How We Facilitate Retreats
Most people know Chantilly Mediation and Facilitation for our mediation work, or for trainings on how to deal with conflict. We make great partners for retreat planning, too. Here’s why.
Mediators Let You Feel Heard.
Have you worked with professional events people before? Sometimes they have an idea of what is best for you based on others they’ve worked with in your field. Sometimes they focus entirely on the nuts and bolts of the meeting logistics and leave the substance of the activities - or heck, all activities - to you.
In planning a retreat, it’s essential that your facilitator understand why the retreat is happening, at this time, in this place, with these people. Your facilitator should listen to you, first and foremost, throughout the planning stages - and that’s the kind of facilitator you get when you hire someone who is also a mediator.
Beyond the planning process, mediative facilitators design differently and facilitate differently.
When you work with a trained mediator to plan a retreat, they should be able to borrow from mediation appropriately.
After all, what meeting isn’t improved through:
Starting with the expectations,
Giving people time to share,
Helping people brainstorm within a particular topic,
And having clearly documented next steps?
In a nutshell, that’s facilitative mediation right there. Retreats should feel similar. People need to know what to expect, have opportunities to share from their own perspectives, and dig into the substance of the issues this particular group is dealing with - and always, always have documented next steps.
What People Say
“I enjoyed the presentation and was able to connect with co-workers who I knew nothing about. Loved your icebreaker and break out groups.”
“This afternoon was really refreshing. You are really good at your job.”
“We so appreciate how creative and open she is, how thoughtful she is throughout the entire process.”
“This was the most psychologically safe session I’ve ever been in.”
“I didn’t want to be here, but I actually feel like this was a good experience.”
The above quotes are a sample of the responses we regularly receive after facilitating retreats, strategic planning sessions, and team-building workshops.
How We Do It
When you hire us to facilitate a retreat, we first focus on understanding the basics - who are you, what is happening, when is it happening, why now - and helping you understand us - who we are, how we work, what results we’ve delivered to others.
Then we start to dig into the why and the goals for this specific retreat.
What do you most need to happen with and for this group of people? In this time?
I often find myself circling back to goals again and again, helping people clarify the needs and the hoped-for outcomes.
When you hire us, we’ll meet on a regular cadence. This allows us to help you manage the full project of the retreat - save-the-dates, food budgets and arrangements, detailed invitations, handling what is required vs. what is encouraged, having all the materials you need on-site and ready to go. All that is in addition to designing the full experience, including a detailed agenda with the right mix of activities that will engage everyone, no matter their personality and learning style, and still move the needle to thelp the whole group get where you need them to be.
Are you planning a retreat this summer or fall?
What to expect
We’ll take the time to understand your goals through free meetings - sometimes just one, usually two or three. By the time you sign the contract, you know exactly what you’re getting - and what you’re not getting.
We’ll meet with you as often as needed in your specific timeline - weekly, every other week, monthly - until we’re ready to go.
You’ll see detailed agendas in advance.
You’ll receive a separate participant agenda to share.
You’ll be guided through the full experience of managing this retreat as its own project.
We’ll work within your budget.
You’ll receive documentation after the retreat of all that happened - in a brief format - with suggestions to continue team-building and advancing your work in the future.
