Re: community-wide retreats
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousmsn.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:04:10 -0700 (PDT)
We have been doing annual retreats for years.  Sharingwood has a retreat
team which has a $2,000 budget to produce annual retreats. Some years there
are 2 some years 3, others 1.  Over the past 10 years we have done workshops
for skills development, goofy fun games, celebrations, deep sharing circles
and sometimes a mixture of all of it. We sometimes hire a facilitator, other
times the team has created a fun and interesting set of things to play.   We
usually cater the food which attracts people, the team gets a pulse on the
community interests then sets up the event and date.  We have had parallel
children's retreats at the same time, often intermingling with the kids at
points during the day. Other years the kids are in the fray with the adults
doing games and  having fun.  We have never done one offsite since we have
such a great place.  

One of the things which became a regular thing was  to celebrate the magic
and wonder of this place we have created and so we have set up an annual
founders day as part of the retreat package where we review our 20+ year
history, reminisce about old times and old friends, invite expats out for
dinner and party. 

I highly recommend an annual party to celebrate the magic of community. You
are doing something  that is rare and beautiful and it is worth standing
back to appreciate and pat yourself on the back.  It can also be a great
time to think ahead, Make a ten year wish list....In ten years from now, I
can see......

Have fun,

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood
Snohomish County, WA
Where a herd of us are all going camping this weekend. 


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