I recently facilitated a day long planning session for the Beverly Vermont Community Land Trust, an organization working to exercise land stewardship as the basis for creating pedestrian-centered neighborhoods that emphasize sustainability-oriented affordable housing.

We had an especially productive retreat.  As a facilitator, I helped create a space for the Board of Directors to decide their organization's long-term goals, short-term goals and the beginnings of a 2009/10 workplan. 

At the end of the retreat, one of the participants shared a list she had been making throughout the day of “Ronisms”: little things I said to encourage the group as they made tough decisions throughout the day. 

Here are some of the things I said:  “Nice”, “Excellent”, “Good work”, “Awesome”, “That’s Great”, “Huge”, “Amazing”, “Lets Rock and Roll”, “Give yourselves a hand of applause”, “You folks have chosen well” and “We have less than 40 minutes people”.

I laughed as I heard this list and was reminded that part of my work as a facilitator is to help ensure full group participation in the decision making process, which is done in part by encouraging and affirming participation throughout the process.  By the end of the day, everyone was very happy with the results of their hard work and thanked me for my hard work as a facilitator.