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Mobilizing for Nonviolent Global Liberation – Stony Point, NY

Name: Mobilizing for Nonviolent Global Liberation – Stony Point, NY
Start: 2019-10-30T14:00:00+01:00
End: 2019-11-05T13:00:00+01:00
Location: Stony Point Center

October 30, 2019 @ 2:00 pm - November 5, 2019 @ 1:00 pm

A Retreat to Co-create Personal and Collective Capacity

Offered by a team including Miki Kashtan, Uma Lo, Tarek Maassarani, and other NGL trainers, and NGL apprentices

You are invited to chat with the organizers and past participants this Tuesday, September 24th, 7 p.m. EDT. Scroll to end of this page for details.

Call for Participation

Is the power of nonviolence – courage, truth, and love – deeply calling to your spirit?
Are you longing for deeper alignment with your values?
Are you eager for more clarity and inspiration about how you can respond to a world in crisis?
Would you like to expose yourself to knowledge, principles, and practices that can support you in your work?
Do you wish for more connection to your own power and ability as you deepen your capacity for a life of service?

Who?

This retreat is designed with the following groups of people in mind:

Members of the soon-to-be-launched Nonviolent Global Liberation Apprenticeship Program and Learning Community (NGL) who want to be part of the annual in-person retreat
People who want an in-person exploration of what NGL is about before joining
People who resonate with any of the questions above who would you like to be immersed in a vibrant, thriving, co-creative learning community for a week
NVC trainers, mediators, facilitators, managers, and consultants who want to enrich their work through learning about Miki’s approach to these areas, as embodied and taught within the NGL framework

Why?

This retreat is designed to create the conditions that would allow all of us who attend to take a next step in our understanding, capacity for interdependent living, practice, service, and contribution to support the possibility of a nonviolent global liberation. This means emerging from a long and painful chapter of human history to free ourselves and engage with individuals, relationships, groups, organizations, and systems to restore freedom, dignity, and conscious interdependence within and around us.

What?

Our time together will draw from the following elements:

Nonviolence: deepening understanding of the path and its implications for all aspects of life
Internal liberation: transcending individual socialization and collective patriarchal patterns to reclaim freedom and collaboration for the benefit of all
Leadership: willingly and unilaterally embracing interdependent responsibility for the whole
Power and privilege: engaging with their causes and effects internally, in relationships, within organizations, and in society
Organization development: applying a needs and collaboration perspective to all aspects of organizational function, from the internal to the systemic
Social change: fleshing out fully all aspects of the work, including vision, relationships, inner work, and strategic approaches to social transformation
Facilitation: Basic and advanced elements of group facilitation, including Convergent Facilitation
Principle-Based Teaching: understanding, living, and sharing NVC from the perspective of principles and practices rather than specific methods

How?

Collaboration and co-creation form the basic foundation of how NGL operates. For the duration of this retreat, we invite you into this experience by becoming an active player in shaping what our time together will look like.

Rooted in the NGL Framework and inspired by the needs of participants, NGL trainers will offer teaching sessions, practice spaces, and coaching in one or more of the areas named above.

For anyone who attended the 2018 retreat, the structure of this 2019 retreat will be quite different. Responding to feedback from the 2018 participants, the retreats organising team have been working to design a structure that is more actively responsive to the needs of participants, which supports us to more effectively move together in the direction of our purpose.

Within this, in parallel to sessions held by named NGL trainers, participants will be encouraged to present workshops, practice sessions, coaching, and empathy both within the NGL framework and in their own areas of focus, also inspired by the needs of the participants.

About the Team

The retreat team consists of an international group of trainers and organizers, all active members and core designers of the NGL community. They bring a breadth and depth of experience sharing Nonviolent Communication, facilitating groups and consulting: living and applying the NGL framework within organizations and communities.

The NGL Team for this retreat is still being constituted. It will consist of people from this group: Miki Kashtan, Uma Lo, Tarek Maassarani, and other NGL trainers and apprentices.

Statement on Power, Access, and Inclusion

This statement is meant to clarify key assumptions, intentions, and expectations around power, access, and inclusion as they relate to the 2019 US East Coast NGL retreat. We want prospective participants to have enough information and context to make an informed choice about attending, and we want to be clear about what we can offer and what we can’t. This statement represents the evolving view of Tarek Maassarani, Miki Kashtan, Leonie Smith, and Uma Lo, who collectively serve as the retreat training team. It has not been reviewed and assented to by the NGL community as a whole.

How Much?

NGL operates in the gift economy. By matching resources to needs we aim to create a retreat that is sustainable for all. This is an art-form and part of our commitment to learning to create a world that works for all.

