Professional Development Retreat
THURSDAY, JUNE 12: Belonging Together: In Person Facilitation Training & Experiential Learning Retreat
A Professional Development Training Retreat to Build Skills and Deepen Your Capacity to Facilitate Conscious Communication.
You are invited to an intimate training and unlearning retreat at Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary in Plainfield, Vermont – an herbal healing sanctuary in the forest. We will lean into our interconnectedness with nature to embrace other ways of knowing in a collaboratively facilitated shared learning experience.
This retreat is for anyone who facilitates groups or holds space for community and organizational group conversations and is interested in deepening group facilitation, community communication, and cultural somatics skills and practices.
This training retreat will support you as a conscious communication facilitator to:
- Communicate across difference
- Co-regulate nervous systems to evolve conflict
- Embrace accountability as a gift and ongoing practice
- Navigate how to build intention and values synergy in facilitation design
- Practice shared leadership and shifting power dynamics
- Shift decision-making patterns to include more voices
- Understand emergent structure and strategy
We will gather outside and practice emergence with the weather in ways that keep us safe and also help us practice strengthening our discomfort muscles. We will work with circle practice to cocreate a container with active participation from everyone present.
The retreat is based on themes from EmpowR’s popular Belonging Together online facilitation training course, with an experiential, in person deep dive in a retreat environment for embodied and somatic learning together as a community. Past participation in the online course is NOT required to attend the retreat. Past participants from the Belonging Together online facilitation training course ARE invited to participate in a work/study role. Please send a message to express interest and learn more.
The Belonging Together online facilitation training course will be offered again in the fall starting October 16. Registration is open and this training course can also be customized for groups and teams (online or in person) if the online dates do not work for you. Please send a message to inquire.
Meet the Facilitator
Rae Carter (she/ki) is a communication facilitator and curator of EmpowR Transformation, an associate with The Creative Discourse Group, and herbalist and Earth tender at Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary. Rae weaves embodied antiracist culture building, gender affirming values, experiential and nature-based learning, trauma-informed practices, holistic healing, and animist spirituality into capacity building work to shift limited perspectives, disrupt dominant patterns, navigate conflict, reimagine communication, and bridge micro and macro behavior change for transformative justice.
This course is informed by Rae’s practice and study with The Circle Way, Rockwood Leadership Institute, Education for Racial Equity, Center for Transformation & Change, adrienne maree brown, Divorcing White Supremacy Culture; client work with EmpowR Transformation and The Creative Discourse Group; a 20+ year career in communications including owning a grassroots public relations business and serving as communications director at the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund/Vermont Farm to Plate Network; and many years working to cocreate coalition among community organizers, organizational change agents, holistic healing practitioners, and spiritual space holders.
Details
Who is this retreat for?
The Belonging Together Facilitation Retreat is for anyone who facilitates groups or holds space for community and organizational group conversations and is interested in deepening group facilitation, community communication, and cultural somatics skills and practices.
Where is this retreat held?
At Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary, which is also Rae Carter’s home, in Plainfield, Vermont. This is an in person training retreat and directions will be sent in registration/follow up emails.
How do I prepare?
Please prepare by planning to be off of your device for the entire retreat, including lunch. Wear comfortable, casual clothes that both express your identity and prepare you for various weather conditions. Bring some items that help you feel cozy in an outside circle environment (mat, blanket, cushion that can get dirty).
What do I bring?
Bring a basic lunch to meet your dietary needs. There is a fridge for your use. Bring a water bottle, journal, writing utensil, and an open heart and mind.
What will be provided?
We will provide herbal tea as well as snacks throughout the day. We will also provide resources and materials following the retreat.
Timing
You are welcome to arrive anytime between 9-9:30 and are asked to prepare enough travel time to arrive, ground, and use the facilities so we can open circle at 9:30. We will close circle at 4:30.
Directions and additional information will be provided upon registration.
