Excellent food, great ideas and wonderful company at the Centre for Narrative Leadership ‘Cathedrals in the Heart’ 2 day event
A couple of weeks ago I was invited by Julian Burton (artist and change consultant) to spend 2 days at the CNL event based at Hawkwood College in Stroud.
Not sure what to expect, I went along because of our shared interest in the power of storytelling in business leadership. The event turned out to be a collection of lovely people all dedicated in some way to creating deep and significant change in their lives and the wider world. We were a varied group of storytellers, bards, poets, peformers and corporate coaches held in a perfectly structured and facilitated space to explore the areas that interested us as a group.
The location was the tranquil settings of Hawkwook with it’s old-fashioned, wholesome charm. There were books everywhere and barely a hint of modern technology. Day 1 concluded with a ‘ceilidh’ – people telling stories, reciting poems and all of us singing carols in rounds.
Day two created some ‘open space’ where we explored some issues that mattered to us. I invited people to collaborate with a storyteller friend of mine, Caroline Keane, on a story telling podcast using the mobile phone as the communication vehicle. The site has just started at www.stonecarrier.org.uk (early days but it’s off the ground!).
Whenever you bring together lovely, real people in a peaceful, nurturing space and hold them confidently and lightly with a grounding sense of purpose you get magic. Geoff Mead’s ‘Centre for Narrative Leadership’ creates that magic – and by the end of the event, I realised that almost by accident, I’d spent two days feeding my heart, not my intellect.
Everywhere I go at the moment it seems like when you scratch the surface, people long for change – for something bigger than just them; for something more meaningful in their lives than the inexorable path to environmental, financial and spiritual bankruptcy we seem to be on. If you’re looking for a place to explore that yearning, CNL is a good place to start.
[Geoff - if you're reading this a) thanks for a great couple of days and b) please get involved with www.stonecarrier.org.uk and c) hurry up and get your site at the top of Google for 'centre for narrative leadership'. Anything I can do to help, please just get in touch]
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