Changemakers Retreat Space at Conferences

Ever been to an event or conference and felt overwhelmed by all of the information heading your way?

Ever felt guilty that you couldn’t soak up all the super-important information offered to you?

Ever been to an inspiring event and left disempowered rather than empowered because you don’t know how to turn the information into effective and sustainable action?

Most people do. Introverts (30-50% of the world’s population) and HSPs (highly sensitive people 20% of the world’s population) struggle the most at events with lots of stimulus and are keen to reflect but even the most extrovert person needs time and space rest, reflect and reconnect with the information sent our way especially if that is information about the problems in our world and how we need to be part of the solution to fix them.

Objectives:

The Retreat Space is a place for your conference participants to drop-in anytime of day (not evening) to:

• Rest their minds, bodies and soul after soaking up lots of important information from the conference

• Reflect on the content covered at the conference

• Then Reconnect with how to implement their new learning into their work to help become the most effective and sustainable changemakers they can be in our complex world.

The Environment:

Each retreat space is a quiet space with real birdsong (birds recorded in Poole,UK) to remember the beauty in our messy world, lavender and vanilla scent to quieten our minds and help us focus, activities to use your head, hands and heart together.

Stations that engage different senses: touch, taste, sight, sound and smell (by using two or more senses together we actually remember more and engage more deeply in the issue covered). The smallest was 5 activity stations for 70 people in one small room. The largest retreat space was 10 activity stations for 5000 people. People can spend as little as 10 minutes at one station or a few hours taking part in each station.

Watch our 2:40min video of the retreat space at Lush Summit London on YouTube here

Images from 3 different Retreats of different sizes (London, Florida, Oxford) on Flickr here

Sit with an egg timer and let your mind rest. Mindful colouring-in of a utopian image. Taste the sweet parts of our world.

Audiences have been (so far):

• 5000 people: Lush (cosmetic company) staff and customer influencers from around the world in London as part of the Lush Summit

• 500 Plan International staff, influencers and young ambassadors as part of their launch of #GirlsGetEqual global campaign in Brussels

• 200 Professional Digital Campaigners from large UK national charities at the annual Campaigns Forum conference #ECFOxford in Oxford (twice with an invitation for the following years)

• 300 Academics, activists and communications experts at Frank Gathering in Florida

• 70 Christian young adults 16-25 years old with Christian Aid Collective (international development charity) as part of their #HolyHack

Bespoke Elements

For each audience and conference Sarah can change the wording and the quotes to be more relevant and specific to the conference objectives. For an extra cost she can also create new bespoke activity stations if needed. Sarah is an award-winning and experienced activist which influences the retreat space. She also received a first class degree in Religions and Theology at the highest rated course in the country (5 star rated) from Manchester University and has worked with Christian, Jewish and Muslim charities in the past which has helped Sarah create faith-based retreat spaces when appropriate.

In large and small spaces the retreat space can work for a variety of audiences and sizes.

Feedback

“Sarah has the amazing vision and ability to create zones of calm and reflection in otherwise noisy and busy multi-day conferences: retreat spaces. Every conference should have one! She is a joy to work with. Every year I run the Campaigning Forum event in Oxford for change makers. For the last few years, Sarah has been joining to share her work and successes with the Craftivist Collective which inspires event participants every year. in 2018, she created an event retreat space that was widely used and appreciated by event participants. I'll definitely be asking Sarah back in future years to continue to create the retreat space and just hope she is available given how much demand I expect her to be in once others discover that no conference should be without one!” - Duane Raymond, Campaign Strategist.