Facilitator on a bike

Ron, my friend and neighbor, asked me to post this blog entry that he wrote, see the original post here:

A good facilitator brings some important materials to a meeting including an easel, markers, a small clock and most challenging of all to carry on a bicycle, a full sized posterboard to scribe notes to capture everyone’s good thoughts. Up until now, I have always asked clients to bring the posterboard because it was too challenging to secure on my small bike rack.

For a recent peer learning session I led for the Liberty Hill Foundation, one of the leading funders of social change movements in Los Angeles, I decided I would incorporate a little social change in my own lifestyle and bring everything to the training by bicycle.  Knowing I couldn’t fit everyone on my existing bike, I remembered one of my neighbors here at the LA Eco-Village has an XtraCycle I could borrow, which is a bicycle trailer device designed to carry heavy loads.

I’m excited to report that I successfully carried the following items on one bicycle: that big posterboard, an easel, markers, handouts, my laptop computer and three bags of groceries that fed an impressive group of 15 leaders working on social change here in Los Angeles.  I really enjoyed the ride and the discussion that followed it.

Now that I know it can easily be done, I look forward to hauling all of my facilitation tools on bike to future trainings, retreats and meetings. While I can’t confirm it, I just might be able to say I’m the only bicycling facilitator in Los Angeles! If you need a facilitator or want to know more about what a facilitator does, check out my website.

See you on the streets of Los Angeles and remember that you can always carry more stuff on a bicycle than you think you can.

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