We invite you to step into the gift economy with us. This means that rather than being requested to give a certain amount, each person will be invited to contribute to the sustainability of the retreat on the basis of needs.

In the context of this retreat, there are also the external costs (eg. the venue, caterer), which operate in exchange. Thus we collect money from participants in advance to cover those fixed costs.

We will operate in the following manner:

Upon registration, you are required to pay the non-negotiable room and board fee in full. This holds your spot in the retreat.
We do not at present have the capacity to include the room and board costs within the gift economy experiment. Room and board costs are therefore separate from NGL retreat sustainability and are given to our host, the Stony Point Center.
In the last few weeks before the retreat, we plan to share all the information that we have about the costs of running the retreat, the estimated material needs of the retreat team.
At the retreat, we plan to include an opportunity for all to engage interdependently with the question of how to create sustainability for the retreat. This consists of 4 phases:

- Information sharing: We plan to provide full information about the costs of running the retreat, the estimated material needs of the retreat team and what the total amount of contributions has been. This will allow each person to decide how far they can, and want, to stretch.
- Opportunity to connect about the vision we have, the possibility of receiving without giving, and the meaning of giving as a gift, not as an exchange. This includes opportunities for discussion and for empathy about all the complexities that arise as we make these shifts.
- Money collection: We plan to give all participants the opportunity to contribute financially based on a combination of your desire and capacity having heard the information shared. This can be done using BayNVC website via credit card, check, cash or a pledge.
- Money distribution: We plan to make transparent decisions about how the money thus collected gets allocated to retreat team and possibly others, too.

If you are not quite ready to step into the full gift economy, we are confident that choosing any amount between US $850 – $1700 would work for us. This will be collected at the retreat. Any tuition amount above $1050 (not including your room and board) can be tax deductible and will support others in attending.

We would like to make it clear that contributions toward the sustainability of the retreat team are in addition to and separate from room and board costs, which is given to our host, the Stony Point Center.

It is our intent to make this retreat available to anyone regardless of their financial means. If you need more clarity about the amount that would work for us please contact the organizers.

Venue

The workshop will be held at the Stony Point Center is located in the scenic Hudson River Valley, northwest of Manhattan in beautiful upstate New York. Allow one hour to travel from Manhattan in New York City to the Retreat Center by car . Please allow extra time for travel if you are driving during rush hour. The Retreat Center is also accessible by train or bus from New York City, and from the Newark Liberty Intl. Airport, (New Jersey) by air..

Follow this link for more information on how to travel to the Stony Point Center. The specific address of the retreat center is:

17 Cricketown Road
Stony Point, NY 10980 USA

Lodging and Food

Room and board costs are separate from the gift economy and do not contribute in any way to the sustainability of the retreat. These are non-negotiable and required by our host venue.

When you register for the retreat, you will receive a link to an Accommodation, Meal and Transportation Options Form, where you will be able to let us know about your preferences (including dietary preferences), so that we can take care of you. Room assignments are subject to availability and are first-come-first-served.

Meals at the Stony Point Center are prepared “from scratch” in their kitchens, using produce from their gardens and local growers whenever possible, and using fair trade chocolate and coffee. The Stony Point Center serves no pork and can plan to serve Halal meat on their buffet upon request. Every meal includes meat, vegetarian, and vegan options along with breads and desserts baked from scratch in their kitchen. They can accommodate gluten-free, dairy-free, and a variety of other dietary requirements.

Please see options of food and accommodation for the whole retreat. Packages include meals starting from dinner on Wednesday, October 30, ending with lunch on Tuesday, November 5.*

(* we will follow up with each registrant to accommodate room and food preferences)

Single Room + all meals + coffee/tea breaks – $920 (Wednesday – Tuesday),
Add extra night on 10/29/19, in single room: $1,060 (Tuesday – Tuesday)
Double Room + all meals + coffee/tea breaks – $640 (Wednesday – Tuesday),
Add extra night on 10/29/19, in double room: $740 (Tuesday – Tuesday)
Commuter fee (no bed) + all meals + coffee/tea breaks – $390 for entire retreat (Wednesday (dinner) – Tuesday (lunch)
* Extra meals (as needed) may be purchased for an added fee

How to Register

At this time you can hold your spot by registering here. Please pay for your chosen room and board option here:

Cancellations

See BayNVC’s policy about cancellations and refunds here. Please see below how it works in detail for this retreat:

If you cancel by September 18, 2019, we will gladly refund what you have given minus $100 to cover our administrative costs.
If you cancel after September 18, 2019, but before October 9, 2019, we will refund what you have given, less up to $400 to cover venue and administrative costs.
If you cancel after October 9, 2019, we offer no refund; however you may transfer your registration to someone else.