifi, funded by Laureus, was presented at UK Sports Next Step Conference. See a conference summary here and the communique with affirmations, requests and recommendations here.
Feb
Monitoring & evaluation of information literacy interventions
Took part in a delightful and stimulating M&E workshop organised by the Research Information Network on behalf of the British Library for Development studies in Centurion, South Africa. Interesting to see how M&E challenges transfer across different development sectors. Report on the progress developing an M&E toolkit for information literacy, and further details about the initiative, available here.
Feb
Research paper published
Our research paper reporting quantitative evidence for the benefits of the Moving the Goalposts programme, has been published in Evaluation and Program Planning. The research shows that members attending activities at longer established MTG leaguefields in the programme experience greater benefits in terms of positive thoughts and feelings, and that members at fields in the rural areas benefit as much from the programme as those who are near head office.
The full reference for the paper is: Woodcock, A., Cronin, Ó., Forde, S. (2012). Quantitative evidence for the benefits of Moving the Goalposts, a Sport for Development project in rural Kenya,Evaluation and Program Planning, 35(3). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014971891200002X
Feb
Quantitative data analysis training
Quantitative data analysis can be fun (and the flow of insights is induced by prodigious quantities of chocolate biscuits!) Deliciously nerdy day training/coaching the Rugby Football Foundation monitoring and evaluation team in quantitative data analysis. Elegant baseline data: itching to see the results from their follow-up survey.
Dec
Volunteer mentoring helps young adults recovering from mental illness
Our evaluation of TimeBank’s Back to Life volunteer mentoring programme for young adults indicates that this is a very valuable bridge back into society for young adults moving on formal mental health services. Read the report here.