Amy Burchstead

The power of people working together effectively, efficiently, and with trust draws Amy to facilitation. Her first job out of college found her sitting at a round table, a board meeting, with an old dairy farmer, and artist, a lawyer, a young environmentalist, and a wealthy retiree, among many others.  These diverse local folks bridged their cultures, classes, and world-views to work together to save a small working farm in mid-coast Maine.  Amy spent several years teaching at this farm, observing the successes and failures of the organization’s many meetings, and beginning to facilitate some of the meetings on her own.  She then taught in the public schools for a few years, until she found her calling as a "Field Coordinator” with Heifer International.  

Heifer trained Amy in the art of facilitation.  She facilitated meeting for such diverse groups as single mothers transitioning out of homelessness in the Boston area, "old school” traditional farmers and organic farmers in Vermont, beginner farmers in New Hampshire, Somali immigrant farmers in Maine, and Hmong immigrant farmers in Massachusetts.  Not only did many of these people join to work together across cultural barriers, often translators were employed to bridge the language barriers.

Amy also facilitated meetings for Heifer staff and for the staff of other NGO’s.  Meetings included visioning sessions, forming a group structure and by-laws, setting goals and action planning, strategic planning, peer self-reviews and planning, mediation, and round-table and panel discussions.  Working with these diverse groups, Amy gained the patience, creativity, listening skills, planning skills, intuition, and ability to "think on her feet” that are hallmarks of effective facilitation.

Since leaving Heifer to work on her own farm and raise her children, Amy has done facilitation work for groups such as the Maine Association of Mediators, Healthy Maine Partnerships, and several farm-to-school groups, both local and state-wide.  Amy began her work with Good Group Decisions in December 2010 and is thrilled to once again be a part of a unique and brilliant facilitation team.

Amy is a graduate of Bowdoin College, where her interest in people’s relationship to each other and the natural world led her to major in Environmental Studies and Women’s Studies and minor in Biology. As a part of her education, Amy traveled to England, Turkey, Thailand, India, and Mexico.  She later explored Cuba as a member of a Sustainable Agriculture Delegation.

"Well organized; kept to timetable, very productive."  -- participant evaluation of a Strategic Planning Meeting for Eastport Health Care, 2011