Reimagining Connection: How RCC Is Listening for What’s Needed Now
Missed this Community Roundtable? Watch here.
At a recent RCC Community Roundtable, members gathered from across regions, roles, and retreat traditions to reflect on a simple but meaningful question:
How do we best support one another as this network continues to grow and evolve?
This was not a call designed for presentations or decision-making. Instead, it was an opportunity to listen — to honor what has sustained us in the past and to imagine together what connection might look like in RCC’s next chapter.
Honoring What’s Been Life-Giving
Historically, RCC has supported connection through two primary pathways:
Regional Groups — bringing together geographically proximate centers for collaboration and shared problem-solving
Peer or Affinity Groups — connecting members across roles, traditions, or areas of practice
Participants shared that these spaces have:
Helped dismantle competition between centers by building trust through proximity
Fostered practical collaboration (like referring overflow bookings or sharing operational resources)
Reduced isolation — especially during the pandemic years
Supported leaders stepping into new or uniquely complex roles
Offered emotional, spiritual, and professional resonance among peers who truly understand the work
As one participant noted, joining an affinity group early in their executive leadership journey helped accelerate their learning curve in ways that might otherwise have taken years.
Where the Energy Is Moving
Through journaling, breakout discussions, and full-group reflection, a few themes began to emerge:
Many participants expressed strong interest in:
Role-Based Peer SupportProgramming directors, hospitality teams, marketers, operations staff, fundraisers, and executive directors all face distinct challenges — and many voiced a desire to learn directly from peers walking a similar path.
Leadership Season CirclesNew executive directors (years 1–3), leaders navigating transitions, or those building new centers from the ground up may benefit from dedicated spaces of support.
Programmatic CollaborationGroups focused on youth programming, land-based learning, or mission-specific initiatives could offer opportunities for resource-sharing and co-learning.
At the same time, participants affirmed the continued value of regional connection — particularly during moments of crisis or context-specific challenges like extreme weather events, wildfires, or public health emergencies.
In these cases, knowing your neighbors matters — even if those relationships are maintained through less frequent touchpoints.
Both/And, Not Either/Or
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the conversation did not land on a single preferred model.
Instead, many participants voiced a desire for:
Ongoing peer groups rooted in shared roles or identities
Periodic regional gatherings for situational support
Informal, organic learning connections sparked through RCC calls or forums
Several members shared that some of their most meaningful RCC connections have begun with a follow-up message in the chat — evolving into short-term, self-led learning groups that meet a few times around a specific need.
This kind of emergent collaboration points to a future where:
RCC helps seed connection
Members co-lead and sustain affinity spaces
Groups form and evolve in response to real-time needs
What Comes Next
Based on what was shared, RCC will begin testing a small number of pilot peer groups aligned with expressed areas of interest — such as:
First-time Executive Directors
Tradition-based or mission-based centers
Role-specific operational teams
Regionally grounded support networks
The RCC team will synthesize key insights from this conversation and share next steps in an upcoming newsletter. In the meantime, members are encouraged to reach out with ideas for affinity or peer groups they would be excited to join or help pilot.
Connection in RCC has always been rooted in relationships.As our network grows, so too does our opportunity to shape spaces of care, learning, and collaboration that reflect the lived realities of retreat center leadership today.
Thank you to everyone who helped us listen forward.
