'Intense' is without doubt the word for this half-year.
I can't describe it all, so I'll just give a snapshot.
It's taken a toll, so I am saying a lot of No's for 2025.
I need spaciousness in my own head to create space for others.
It’s been the most intense 6 months yet (and my newsletter has never been so late!) I can’t detail them all, so I will choose just a few.
CSAN invited me back to run another leadership module in London in April, and again it was a joy to support such talented young leaders, all working with limited resources in fields of great need.
The Conference of Religious of England and Wales also re-booked me to facilitate their AGM. Again there were around 85 participants, but with a more diverse mix than last year.
Much-needed conversations took place around thorny issues, and despite the APPALLING venue (I honestly cannot recommend anything about Kent’s Hill except the hardworking kitchen and cleaning staff) it was a powerful time (and for me, definitely less terrifying than last year!).
Accompanying four people through an 8-day silent retreat at St Beuno’s in June was, as always, illuminating. The house and grounds and region together are so conducive to good silence.
I then travelled straight to what turned out to be the last meeting of our European Ignatian Leadership network, in Paris. It was good to make the most of that peer group one final time; many of them I will work with again in other contexts in future, thankfully. Good peers are one of the greatest gifts of my freelance life.
Germany in July was also a good experience: the same leadership team I worked with last September, wonderful women facing tough challenges. We were in Augsburg this time, so no Danube walks, but beautiful in its own way. (The garden house on the left is the only part of the building that survived the Allied bombing in WW2).
October also saw an inspiring team facilitation; my first experience of the Claretians, in Rome.
The team had a deep commitment to evaluating their leadership and its impact at the mid-point of their term. We used a range of tools as well as their original visioning and action planning documents to discern well for the future and help the whole global body pay attention to their specific progress and needs. The generosity of this truly diverse team was striking, as they seek the future good together.
One final highlight has been debriefing Leadership Circle reports. Leadership profiling tools continue to proliferate, but this one is my favourite. It helps leaders work with what is, rather than aim for leadership perfection.
A good debrief can bring the report alive, deepen the insights and provide ways forward that are exactly suited to the individual. It’s an exposing experience, and I’m really grateful to the people I’ve debriefed for their openness. It’s a magic permission, being allowed to be useful.
Re-credential: achieving the ICF’s PCC credential the first time was more thrilling than renewing it this time, 3 years on. I’m glad I did though- it’s easy for coaches to become invisible and unaccountable, and it’s vital that we don’t.
I’ve recently completed a 6-module course on Trauma-informed Leadership run by Thomas Hübl.
I signed up for its relevance to my work, but it was a demanding experience personally too, helping me to view family history and my Northern Irish childhood in new lights. I can feel this is only the beginning of integrating it.
I’m also wondering if my days of facilitating solo are coming to an end. More than two-thirds of my facilitation work has been done alone, not least because charities and faith organisations generally have a budget for only one facilitator. But co-design and co-facilitation have so much more to offer, and I learn so much more from it. The solidarity as well as the creativity of co-facilitation is a tonic.
I’m coming up to ten years of freelance life, so the next newsletter will be my last. (That really WILL force me to get my new website online! I hope it will replace these rather static and distinctly 20th-century updates).
Between now and then, I am once again travelling less in the winter. The October Mirfield retreat is first. I’m then part of a team running a two-module formation of facilitators in Germany in December and February/March, and I have one trip to Italy in January (work and then my own retreat, which will be wonderfully restorative).
The rest of the time will be online 1-2-1 sessions, and perhaps even some resting!
Thank you for reading!