Liberating Structures
Immersion Workshop
Alt Hotel, Downtown Ottawa 🇨🇦
One or two days of practical learning and connection with peers to bring more participation, ease, and genuine engagement into the way you facilitate, teach, lead, and work with groups.
November 2nd & 3rd from 9:00am to 4:30pm
If you believe that better conversations lead to better outcomes and you are ready to make that real in practice, you will feel at home here.
This Immersion is for people who:
✅ Work in schools, community initiatives, organizations, or collectives engaging with complex human and social challenges.
✅ Want to turn meetings and gatherings into spaces for genuine connection and action forward.
✅ Sense that traditional ways of leading and making decisions no longer serve the realities they face, and know there are other possibilities worth exploring.
✅ Are looking for simple, practical ways to engage diverse groups with clarity and intention.
✅ Have previous experience with Liberating Structures, or are new to them, and want to deepen their practice or begin in the most meaningful way, through live practice and learning together.
✅ Are seeking more inclusive ways to engage with important and sometimes difficult conversations.
✅ Are not interested in yet another method, but in a practical foundation for acting with intention in uncertain times.
Liberating Structures? Immersion?...
Liberating Structures are a set of simple, practical ways to structure conversations and group work so participation is widely shared, more voices are included, listening is valued, and collective intelligence is activated.
They are accessible tools that can meaningfully transform workplace meetings, classrooms, boards, trainings, assemblies, dialogue circles, collectives, and community projects.
The Immersion is an invitation to genuinely experience a different way of meeting, conversing, learning, and making decisions together.
DAY 1 • Experience the Foundations
An introduction to Liberating Structures.
Through practical experience and reflection, you will explore how small changes in the way we structure conversations can dramatically change participation, connection, and what becomes possible in a group.
Along the way, we will unpack the Design Elements behind each Structure and explore the Principles that make Liberating Structures more than simply a collection of facilitation techniques.
You will leave with practical Structures you can begin using right away, and a foundation for continuing to explore and learn on your own.
You can register for Day 1 as a complete experience, or continue with us into Day 2.
DAY 2 • Deepen, Connect & Design
Expand what becomes possible with LS.
On the second day, we will experience additional Liberating Structures, widening your repertoire while going further into the practice.
Most importantly, we will begin exploring one of the most powerful dimensions of Liberating Structures: Stringing. Combining different Structures intentionally so they work together toward more complex objectives.
Rather than asking only, “Which Liberating Structure should I use?”, you will begin exploring a richer design question:
“How might I combine Structures to support this group move from where they are to where they want to go?”
Join us in creating spaces where knowledge emerges through shared experience, where practice is grounded in presence and purpose, and where change begins with what we can already do, here and now.
Where We Will Gather
Our experience will take place at Alt Hotel Ottawa, in the heart of downtown Ottawa.
Alt Hotel Ottawa Downtown is a true landmark in the city’s newly revitalized downtown business district. A draw for both business and leisure travellers, the hotel is conveniently surrounded by shops, restaurants, and boutiques, and within walking distance of Parliament Hill, Elgin Street, and the ByWard Market.
Alt Hotel Ottawa
Downtown Ottawa • Ontario 🇨🇦
Liberating Structures
Immersion Workshop
November 2nd & 3rd • from 9:00am to 4:30pm
Alt Hotel Ottawa • Downtown, Ottawa 🇨🇦
Choose Your Experience
Whether you join us for the introductory day or the complete Immersion, Day 1 is designed as a rich and complete learning experience in itself.
If you are ready to go further, stay for Day 2 and expand your repertoire while beginning to string Liberating Structures for more complex purposes.
🌱 1-Day Regular
CAD$ 650
after October 2nd
🌱 2-Day Regular
CAD$ 1,050
after October 2nd
Your registration for the Immersion includes:
☕ Welcome Coffee, 🍽️ Lunch & Afternoon Snack 🍪 🥐
📝 A Workbook with all LS to support your learning experience
🃏 A Deck of the Liberating Structures Design Cards for visualizing Strings
🖥️ 1-Year Access to our online learning platform with additional resources and materials
✳️ We know that this is often a personal investment, and we take care to ensure the experience is truly worth it.
Throughout the Immersion, you will:
✅ Build practical familiarity with a dozen Liberating Structures you can use right away.
✅ Understand the key micro design-elements that shape conversations and support meaningful outcomes.
✅ Explore the Principles that underpin the practice of Liberating Structures.
✅ Recognize the value of combining multiple Structures to achieve complex goals.
