A Colorful Retreat
Last weekend, we hosted our annual Full Coalition Retreat where we invited core members, youth organizers, and working group members to join us for a weekend of learning, reflection, strategic planning, and connecting. Thirty-four people joined us for all or part of the retreat. Youth and adult members signed up to lead different parts of the retreat. Each year, the ratio of youth to adults has increased as we’ve invested more of our resources into youth organizing.
We connected through games, exercise, crafts, and collaboration. We learned about different types of theories of change and reflected on what the coalition has done and should be during the current political moment. We did zumba, ice skated, created vision boards, and sang karaoke. We did activities to practice radical imagination. We came up with a list of non-negotiables for the coalition. The Relational Care Crew shared tools for increasing engagement, recognizing dominant culture patterns, and giving feedback in order to provide a healthy space where working groups can prevent conflict and address it with care when it arises.
One of the highlights of the retreat was a DIY puppet show where small groups imagined where the coalition would be in 10 years. We ended the retreat with a closing where we broke out into groups and wrote poems about our experience. Here is one of the poems titled “A Colorful Retreat”:
“The ancestors laugh joyfully watching through the forest.
The abolitionist community was laughing, dancing, and singing in the cozy cabins.
A joyful retreat of intentional collaboration and mutual aid.
Energetic creativity, learning messily.
Without puppets of greed.
Warm people staying present, cruising towards fun.”
Thank you to everyone who supports us with their time, money, and effort. Your support helps make this critical annual retreat possible.
