Foregather: Hartland 2024

Join our gathering! 20th - 23rd September 2024

Greetings from Laura, Emily and Fran! We’re so excited to invite you to Foregather’s first gathering: 20th - 23rd September 2024 in Hartland, Devon, UK.

We’ve found the perfect venue and can’t wait to share it with a group of hopeful women this September. We’ll spend three days eating nourishing food, enjoying the land and supporting each other with our ideas.

This gathering is for you if…

• You know, bone-deep, that you have something to express. You might be unsure what that something is, or if you are sure, how to get started

• You are experiencing a tug towards creating something in service of a more communal, regenerative, equitable, beautiful future. A hopeful future 

• You are on the cusp of change, called to something bigger than yourself. Your future self whispers to you, if only you could listen and trust deeply enough

• You long for community, earth-connection and purpose. A longing so vast it sometimes feels like grief

• You wonder how this potential path will pay the bills. You wonder how you will reconcile such a path with your current work or practice

• You fear what others will say. You ask yourself, who am I to dream? Who am I to imagine? Who am I to create?

• You are ready to trust that the right things will emerge given the right conditions

• You are ready to create, with the right support around you.
  

The surrounding area of Hartland

What to expect

We'll listen deeply and speak what needs to be said. We'll remember how to gather creative inspiration and energy from places beyond ourselves and practise more connected ways of being, allowing our creative selves to unfurl. 

This is a slow and subtle tending to our creative selves. There is nothing to "fix" and no "quick wins". We hope that the weekend deeply nourishes us, and that the experience works through us in the weeks and months afterwards, enabling our creation magic to unfold at its own pace.

• We’ll gather from Friday afternoon to Monday midday with an opening and closing ceremony

• We’re guides, not gurus. We can’t provide all the answers, but we are well-equipped to create the space that allows us to practise more connected ways of being and sense into how to express our creative gifts

• We’ll facilitate experiences to expand your connections to yourself, your creative life-force, with others and the earth. Experiences will include walks, swims, sketching, fireside song and more

• Plenty of solo time for creating and relaxing. We lean towards loosely facilitated spaces rather than packed schedules of workshops

• 2x 2-hour workshops (Saturday and Sunday mornings) to explore what supports and what blocks our creative energy, and to work on our ideas

• Connecting with others who are gathering; sharing our ideas and getting feedback. You’ll also have access to Laura, Emily and Fran’s skills: creative strategy, branding and content/ writing

• Your hosts are sensitive folk with experience of chronic illness. We will adapt our schedule and styles to meet the capacity of our collective bodyminds each day.

Mementos from our venue scouting trip in May

Co-creating the village

We’ll be practising a creative and communal way of being that requires each of us to contribute and commit.

• We’ll be creating a village space, which necessarily involves a balance between freedom and responsibility, between listening to our own needs and honouring the needs of the collective

• This Hartland gathering will be unique. A reflection of the place and the women gathering

• We’ll honour that we’ll all be at different places in our lives, minds and bodies

• This isn’t the kind of gathering where the work of hosting is invisible. Depending on your capacity, we’ll expect you to help out a little, for example, tending to the fire one evening, helping to chop vegetables for one of the dinners, or doing the washing up after one of the breakfasts

• We’ll likely have conversations and experiences we didn’t know we needed and work our relational, creative and communal muscles – that perhaps we didn’t know had weakened. Come ready to listen and contribute

• We know everyone will bring valuable skills. Together, we’ll help shine a light on these gifts and weave them into the gathering

• Note: this is an alcohol and drug-free gathering.

Investment

We offer four rates and ask that you select the one that best fits your circumstances. Choosing a higher fee helps us to cover our costs and enables others to access the discounted rates. We are currently producing these gatherings out of our own pull towards more creative connection and community¹.

The payment plan is 50% of your chosen rate as a deposit upfront, and the final 50% by 31st August 2024. More information in the document below.

💫  Pay-it-forward rate (£1,500) 
For people employed at larger organisations, well-paid professionals, property-owners and/ or those with generational wealth (e.g. you're likely to inherit money or property). Your payment will enable others to participate at the supported rate and will help to fund future iterations of Foregather.

🌈  Full rate (£950) 
For people employed at larger organisations, well-paid professionals, property owners and/ or those with generational wealth (e.g. you're likely to inherit money or property). Your payment enables others to participate at the supported rate.

🌿 Discounted rate (£650)
For people employed at small organisations (fewer than 10 employees) and/ or individuals needing a lower cost option due to life circumstances. 

🐚 Supported rate (£350)
For people who are drawn to this gathering but would otherwise not be able to join due to limited access to financial resources such as being a solo parent, currently being unemployed, on welfare support, or someone who works for community, charity, or activist organisations (without other sources of financial wealth, like property or generational wealth). Only a few supported rate slots are available, we trust that only those who most need this special price will choose it.

For more information about the gathering, including rooms and accessibility, have a
look through the document below.

Join us!

• We’ll be intentionally curating a group of 8-10 women based on the expressions of interest that feel like a good fit for the group, where you’re at on your creative journey and our ability to meaningfully support you

• Fill in the form to express your interest in joining

• Email us hello@foregather.co with any questions.
  

1. We are not charging for our time in this first gathering; the prices only reflect the costs
of venue, food, travel and materials. We hope that you’ll give us feedback on this first prototype, to inform future iterations.