Think and Ink Retreat

This event invites 20 people to come together in order to share and explore their observations about their corporate lives. It will offer space and time in which to discuss personal experience and then talk about ideas that have emerged in terms of how the workplace might be improved.

The focus of the session is to support people to have these conversations - and then offer a positive environment wherein participants can start to explore capturing their reflections and/or specific ideas in writing. The idea of this is to assist people to hone and then capture their thinking, in order to support the publicising and dissemination of ideas, through a range of publications, from grey literature via journal articles to producing books.

The session will take place in a large and comfortable room in the Welwyn Garden City Central Library. This town is easily accessible via both train - in terms of regular services departing London King's Cross and Moorgate stations, along with southbound services arriving from busy interchanges such as Stevenage and Cambridge - and by road, given its close proximity to the A1(M).

The library can be accessed from Welwyn Garden City railway station via a level 10-15 minute walk through the town - and there is a large public car park next door to the library. Additionally, the site backs on to Sherrardspark Woods, so participants will have the option to take their conversations out into forested nature, should they so choose.

Tea, coffee and water will be provided throughout the event, although participants are expected to make their own arrangements for lunch. There are numerous cafes in the town centre, as well as a cafe called Humphries, which is based in the Campus West complex of which the library is part.

The event will formally conclude at 3pm, in light of the fact that it is a Friday afternoon and people may have a wide range of personal commitments to which they need to attend. However, your host will remain on site until around 4.30pm should some participants wish to continue working alongside people with whom they have connected during the day.

At the close of the session, people will leave having been in rich dialogue with others - and having produced a useful first draft of a piece of writing that has value for them.

A small fee is being charged partly to cover the cost of the room hire and to offset the other expenses of the host of the day.