Workshops

Our workshops are designed for individuals, groups and organisations

We offer a wide range of workshops and short courses in storytelling, as well as coaching in oral communication and effective expression (oral and written), relevant to the fields of education and heritage interpretation, corporate improvement, and personal development. We arrange these under two main programmes: oral storytelling and creative writing; narrative practice in corporate contexts.

Our workshops and courses are tailored to meet individual clients' needs and are facilitated by those members of our team best suited to the requirements of specific engagements. Below are summaries of a selection of the workshops and courses we offer. For talks and other bespoke narrative and creative consultancy services offered by particular members of our team, see their individual websites.

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Oral Storytelling and Creative Writing

Introductory courses in storytelling

Techniques to start you off as an oral storyteller, including practising approaches to memorising, visualising and recounting stories as well as introducing you to an illustrative range of different types of traditional tales.

Developing oral narrative technique

Finding your own voice as an oral storyteller and improving your ability to perform in a range of settings, including examining story-making as well as story-telling techniques and the importance of acknowledging and respecting the cultural context of different narrative traditions.

Heritage interpretation

Story-making and story-telling techniques relevant to human history and archaeology, exploring imaginative pathways for bringing the past to life through the creative use of story in relation to people, places, objects and events.

Ecology and the environment

Story-making and story-telling techniques relevant to nature, non-human species and the wild, from woodlands to wetlands and from hilltops to coastlines, exploring ways to elicit empathy for that which is other than ourselves.

Creative writing

Advice and guidance, including assistance with creative thinking techniques, editorial critique and supportive networking, to help you nurture your ideas, evolve your style and publish your work.

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Narrative Practice in Corporate Contexts

Respectful communication

Communicating in formal or semi-formal situations in a manner that authentically represents who you are and the values you hold, and at the same time in a way that respects the listener or member of the audience as an autonomous thinking and feeling person.

Meaningful journey

Understanding and respecting the diversity of stories and narratives present within a particular corporate context, and creating a 'signature' story or 'core' narrative and assessing its desirability in that corporate context.

Learning from ecology

Exploring ways to promote sustained survival and resilience in the face of change, and encouraging awareness of the opportunities to thrive in challenging times.

Transformative stillness

Opening a pool of reflective stillness in the midst of routine and urgent activity within which the possibility of new ways of being and doing can emerge, and appreciating the benefits of being comfortable with uncertainty and with complexity in order to move forward purposefully and with impact.

Imagining the future

Understanding, through story, the lived experience and needs of those or of that which is other to oneself, and using narrative to plot pathways into the future that optimally mediate conflicts of need and desire.