Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Brenda Salgado

Topic: Energetic Hygiene and Sovereignty Practices

Holding space for others is both beautiful and requires a lot of energy from us. For so many of us, we have been taught about physical hygiene from a young age: taking a shower, brushing our teeth, etc. We haven't always been taught about energetic hygiene and how to restore our energetic field before, during and after challenging events, holding space for others, or after hearing difficult news. Part of being able to engage in racial healing and other rewarding work that stretches and grows us is learning to connect to our body and breath, and learning how to feel agency to clear and restore our energy. Brenda will share about Toltec perspectives and practices on energetic sovereignty and responsibility, and will also create space for collective wisdom and sharing in our community about how others in our network work with clearing and restoring your energy when it is needed. Come for sharing and restoration!

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Francisco Burgos, Erin McAuley

Topic: Open Space

This call will provide multiple opportunities to explore topics that are important to your center now. We’ll begin by exploring three main topics of interest that retreat center leaders identified at last year’s RCC Annual Retreat:

• Intergenerational Leadership

• Successful Program Stories

• Resilience

You’re invited to bring a topic of your own and we’ll offer multiple breakout rooms for smaller conversations about these topics before coming back for large group harvesting. We look forward to seeing you there.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Francisco Burgos, Nanci Lee, Michael Shewburg, Oren Slozberg, Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

Topic: RCC Transition Check-in

Join the RCC Stewardship Circle to hear updates on our leadership transition and share your feedback as part of the collaborative community that is the RCC. Your voice matters as we build our network’s future together in a spirit of transparency, deep listening, and mutual care.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Brenda Salgado

Topic: Racial Healing Workshop: Welcoming Spring with Ritual, Reflection and Creativity

For different cultures and traditions, Spring Equinox holds deep meaning connected to the rebirth, germination, new life, creativity, and the return of the light. People around the world continue to gather in community, ritual and celebration to honor this time of renewal. With all we are holding, with the extremes of beauty and suffering in the world, let us take time to honor the lessons of nature. The cherry blossoms in my front yard are a reminder to bloom and begin anew. The rosemary flowers invite my bee neighbors to dance and gather to make sweet honey together.

Join us in this spirit of renewal, and collectively nourishing what we want to plant seeds for, for our centers, families, and communities. We will also be reflecting on prayers and intentions for our RCC/RHI Beloved Community and for balance, justice and compassion in the world.

Please bring paper and any writing instruments you would like.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Nanci Lee, Francisco Burgos

Topic: A Celebration of Ben Scott-Brandt and RCC

Join us for a BYO drinks-and-snacks virtual open house to celebrate Ben Scott-Brandt and all the RCC has accomplished under his leadership. Stewardship Circle members Nanci Lee and Francisco Burgos will be our emcees as we offer our toasts or stories or songs or poems or…be creative! Ben will offer some remarks as well around 2:00 p.m. EST. We hope to see you there as we honor this big transition for Ben and our community.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Topic: Effective Marketing with Limited Resources

Join your RCC peers for an interactive discussion as we exchange notes on effective marketing tools and strategies that work for retreat centers. Many centers don’t have the time or staff to develop sophisticated marketing approaches that harness technology and are driven by data. But every center needs effective marketing. We’ll look at a few simple questions: Who are you trying to reach? What communication tools and platforms have proven the most effective? How are you expanding or deepening your guest base? By pooling our collective wisdom, this Community Call will help us see the simple improvements we can each make to improve our marketing impact.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Brenda Salgado

Topic: Opening Up Our Money Stories

Money is one form of wealth, and all forms of wealth are currency and energy. What we feel, think and experience in our bodies regarding our relationship to wealth is part of our human journey. The beliefs and patterns we hold around money are impacted by our experiences, as well as ancestral and societal influences. Opening up our money stories is a way to observe and transform our own relationship to the flow of abundance, wealth and energy in our lives.

Many of us have been taught to hold shame or silence around money. In this workshop, we will share exercises for thinking more broadly about wealth, and inviting abundance as a state of being into your life, allowing for healing and transformation of your evolving money story. From this place we call in resourcing for our well-being, our communities, and our work in the world.

