How can a novice facilitator gain experience?

Here's a few possibilities: While reading will only get you so far, there are some good books out there. You can get an excellent free ebook from some friends of mine on Creative Facilitation.  http://creativefacilitation.com/free-book That said, practice practice practice, real time experience is always best. -Consider forming a group in your area that meets regularly to practice on each other (kind of like Toastmasters, but for facilitation.)  -Volunteer for local groups that might want/need facilitation -Think of topics that you are passionate about and then gather a crowd through a FB event, meetup group or other local promoting. There are facilitator training programs you can find by searching online.  I'll be starting a 6 month virtual training and an intensive live training in the fall.  Details are coming together here: http://www.sparkinteraction.com/pages/FTI Keep following your heart, be clear on your goals for each event, how you communicate them while marketing and getting feedback afterwards from your participants as to whether you met those goals (google forms are a great way to gather feedback after an event). Here's a clip from my free ebook "How to WOW!" ( http://bit.ly/HowToWow_ebook )