SOL summer retreat 2020 - Nourishing your SF roots

Dear SOL World friends,

The physical Retreat that was planned in South-East England can’t take place due to the current uncertain times, but we couldn’t bear the idea of not gathering in some way. So… we came up with the corona-proof plan to offer a world wide ‘individualised group Retreat’! 

The aim of the Retreat is: Nourishing your SF roots to enable your SF Flourishing

Imagine a time and place for you…

• Where you can care for and nurture YOU - in whatever ways you feel would be most helpful during the Retreat period... 

• Where you can take time to reflect on your SF practices - personal and professional - by yourself, supported by others...

• Where you can make, renew, and strengthen your connections in the SF community - locally and globally

The expectations on those joining the Retreat remain the same: 

• The focus is on creating a joyful, easeful environment for all to think, learn, share, play, take care of self and others; based our shared curiosity and belief in SF as a practical and useful methodology in work and in life.   

• You come prepared to be as fully ‘present' throughout the Retreat as possible - create a ‘retreat bubble’.  Give yourself the gift of four whole undistracted days to focus on what is most nourishing for you and you alone as a person and a SF practitioner, as you would if you were away from home with the Retreat group.   

• You are open to considering SF being discussed and used in ways that are very different to your own.  That is where some of the richest learnings lie… 

This will NOT be a highly-structured, Zoom-based, 5-day event.  We do not know exactly what it will be yet…  That will depend on who will participate, what they ask for and what they offer.  

We think it will be mostly spending the time by ourselves doing what is individually of interest / importance to ourselves, but coming together daily to ‘touch base’, and to encourage deeper thinking by sharing and discussing what we have been doing.  

We think it might have elements of accountability buddying - through some form of daily checkins and sharing. Some co-coaching, co-learning, sharing of insights… Perhaps inviting short contributions  in an online open space format,...

We hope that it might be possible for small groups of people to do part or all of the retreat physically co-located…. (have campervan, will travel… ).  Perhaps if people from all over the globe are interested, there will be local time-zone ‘checkins’ / group activities…  

We invite you to think what your ‘perfect retreat’ might consist of:

• Where would you do it?
• What would you want to focus on?
• Who do you look forward to having one-to-one conversations with?
• What would you love to share with others on the retreat about your SF work /thinking?
• How could you practically make this possible for yourself?

We hope to continue this sharing of best hopes and practical possibilities for what might happen with you. Please let us know if you would like to engage with us on developing this further. 

Wendy & Sarah

wendyvandenbulck@equoia.org

sarahcudmore.cc@gmail.com