This call will NOT be recorded. Please join us live on Zoom. Receive the link to join by subscribing to the mailing list.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Ben Scott-Brandt, Nanci Lee of Tatamagouche Centre

Topic: Recruitment and Retention Strategies for Vibrant Staff

On this Community Call, we’ll discuss staffing and staff structures at retreat centers. Join us to exchange creative recruitment strategies to attract the right candidates, especially in rural areas, as well as best practices to encourage retention and reduce staff turnover, including equitable compensation. A key aspect of our discussion will be a deeper exploration on how to identify the appropriate staffing levels at each center, and benchmarks that may be useful to measure staffing expenses and impacts within our organizations’ budgets.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Topic: Living into the Questions Together

On this Community Call, we invite you to reflect on the year and our shared story as a community. We’ll dedicate space for solo journaling (bring paper and markers), and invite you to share your center’s visions for 2024 in small groups. We’d love to hear what you’ve been learning, and what you’re dreaming up for the coming year. The call will close with a celebration of the moments of inspiration, learning, and growth we've each encountered with peers across the RCC community this year.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Margarita Solis-Deal

Topic: Sharing Poems of Gratitude and Resilience

Poems and stories are so powerful! On this call, we’ll share the poems that have given us strength and inspired us in the important work of retreat centers. Using a contemplative approach that draws on practices like lectio divina, dharma contemplation, and haggadah, we’ll savor the nuances of these poems as a community by reading them aloud. Please bring a poem or short reading to share, and a thoughtful ear as we reflect on the words together.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Topic: Retreat Programming

Dive into the latest trends in retreat programming in this peer-support discussion. Share what trends you’ve been seeing, and compare notes with leaders at retreat centers who are doing similar work at a similar scale. We’ll explore how centers navigate ‘scaling up’ their programs, and take a look at residencies and other alternative approaches to onsite programming.

There is no Community Call scheduled for October 24. Calls will resume on November 14.

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Cathy Stackpole, Mohan Aguirre, Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Topic: Your Center’s Sustainability Journey - Discussing Recent Study

On this call we’ll be discussing RCC’s recent Sustainability Study. This study was conducted by a Cal Poly University student team of industrial engineers. The resulting Sustainability Toolkit is one step in a larger movement toward sustainable retreat center business and program models. Join Mohan Aguirre from Mount Madonna Center in California, and Cathy Stackpole from Ferry Beach Retreat and Conference Center in Maine, as they co-facilitate this conversation, using case study examples from their own centers’ experience applying these tools. Please bring your comments, questions, and ideas for further application or research.

Review the toolkit here

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Topic: New Learning and Trends in our Community

RCC Program Director Ben Scott-Brandt will present data from the 2023 RCC Community Survey and facilitate a discussion on how centers plan to utilize the information in their unique contexts.

You can start exploring the results right now:

• Download the Community Survey Results

• Download the Raw, Anonymized Data

We encourage you to also take a look at data from past surveys, studies, and assessment tools, which are publicly shared in this Google Drive. You can now conduct your own analysis using fully anonymized raw data collected by RCC.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Marissa Metelica, LJ Boswell

Topic: On the Path to Decentering Whiteness: Exploring Suppression, Release, & Transformation

On the road to decentering whiteness, it is important for us to recognize and attend to the patterns of white supremacy ideology that arise within us. This is an opportunity to explore our own internalized patterns that impede invitations to liberation. In this 90-minute session, through writing and movement, we will explore the experiences of suppression, release, and transformation as they relate to our work of decentering whiteness at retreat centers.

This community call is open to people of all racial identities, facilitated by two white bodied people. During breakout groups, BIPoC folks will have a private and protected space for their work with the themes. BIPoC folks may also choose to participate in the RCC's upcoming "BIPoC People in Retreat Spaces” affinity group, which will address the same themes of decentering whiteness.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator:  Jamie Deering with Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Panelists: Karen McAllister, Larry Jay, Billy Mark, Marc Weiss, Troy and Faith Bierma, Jennifer Newman

Topic: Models for Balancing Hospitality, Work, and Life

Our Community Call this week responds to requests in our Facebook group to connect with peers about how to achieve a healthy work-life balance as folks who live onsite at retreat centers. It’s easy to assume that “new monastic” or other forms of spiritual community life will be smooth sailing because of the shared commitments of those involved, but humans are messy and complicated! We’ve invited a panel of speakers representing six centers to share from their experiences on the difficulties of living where you work, establishing healthy boundaries for personal space, and what they are learning along the way. Jamie Deering, director of programs ministry at Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, will facilitate this panel discussion and a Q&A. We hope you’ll join us!

