OPTION 1 - DEMO DAY

Story Circles Demo Workshop (one day, 6 hours, multiple groups of 5 participants) This event consists usually of a 2 hour lecture/discussion from Randy Olson, then a 3 hour session in which a single hour Story Circles Training session is expanded to allow group discussion and exploration of how Story Circles works. We ran this at University of Wisconsin with 35 biologists from US Fish and Widlife. Everyone left with a clear idea of what the full training would involve, with most participants wanting more.

OPTION 2 - FULL TRAINING

Story Circles Full Training (10 one hour sessions, one group of 5 participants) This is the full ten hour training that was run with our prototype groups. The participants can either get their orientation by attending a Demo Day, or we provide the two hour orientation in person. Participants are given kits that include an 80 page workbook. The hour sessions are tightly structured around a cueing video that prompts the group every three to five minutes as they move through the set “workout.” The focus is not on teaching large amounts of material, only on taking a small amount of material (the narrative tools) and using it repeatedly. The groups can meet either in person (LOCAL) or via teleconference (REMOTE). Our experiences so far with USDA suggest there’s very little difference in the effectiveness.