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Case study: facilitating a “kitchen table conversation”

Who:The Relationships Project, for their event in Birmingham on 12th July 2024, about “Changing our Permissions“.

The brief:Facilitate a “kitchen table conversation” with 4 contributors from different backgrounds, to discuss how they came to do what they do, the permissions they had / didn’t have, and how they navigated this. They brought a range of statutory, third sector, statutory X third sector, and ex-statutory-now-third-sector perspectives. The aim was to provide some inspiration and thinking points for about 100 participants, near the start of the day.

What I did (before): Briefing meetings with the Relationships Project team; background reading and research; drafted questions and prompts; pre-meeting with contributors; sent out briefing notes.

What happened (on the day): We had some minor tech issues with mic feedback (we had one wired mic for the group), so after the round of introductions I reorganised our layout from a row of high stools too close to the (audio) speakers, to an informal group standing near the front of the stage, with contributors stepping in and out fluidly. The content flowed very naturally, with great contributions which made my role very easy in picking the next prompt!


Visual from the Relationships Project website representing layers of permissions and enabling factors, with people interacting at different levels.

Credit: Relationships Project