Click for a list of facilitator and panelist bios.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley

Topic: Retreat Center Operations: Hardware, Software, and Equipment

Are you looking for recommendations for tools and equipment that make retreat center operations more efficient and effective? Tomorrow’s Community Call will be a facilitated peer discussion to evaluate computer hardware, software, and apps, as well as physical tools like machinery, utilities, and cleaning supplies. Bring your suggestions and examples for what helps you get the job done. This is a great call for your center’s operations manager or staff to attend. We look forward to being in dialogue with you.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators:  Ben Scott-Brandt, Erin McAuley, and John Ferro

Topic: Crafting Your Center’s Online Presence

One of RCC's core values is "the power of place and space." We tend to think our retreat center spaces are relegated to the land and physical structures where we gather in person—but many potential guests will first encounter our centers online. Between stays, returning guests like to keep connected to the spirit of a retreat center online. For guests who have limited capacity or resources to travel, the internet opens up a multitude of ways to connect.

So how do retreat centers extend the concept of sacred hospitality to online spaces? How do we cultivate a welcoming and engaging presence through our websites, social media, and other digital offerings? Join us for a discussion with John Ferro, the editorial director of the Omega Institute, where we'll explore ideas, best practices, and the benefits of crafting your center's online presence.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators:  Michelle Cassandra Johnson

Topic: Dreaming Our Way Forward: A Collective Dreaming Practice

The Racial Healing Initiative offers racial healing workshops during the RCC's regularly scheduled Community Calls for retreat center leaders. Our vision is a field of retreat centers with a shared commitment to racial healing in their communities—fostering racial justice, disrupting white supremacy, and healing together in deep, resilient, and equitable relationships. We invite you to join us on Tuesday, June 13, for a racial healing workshop with special guest Michelle Cassandra Johnson.

Dreaming Our Way Forward: A Collective Dreaming Practice

At this time on our planet, when many things seem to be on fire, literally and figuratively, we must be creative in responding to all that is burning, churning, crumbling, and being dismantled. Systems of oppression make us feel limited in our response to the magnitude of what we are up against. Yet, we have the power to dream and vision outside of systems of oppression such as white supremacy, the cishet patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, and all systems meant to further fracture us from ourselves and one another. In fact, we must learn to dream outside of the constraints of systems that thrive on upholding a hierarchy of bodies and keep us disconnected from our true nature, individually and collectively.

The process of dreaming during dream time as we slumber allows us to come up with divine solutions for problems that previously seemed impenetrable, such as the systems of oppression and climate chaos we are experiencing at this time. Bringing our dreams into waking life allows us to implement these solutions. In this session, Michelle C. Johnson will share how a dream practice can allow us to harness our divine power to come up with divine solutions to respond to the chaos and tumult of the world. She will share content about how to more fully engage our dream of creating a whole and healed world into action and guide a collective dreaming and visioning practice.

About Michelle Cassandra Johnson:

Michelle is an activist, social justice warrior, author, anti-racism consultant and trainer, intuitive healer, and yoga teacher and practitioner. Michelle’s work centers on healing from individual and collective trauma, coming back into wholeness and aligning the mind, body, spirit, and heart. Her latest book is We Heal Together: Rituals and Practices for Building Community and Connection.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Discussion Panel: Cal Poly Industrial Engineering Project Team: Alyza Jose, Jenna Vokolek, Yumi Aguilar

Moderator: Ben Scott-Brandt

Topic: Key Factors for Sustainability in Retreat Center Business Models

In partnership with a team of Cal Poly University students, the Retreat Center Collaboration is studying models for financial and programmatic sustainability at retreat centers. We hope you’ll join us for this Community Call with Alyza Jose, Jenna Vokolek, and Yumi Aguilar, the team conducting this 8-month study. Come hear what they’ve learned from interviews, site visits, and in-depth data collection at retreat centers. The study concludes next month, and students will be seeking your feedback on the results they’ve generated.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators:  Ben Scott-Brandt and Erin McAuley

Topic: World Cafe: Connective Conversations on the Menu

This call will provide multiple opportunities to explore topics that are important to your center now. Choose your own adventure! Facilitated by Ben Scott-Brandt and Erin McAuley, we’ll begin by identifying a handful of topics that participants find most interesting, then offer multiple breakout rooms for smaller conversations on the topics that matter to you. 

Here are some pre-selected topics for our menu: 

• Equity and access: Accessibility plans, financial support and intercultural skills

• The best information technology, software and equipment for retreat centers

• Best practices for outreach and communication to younger audiences

• How does your center distribute program development responsibilities?