✅ Gain access to a wide range of additional resources and supports related to Liberating Structures.
The Design Team
Fernando Murray, Carolina Almeida, Nora Sheffe and Kate Vercheval form the Design Team for this experience, bringing together decades of professional facilitation practice, a deep commitment to the field, and a shared curiosity about what else is possible when people gather and work together.
Fernando and Carolina, from Flow Ahead, have been weaving Liberating Structures into their facilitation practice since 2015. They have led more than 75 Immersions across Canada, the USA, Brazil, and Portugal, supporting more than 2,000 practitioners while contributing to the wider LS community through translation, publishing, mentoring, and facilitator development.
Nora and Kate, from Sheffe Consulting, bring strong roots in Ottawa and extensive experience designing and facilitating meaningful conversations across organizations and communities. Their connection to the local facilitation community helps ground this Immersion in the people, relationships, and practice already alive in the region.
What connects Flow Ahead and Sheffe Consulting goes beyond this workshop. We share a belief that facilitation is a practice that is never finished: it grows through continuous learning, experimentation, self-development, and community. As active members of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), we also share a commitment to contributing to the field, not only through our professional work, but by helping build communities where facilitators can learn with and from one another.
Together, this Design Team hopes to spread the practice of Liberating Structures, strengthen the local facilitation community, and create opportunities for both new and seasoned facilitators to keep exploring the edges of their practice.
Robin Neidorf
Strategy, operations, and ROI for communities, foundations, and organizations
Over the past 15 years, I've probably led thousands of online meetings, workshops and discussions. But the session I ran last night - the first one since I participated in Virtual Facilitation's 5-week workshop - was 100x better. I was better prepared, used the tools more fluidly and effectively, and achieved a high level of engagement like never before.
The virtual facilitation team were the very definition of "best practice" in pacing the program well, connecting the participants into a learning cohort, and fun.
Matthew Smith
Manager, Research Infrastructure and Operations - Advanced Research Computing at The University of British Columbia
The mentorship that we at UBC ARC received from Flow Ahead was pivotal in our journey to work more collaboratively. We used their 1:1 mentoring to co-create our team strategic planning retreat. Their deep experience with Liberating Structures, paired with the effort they put into understanding our goals, enabled us to design an event that both met our business needs and energized the team. We would not have been able to achieve this without them.
Elspeth Timmans
Blended, distance and e-learning architect / instructional designer
As an instructional design consultant working in a small business, it can feel like there’s no one in the world who understands what you do or how you look at the world! Luckily for me I was introduced to Fernando back in 2020 and since then he has been a sounding board and partner in design – helping me to see through the fog of detail and overwhelm of trying to communicate complexity with both clients and their students.
Having access to someone who can step back and look at the whole process and design challenge has been invaluable to me. Being able to call on a colleague for brainstorming, testing ideas and helping to visualise how sessions will hang together is something I would recommend to anyone who feels lost or alone in the design world!
Cláudia Mendes Bento
EPE – Information Technology Division
I took part in the individual mentorship led by Carolina, and I consider it to have been an extremely enriching experience.
Leaders often focus their attention on the needs of their teams and end up placing their own needs in the background. The mentorship offers a safe and well-structured space to reflect on how we feel about the corporate environment and about our relationships with both leaders and team members, after all, we constantly move between these roles.
Using Liberating Structures to support the process, both in communication and in addressing challenges, proved to be particularly useful and effective. By the end of the cycle, I experienced tangible progress and a strong sense of well-being. I highly recommend this experience to leaders, as taking time to care for ourselves is essential to leading with greater balance, clarity, and purpose.
Jaime Schettini
Consultant, Facilitator, and Coach
The facilitation mentorship with Fernando was essential in helping me unlock the design of a complex offsite with a large group. I felt much clearer and more confident applying new structures, especially knowing that they had tested them many times over (really, many times!).
I highly recommend it to anyone facing challenges in designing meetings and wanting to accelerate their growth as a facilitator. It feels as if Fernando and Carol are lending you, for a time, their decades of facilitation experience.
Elayna Alexandra
MBA, ACC - Coach, Strategist + Facilitator
Virtual Facilitation was the best hands-on training I have participated in a very long time if not ever. Before this learning, I knew a little bit about zoom but really didn't have a strong grasp of how to make the most of online meetings.
Now I feel I can confidently facilitate even complex events, trainings, workshops or webinars!
