In so many ways, BRIDGE is a love story. It is a love story for me personally and my co-founder Marthe Bourdon, and, as I’ve been told over the years, it is a love story for BRIDGE staff. So many of our staff feel a heart connection to the mission of the organization. If you attended our 15th anniversary gala, you would have seen and felt this.
So when it came to plan this year’s Strategic Retreat, I asked myself, what would love look like in practice? As BRIDGE staff, board, and community, how could we bring our hearts to the design of the work? How could we make our time together restorative even as we do the work of beginning to plan BRIDGE’s next 15 years? As a Black-led organization, how could we also design a retreat that centered Black joy and liberation and peace?
A Sense of Place
To do good work together, we needed space and time to think, we needed nourishing food, and most importantly, we needed people to show up. Thankfully, through the generosity of a BRIDGE board member, we found a space that was quiet, close, and could give us this mental break. For the most part, we turned off our devices and welcomed this opportunity.
From experience, I know it’s possible to create a warm and inviting retreat setting even in the middle of a New England winter. Indeed, by the time retreat weekend came around, we were visited by a storm and bitter cold temperatures! Still, I am pleased to say that almost everybody showed up ready and eager to connect, share stories, and think together. We had attendees from a 2.5 hour radius!
On day 1, surrounded by giant windows looking out at intense winds and swirling crystals of snow, we enjoyed an all staff day. On day 2, our retreat continued with just staff in the morning, and then our Board joined us for the afternoon. On day 3, we had more BRIDGE community members and volunteers join Staff and Board for a coaching session on visioning in the morning led by Amber Chand, a beautiful lunch prepared by our friends at Beloved Kitchen, and strategic visioning and planning in the afternoon. While the storm continued on, we generated warmth and connection inside, moving at a pace that worked for all.
Prioritizing Wellness
At the beginning of the year, I asked our team, what do we want to focus on for the year? I asked individuals, what do you want to focus on for yourself and your work? Over half of BRIDGE Staff said they wanted to focus on health and wellness. So by retreat time, we thought let’s go to a spa!
I researched plenty of places, but eventually realized I couldn’t send my team to just any spa and expect that they would experience healing. In fact, just from my experience on my calls, that they would need to navigate harm. Just as I teach organizations, I needed to do this work with cultural awareness and competence. In considering the diversity of the team and budget, I was compelled to curate the retreat myself. To get to this realization, however, I needed to breathe, pause, and think about the full range of possibilities. When I give myself the opportunity to pause, I find ease. Then I can create more ease for and with my team. This is when I create the best container for my team’s leadership to show up.
And so I reached out to my community and invited wellness practitioners to be on-site with us as we worked together and planned. I had to do extra outreach to find wellness practitioners of color, but we made it happen. BRIDGE Staff and Board could receive acupuncture from Yaad Wellness, do massage and bodywork with Safara, and learn Qi Gong with Tagan. Again, we were grateful to Beloved Kitchen for meals. I was thrilled to work this team as they only work with clients who are values-aligned, and all of their ingredients are sourced ethically. With all of these wellness providers, I considered them co-facilitators of the retreat holding the space with me… true partners, not just people we hired for a service. I am grateful to hear that in the end, this was their experience. These partners felt loved and held and relaxed, even as they helped us take care of our BRIDGE community and create a safe space.
To make wellness even more fun, I put together Staff bags including books, coloring books on mindfulness and gratitude, rose water, scented colored pencils (aromatherapy oils), planners, legal pads and sticky notes, affirmation cards, stickers, stone hearts. This added a sense of joy and delight while offering at the same time tools and direction.
In reflecting, it was so powerful to me that BRIDGE was able to create such a retreat that was some Staff and Board members first ever retreat. As I teach others, wellness is not just about paying people a living wage; it’s also about inviting the whole person and respecting the whole person, focusing on thriving, not just getting by.
Leading with Appreciative Inquiry, not just Problem Solving
Like so many of us, I’ve attended strategy retreats that feel long, taxing, and almost threatening. The work feels overwhelming, and you’re thoroughly exhausted at the end of two or three days. I knew this is not what I wanted for my team or myself moving into 2024. As always, I wanted to invite people to go to their edge (because edges are where we grow) and to stretch their minds and spirits in healthy, generative, easeful ways. Let’s lead with authenticity and move in a way that our actions are actually sustainable moving forward, drawing on our own internal strengths.
At our 2023 retreat, we focused a lot on infrastructure. Where are we and what do we need to build to resource ourselves for moving forward? What are we passionate about given what we’ve learned? This year, it was about moving forward into the future. Since BRIDGE is founder-run, I wanted and needed to make sure the voices of people working at BRIDGE were built into the work. Whenever we meet, that’s my intention. I listen deeply to staff and hear their experiences, hopes, and dreams. It’s very much part of my strategy, leadership, and care work. Again, we are a heart-based organization. I know that leading with our hearts always makes the work better. Not always easier, but better.
So, on day 3, I asked our team and community to reflect: What did you/we do in 2023 and what did we learn from it? How will we take those lessons forward? What do you see in BRIDGE’s future? What role will you play in making that future possible? Rather than do a SWOT analysis, we did a SOAR analysis. What are our greatest Strengths? Where do we see Opportunities? What are our Aspirations? And what Results do we want to make happen? This SOAR exercise is an appreciative inquiry technique that we use with clients and we want to always make sure to practice ourselves.
The work of 2024 is off to an excellent start and is important, but I also wanted to capture the essence of our strategic retreat in its own right. Creating an energizing, liberating retreat is possible, and it can only be done in partnership, with care, in community. I was just at Sweet Freedom Farm’s Abolition & Waffles event last weekend, for example, and experienced the same wonderful feeling. As we navigate this time, I am committed to creating liberating spaces, and I will continue to look for people who are creating and investing in liberated spaces.