• Sustainable practices and products for climate justice at retreat centers

• How does long-term onsite community impact sustainability?

You’re invited to bring a topic of your own, and be prepared to jump topics throughout our call. We look forward to being in dialogue with you.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators:  Ben Scott-Brandt

Topic: Engaging Your Center’s Volunteers and Program Alumni

How does your retreat center inspire volunteers and program alumni to give back and deepen their participation in your community? What keeps them coming back? How are you including volunteers and alumni in your organization’s story, strategy, and vision? If organizational resilience depends on a diverse community of people, relationships, and resources, what roles will volunteers and alumni play in helping your retreat center grow and flourish in the years ahead?

Join a circle of peers at this Community Call to exchange creative ways to tend these valuable relationships, and participate in a general discussion on best practices that will apply to the local context at each retreat center.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitators: Ben Scott-Brandt

Topic: Collaborative Fundraising as a Network of Retreat Centers

On this week’s Community Call, we’ll be talking about RCC's role as a mutual partner with retreat centers, how establishing formal partnerships might pave a clearer path for collaborative fundraising efforts, and what Ben Scott-Brandt is learning about fundraising from a broader network-weaving perspective.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To join us on a Community Call, please subscribe to the mailing list. You’ll receive a reminder email with the Zoom link the day before each call.

Facilitator: Brenda Salgado, Program Director for the Racial Healing Initiative

Topic: Racial Healing Workshop: Reconciling Trauma in the Body with Trauma in the Land

Brenda Salgado is the new program director of the Racial Healing Initiative and she's committed to co-creating a society filled with community wisdom, belonging, wholeness and beauty. She's focused on racial healing work, land and ancestral healing, sacred economics, and the weaving of mindfulness and indigenous teachings for the times we are in. She is grateful to her ancestors for their support in collective healing and liberation work.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To attend Community Calls, please Sign Up.

Facilitators: Erin McAuley with special guests

Topic: Collaboration with Change Agents, Movement Makers, and Community-Based Organizations

In the RCC community survey last year, 35% of respondents indicated interest in learning more about this topic. Join us in conversation with leaders on both sides of the equation to learn about their work and how they are building relationships, establishing partnerships, and starting collaborative projects between retreat centers, movement groups, and community-based organizations. We’ll hear short presentations from several speakers, facilitate a Q+A session to learn more, and then participate in a general discussion on best practices that apply to the regional context at our own centers.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To attend Community Calls, please Sign Up.

Discussion Panel: Cal Poly Industrial Engineering Project Team: Alyza Jose, Jenna Vokolek, Yumi Aguilar

Moderator: Ben Scott-Brandt

Topic: Cal Poly Study Update: What Makes Retreat Centers Sustainable?

In partnership with a team of Cal Poly University students, the Retreat Center Collaboration is studying models for financial and programmatic sustainability at retreat centers. We’re halfway through an 8-month research and analysis project, and we hope you’ll join us for this Community Call with Alyza Jose, Jenna Vokolek, and Yumi Aguilar.

This team of industrial and manufacturing engineering students bring a systems-based approach to this study, which is complemented by virtual interviews with retreat centers across the continent, in-depth data collection, and onsite visits to centers in California!

Come learn more about their work thus far, and offer your input as the study progresses.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To attend Community Calls, please Sign Up.

Facilitators: Rev. Lorren Buck, Racial Healing Initiative consultant/facilitator

Topic: Antiracism for the Love of It

On this call, Rev. Lorren Buck, a core consultant with the Racial Healing Initiative, will be facilitating our call as a racial healing workshop.

Resmaa Menakem defines somatic abolitionism as a living, embodied philosophy that requires endurance, stamina, and discernment. On the day we are reminded about the power of love, we will hold space for emergent discussion and somatic sensing while engaging antiracist healing practices. “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” - Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. We come together collectively, from a place of connection and fierce loving accountability, to name the patterns and embodied lineages of harm we have inherited from white body supremacy.

Call begins at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Our Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders. To attend Community Calls, please Sign Up.

Facilitators: Ben Scott-Brandt

Topic: Staffing Models and Supports at Retreat Centers

On this call, let’s identify a few different innovative and effective staffing models that really work at retreat centers - particularly amid the current flurry of transitions, shortages, and uncertainty in hiring. What is working well at your center? What challenges would you like to ask peers about? We’ll exchange best practices and touch on related topics: ensuring equity practices are baked into the hiring process, and establishing mental health supports and policies for staff and guests.