Maria Fernanda Arraes
Project Manager and Learning Facilitator
The 1:1 mentorship was a very valuable space for professional exchange and an excellent opportunity to reflect on my practice.
During these sessions, I was able to pause and take a closer look at the work I was already doing, refine the agendas of events I was designing, and clarify questions around some of the Liberating Structures methods. This helped me define my strings (sequences) more clearly. It felt like a continuation of the Liberating Structures Immersion I attended in Brasília, deepening my learning and strengthening my practice.
I would recommend this mentorship to any professional who is willing to commit fully to examining their work and refining it with clarity and intention.
Angus Graeme
Former President & CEO at Selkirk College
I had the opportunity to participate in a day long strategic visioning and teambuilding workshop facilitated by Ms. Almeida and Mr. Loureiro. They developed and delivered a very innovative and effective workshop for Faculty and Administration creating a shared vision, strengthening relationships and improving communication.
Susan Radojevic
Founder, KADIMA village | CEO, Stijak Corporation Ltd.
We were looking for support with interactive technology for an approach we designed to help leaders see how their thinking is shaping decisions when the climate keeps changing the rules, and Flow Ahead stood out right away.
Working with Fernando was uber easy and genuinely supportive. If I may, his blend of thoughtful insight and practical technology is exactly why I would happily recommend Flow Ahead.
Donald Kerper
Executive Coach, Certified Professional Facilitator
The Virtual Facilitation group offered a great course. It is a "hands-on" course; no books, no manuals, no rules and regulations. Instead, you jump in and see what it can do while being guided by three professionals who do know the intricacies of each tool and platform they share with their students.
Cintia Martins
Founder, a.karta
Those who experience the power of networks recognize the gift of being able to draw on shared intelligence. It has been an honour to experience this over the past few years through learning opportunities with Fernando and Carolina, whether in immersions, mentorships, or simply by being close and witnessing the full potential of this encounter come alive.
The guidance, the clear and thoughtful feedback, and, above all, the precise and incisive provocations have always invited me to step beyond the usual paths.
That’s where I want to be. And it’s incredibly powerful to know that I’m not alone there.
Barish Golland
Senior Learning Technology Specialist, Liberating Structures Facilitator
Carolina and Fernando deliver amazing, engaging and interactive workshops that include everyone in moving forward productively in a fun, safe and meaningful way. I am always surprised how versatile, innovative and technologically savvy they are! Definitely recommend.
DJ King
Performance Optimization and Leadership Consulting
For anyone who needs to design and/or facilitate workshops, classes, teambuilding...any virtual event, this course will provide you with the tools, skills and knowledge to do it well. I highly recommend Fernando and his team. They are generous facilitators with a wealth of knowledge.
Juliana Ordonhes
Partner at Lumo Consulting
The Virtual Facilitation Workshop was light, fun and dynamic! I was looking for a course that would help me learn tools and methods, and develop skills in online facilitation, but I got a lot more than that. In addition to techniques and practice, the reflections and group work enabled me to develop myself.
Neil Pretty
Co-Founder and CEO of Aristotle Performance
I didn’t think that meaningful dialogue and collaboration could be accomplished as well in the virtual space. To see the online space in a new way that can be more engaging and more effective when facilitated by a skilled practitioner has completely changed my view of what is possible.
Suzanne Gagnon
Management Consultant
Fernando and Carolina's events are well designed and dynamic. Active participation is supported and encouraged. Reasonable time is allocated for each activity and is respected.
I learn something new every time I participate to any given event and I have lots of fun while connecting with other international Facilitators.
Diane Walters
Waldorf Educational Mentor, Teacher Education, Evaluator for Teaching Into The Future!
Virtual facilitation with Carolina and Fernando goes beyond the commonplace and into the realm of true community development. The tools of facilitation I learned from participating in several of their workshops are tools I have utilized for my consulting practice with great clarity and success. Their approach is top-notch.
Bronwyn Murray
HR Coordinator at Kootenay Boundary Division of Family Practice
Carolina and Fernando have a compendium of tools paired with fun and engaging delivery. The majority of our team has taken their workshop, which has advanced and improved our meetings and events tremendously in this virtual world. Highly recommend!
Viviane Gonçalves Calaça
Marketing Director at The Coca-Cola Company
In an ever changing world unlearn old ways of working to open room for new formats is extremely important. <br>But I also believe that the learning process needs to be fresh, inviting and fun, and that’s why I enjoyed being part of these sessions led by Carolina and Fernando.
Liberating Structures
Liberating Structures were developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
