How to organise a retreat, or an advance, or a whatever

I've never had to organise a retreat - apart from the ones I've done on my own without any other bodies involved - but if I did, I'd certainly be thinking about at least some of the ideas Seth Godin proposes in his latest blog post.

He doesn't actually want to call them retreats, but advances - something I concur with entirely, and which I've said also they should be called, for years.

Basically he reviews the 'advance' as a place to do some real forward thinking, innovative network building, and a heap more. He comes up with some twenty points, any one of which would be a good addition to most retreats as they're presently conducted.

You may already do some of these (all of these? nah!) but even if you do, his post is worth a read and some reflection.

Here are a couple of my favourites:

• Never (never) have people go around a circle and say their name and what they do and their favorite kind of vegetable or whatever. The problem? People spend the whole time trying to think of what to say, not listening to those in front of them (I once had to witness 600 people do this!!)
• Instead, a week ahead of time, give each person an assignment for a presentation at the event. It might be the answer to a question like, "what are you working on," or "what's bothering you," or "what can you teach us." Each person gets 300 seconds, that's it.

and one that requires a bit of paradoxical thinking:

• Use placecards at each meal, rotating where people sit. Crowd the tables really tightly (12 at a table for 10) and serve buffet style to avoid lots of staffers in the room. Make it easy for people to leave boring tables and organically sit together at empty ones.

Hot Fudge?

I've been away on a retreat for the most of this last week, so I've got a bit of catching up to do, not least from the notes I made (on paper) while I was away, but which I've managed to leave at work.
Saw a couple of movies while on Retreat. One was The Gospel, which I'd watched several months ago and enjoyed mostly for its music. The story and acting are a bit weak, but the music keeps the thing alive.
Also saw Hot Fuzz, which I'd heard about from my brother-in-law in England. He and his wife had walked out of it (!) I didn't walk out, but I must say that the last twenty minutes of so are just so frenetic that all the subtle humour that's gone before is outweighed by noise and chaos and a try-hard approach that doesn't quite work. Simon Pegg does a great job in the main role, and he's surrounded by a bunch of well-known British actors, several of whom come to very unpleasant ends. In fact, the black humour is too grisly for my taste. The scene where the reporter has a piece of the church tower fall on his head is sickening rather than funny in any way.
But I think the piece falls over by trying to make itself into some clever murder mystery, when it's really a spoof for the first hour or more. And it's not helped by schoolboy use of dirty words; these just take away from the real humour.

On Retreat

I’ve just spent the last night and most of today at a Retreat organised by a couple of the leaders from my church. It was a fairly quiet affair, with only nine participants, but it was well worth going to. I used to do fairly regular retreats just on my own, and need to keep doing more. There’s nothing quite like a day away from the norm, especially if it takes place at some beautiful spot - even if it’s near a beach. (I usually try and make sure my retreats are.)
Anyway, I took with me an old notebook which had Retreat Vision on the cover, and thought I’d fill up some of the blank pages. Turned out that the book had been begun in 1997, and it was interesting reading back through some of the notes I’d made in those long-ago retreat times.
But what I want to mention here now is that there are a couple of quotes from books in the notes, and one of these comes from a book on Colin McCahon that I was reading at the time.
The book’s title is Colin McCahon Artist, by Gordon Brown, and in chapter 4, page 28, Toss Woollaston, (the poster at the side relates to him), another famous NZ artist is quoted as writing: The Spirit that creates Nature and Art is God…an artist must lose his dependence on his optical vision in order to find his spiritual vision, and then paint his picture, carve his sculpture, and it will be authentic art.
I made a note at the time that the whole chapter has great relevance to ‘Christian’ art. I must check the book out again!