Five Principles for Building IRL Community

I Designed A Retreat Weekend and It Was Dope. Here's What I Learned.

Color me tan, relaxed and re-energized. Not just from vacation, but from the first inaugural Ladies Who Strategize retreat.

Meeting, meetings, meetings

Ladies Who Strategize is a group built by Kim Mackenzie. For many years it was a Slack group where women in strategy shared professional resources, connections, and advice. And then the pandemic hit. As we all hunkered down at home and navigated the confusion and heartache of the lock down, Kim started a weekly Zoom meeting called Lunch Break, open to all Ladies Who Strategize members. It quickly grew from an awkward set of strangers figuring out their mute buttons to a vital part of the organization, where women connected weekly to celebrate wins, commiserate losses, and reflect on the strange cocktail of personal and professional in our new work-from-home life. As the group grew, Kim tapped me and several others to join the leadership team. In one Lunch Break, someone said something to the effect of, wouldn't it be great to just hang out on a beach together?

Cue me and my love of travel planning. I’ve always sparked to travel and its ability to shift our perspective, introduce us to new ideas, wipe away the stress of home life, and open the doors to new identities. I spent my formative years skipping around the globe—a year in Senegal, six months in India, three months in Thailand, multiple stints in my motherland of Indonesia—which prepped me to leap at the chance to build a travel experience. Weeks at retreat centers like Esalen, Omega Institute, and Kripalu taught me the subtlety of managing group energy. And the way Ladies Who Strategize and other communities have helped each other during the pandemic showed me the importance of crafting supportive community spaces.

I remember being a young eager backpacker traveling through India, one man told me his philosophy of retreats, which he engaged in twice-yearly: it’s a necessary space to remind yourself that life is a treat. In a time that emphasizes the production of capital over everything, building spaces to remember that life is more than that is essential. As I reflect on the retreat, I’m defining the organizing principles that helped shape an IRL community-building experience.

1. DEFINE THE RIGHT BALANCE OF REST AND ACTIVITY

When we polled our participants about what they wanted most out of the retreat, they said ‘Rest, relaxation and connection.’ I felt this too. We had two years of pandemic survivorship under our belts and we were collectively tired. We had parents coming in from managing years of zoom school / back to school / covid cancellations. We had women who had started new jobs during the pandemic, learning how to build their roles remotely. We had freelancers who’d gone from early pandemic drought to late pandemic mayhem. We had people in the gap between jobs, finally able to disconnect from work but a little uncertain about what was next. Yes, we were tired.

To make room for rest, we only had a couple of activities a day and none required the effort of going from one place to the next. No one was seeking the usual adrenaline rush of conferences. The looseness of the planning meant people could seek connecting or rest, learning or sleep. The balance of rest versus activity was about 70/30. 

2. CREATE A VESSEL FOR CO-CREATION

Communities are by nature co-created. Each person brings their gifts and their pain, their hopes and their past. The retreat was planned to offer enough space and time for these gifts to reveal themselves. Ellie Estaugh, who had never taught yoga before, led  classes on the beach in the morning. Kaitlin Maud Moon, in training for art therapy, brought 18 sets of crayons, neatly rolled into pretty cloths, and walked us through an art therapy session about boundary setting. Chelsea Brown presented her planning methodology in a beautifully bound, hand drawn book. I fulfilled one of my joys of leading meditations. Mary Anne Bishop brought glow sticks to kick off a dance party. Lexie Perez showed us what was what by impromptu DJing a full night of music. Nicole Hering read people’s tarot cards. The last night we ended up building a play list out of women who inspired us, announcing each artist and song with why they were a feminist icon, all because we had a Taylor-stan and a Rihanna-stan with deep thoughts about why they mattered. 

3. DEVELOP PERMISSION TO BE 

In so much of our lives, we’re required to play a role. Leader, mother, daughter, friend, employee, member. After two years of witnessing each other on a weekly Zoom where we could be all of the above, or none of the above, it was easy for our retreat space to demand very little of everyone. Everything was optional. Whatever someone needed, they were supported and accepted for it. Nothing made me happier than to walk out to the pool deck in the afternoon and see seven women snoozing in the sun. 

New daily rhythms arise when there are few rules. There was the inevitable sunrise group, eager to witness the morning begin over the Atlantic ocean, still a little sleepy and pre-verbal. There was the woman who would walk directly to her spot and start reading, and the morning runner who would pick up a green juice on her run. After dinner we had impromptu dance parties. Without hard and fast rules, everyone gravitated towards whatever activity—or non-activity—best suited their needs in the moment.

4. MAKE YOUR SCHEDULE ORGANIC

We are all over-scheduled. If we’re not ping ponging between full days of meetings, we’re managing the ups and downs of non-work life. I wanted everyone to be relieved of the need to look at a calendar or a watch, so scheduling was loose. 

We had a few structured activities: IRL replicas of Zoom experiences like our Lunch Break and our content club, along with an off premise adventure to a pristine blue swimming hole with a little shopping tagged on the end. But we kept the days free of time restraints. One event that would usually take an hour on Zoom stretched to five hours as everyone was hungry for time together. Without a set schedule, we could take make this time work. 

Every day, I took the pulse of what people wanted and needed and adjusted according to that. The only set times were mealtimes, and all other scheduling became relative. Art therapy after breakfast. A content discussion after lunch. Those who wanted to participate gravitated towards those spaces, and those who wanted something else ended up in a hammock or on a kayak.  

5. FIND A SPACE THAT MAXIMIZES CARE

The LWS lead team had researched all-inclusives, AirBnBs, and other options where we could host 18-20 women, and for a little while we were stumped. Everything was too big or too small, too demanding or too unpredictable. Until we landed on Haute Retreats, a collection of beautiful homes that provided beachfront properties with full service. Bonus for us, it’s a woman-owned company. I had never stayed at anything like this before, and booked it with fingers crossed that it would live up to the pictures on the internet. We were floored by the care and service; there was a team of chefs whipping up perfect breakfast, lunches and dinners. Jorge was our bartender, blending margaritas with fresh fruit and just enough tequila to keep us functional for the day. Federico was our wait staff who took care of everything we needed, and Laurie our property manager who helped us with anything off the property.

True luxury is being taken care of, having your needs predicted, and not having to worry about the little things. It allowed all of our participants to put down the burden of planning and the tasks that we as women and as strategists constantly feel responsible for. Without the care of the team on site, none of the above would have been possible. 

The final outcome of the retreat was a unique mix of professional connection and personal support, a revitalization of why community is important and why real life fulfills something entirely different than our rushed Zoom life. I wish you all a day, a weekend, a week, or more of this feeling.

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You’ve just read Framing, a biweekly newsletter about culture, marketing, and business by Anita Schillhorn van Veen. I’m currently Director of Strategy at McKinney, on the lead team of Ladies Who Strategize, and a writer over at my other favorite Substack Why Is This Interesting.

I put this out for free because I enjoy writing and thinking through problems—if you enjoyed this, you can support my work by buying me a coffee.