Gillian Jones, director of Artsinspire, works collaboratively using advanced group facilitation skills and experiential methods.  Her practice is guided by confidence in and support of the inherent value of each individual and the collective wisdom of the group.

Gillian has postgraduate qualifications in Education, Advanced Group Facilitation, Frontline Management, Japanese Language and Culture, and Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy. She was director of a private cross-cultural educational exchange organization for 18 years and has taught Japanese Language and Business Culture at RMIT. Gillian also manages Japanese traditional drummers for team building and performances and leads small scale, special interest tours to Japan.

Gillian often works in collaboration with the following consultants and draws on their depth of skills and experience in areas of community engagement, leadership, project management and board governance.

Kay Gravell of Create Change, Kimbra White of Thorne Partners, and Daryl Cook

Recent workshops and feedback
Country representatives meeting: Oxfam Australia
A 4-day meeting of team building and workshops on organizational and strategic issues for country representatives from Southern Africa, the Pacific and South East Asia and head office staff at Oxfam Australia headquarters
 “The steering committee, country representatives, and wider organisation involved really appreciated your dedication, enthusiasm and commitment to the process, and the smooth running of the program was largely due to your facilitation.  Thank you once again” Krissy Nicholson, International Learning and Development Adviser, Oxfam Australia

Strategic Planning, team building  and visioning: Oxfam Australia IT department
A 2-day planning session to review the way the team works and create a new work plan
(Co-facilitation with Kimbra White of Thorne Partners)
“Particularly valuable were the sessions around identifying problem areas with our ways of working and coming to some agreements about how best to resolve these issues with new ways of working. An example of how well this went was when two of my team that had not been getting on, told me at the end, they had resolved a lot of differences and were now good friends. Just the fact that they now have respect for each others opinions and can get on with the work at hand was a great outcome for me. I thought the format of having interchanging facilitation brought a great dynamic to the way in which the sessions ran. It kept the energy going throughout. Two days of planning can lead to some lack lustre moments when it’s a single person up front leading for the entire two days so I thought the dynamic of two people was great.” Grant Holton-Picard, IT Manager, Oxfam Australia

Good Governance and Visioning:  Women’s Health Grampians Board
A two-day workshop to inform board members about their legal and financial responsibilities, roles and expectations, strengths of board members, and objectives and vision of the organization  (Co-facilitation with Kay Gravell of Create Change)
“Gill and Kay created a pleasant, focused and supportive space which fostered great interaction and engagement between board members, thereby fulfilling our objectives. Patty Kinnersley, CEO Women’s Health Grampians

Cross-cultural Communication :  NEC Australia
A one-day workshop, including a one-hour Japanese drumming workshop, to experientially extend understanding of and competence in communicating with Japanese in a business environment
 “I greatly appreciate your efforts in preparing such a nice training for us. I enjoyed your training session last week very much.  Although I have been dealing with our Japanese team for quite some years, your course materials provided a good summary. It also confirmed and extended my understanding of the Japanese culture and their work behavior.  Hope that more of our team members could participate in such a course in the near future.” David H 3G Department NEC