SOTG Retreat Planning

SpiritoftheGame.org has developed three distinct retreats formats, each of which could be 2.5-3 days, or condensed down into a single day.

1. Our “flagship” retreat format is titled “Maximizing your Impact” and we have custom versions for several of our Impactful Networks:
   1. The Impactful Women’s Network
   2. The Impactful Business Network
   3. The Impactful Youth Network
   4. The Impactful Teachers Network
2. Our most “generic” retreat is titled “Live Your Best Life” and is simply a schedule of workshops delivered by experts in:
   1. Impact
   2. Sustainability
   3. Mental Health
   4. Physical Health  (Where each participant chooses the morning, afternoon and sometimes evening workshops which meet their own needs)
3. Our third type of retreat is a Mind-Body-Soul retreat
   These would include yoga, exercise, and meditation, but also talks from experts on different ways to incorporate each of these elements into your personal and professional lives. 

1. “Maximizing your Impact” – Helping you, the participant:

• Identify your own priority areas for Personal Development and Personal Impact. 
• Explore how these two can complement each other rather than competing for your attention.
• Conduct an initial assessment of your current Personal Impact Platform, i.e. all the ways in which your currently interact with society and the planet.
• Provide you with the framework for prioritizing which areas you want to work on in the short term, mid term, and long term.
• Develop a set of concrete actions steps you can implement during and after the retreat.
• Match you up with a “pen-pal” or working group so you don’t have to figure out the next steps on your own. 
• Show you how to track your progress over time, as well as conduct regular reassessments of priorities.  

That is the starting format. For specialized retreats for our different Impactful Networks we have added the following elements:

• The Impactful Women’s Network 

Workshops on: 

1. How to thrive as a woman in corporate
2. How to thrive as a female entrepreneur
3. How to balance work/life/Impact
4. How to maximize your Impact when you are a primary care-giver
5. How to maximize your Impact as a Coach/Consultant

1. The Impactful Business Network 

Focused on helping each participant explore how they can use their business or business network to maximize their positive Impact on Society.

Most TIBN Retreats will have specific workshops for:

1. Influencing a Corporate environment (TIEN)
2. Maximizing a Small Business’s Impact Platform (TISBN)
3. How to be most Impactful as a Coach/Consultant (TICN)
4. How to have the greatest Impact with your investments (TIIN)

And in some countries we will have specific retreats for each of those four subnetworks of TIBN.
TIEN =Impactful Enterprises(Corporations)

TISBN =Impactful Small Business

TICN =Impactful Coaches/Consultants

TIIN =Impactful Investors 

• The Impactful Youth Network

Focused in helping: 

• Students
• Young professionals, and 
• Young entrepreneurs 

explore how they can have the greatest Impact in their careers, both short term and long term.

1. Most TIYN Retreats will have specific workshops for:
   1. How to maximize your time in school or your continuing education pursuits
   2. How to influence your employers Impact Platform
   3. How to determine how serious a potential employer is about Impact
   4. How to balance Impact and Income in your job choices
   5. How to use an Impactful Business Plan to make time your ally instead of your enemy

In some countries we will have specific retreats for each of these groups

1. The Impactful Teachers Network

Focused on:

1. Helping teachers explore how best to convey the lessons from The Impactful Youth Network to their students
2. Helping each participant explore how they themselves can maximize their Personal Impact Platform

We will also have two different types of TITN Retreats:

1) Official – Meeting the guidelines for teachers to satisfy at least part of their district’s continuing education requirements

2) Personal – Where participants have more flexibility in the workshops they participate in

Some examples of those workshops:

1. How to maximize your other continuing education pursuits
2. How to influence your school or district’s Impact Platform
3. How to introduce Impact most effectively into conversations with parents, teachers, and administration
4. How to balance Impact and Income in your job choices
5. How to begin the process towards becoming an ‘Education for Impact’ consultant
6. How to best support your most Impactful students, and engage the disengaged

RETREAT REQUIREMENTS:

1. An audience

– This is currently SotG’s biggest lack in most countries

1. A venue 
   – This is much easier to find than in the past due to AirBnB as one option, and we also have a dedicated venue partner for hotels
2. The Facilitators
   – Given enough time, LinkedIn has proved to be a great tool for finding Facilitators, but partnering with other non-profits would be another way
3. An agenda/schedule

Here is the template for a 2.5 day Retreat schedule (Maximizing your Impact)

Friday (Segment 0)

1600 – Networking event

1800 – Philosophy discussion part 1

1900 – Dinner

2030 – Philosophy discussion part 2

2200 – Nighttime/Sunset Walk and Talk

Saturday (Segment 1)

0630 – 30 minute yoga class & 30 minute meditation class

0700-0930 Repeat in 30 minute increments, so anyone can join as they wish

0730-0930 Breakfast (no more than 1 person per table from the same city)

1000 Small group breakout #1 – Identifying priorities for the weekend

1100 Small group breakout #2 – Identifying Social Impact priorities

1200 Lunch with facilitated discussions on specific societal topics

(Segment 2)

1400 Small group breakout #3 – Identify Personal Development priority

1500 Coffee break and mingling

1530-1730 Yoga, Meditation, Sports options

1800 Keynote speaker

1900 Dinner with facilitated discussion on specific Per. Dev. topics

2100 Table swap to join other Per Dev topic groups

2200 Nighttime/Sunset Walk and Talk

Sunday (Segment 3)

0630 30 minute yoga class & 30 minute meditation class

0700-0930 Repeat in 30 minute increments, so anyone can join as they wish

0730-0930 Breakfast (City groups planning talks)

1000-1200 Personal Social Impact Platform planning

1000 each group will be composed of people with similar Personal 

Development goals and similar Social Impact goals

1100 Mixer for participants with a 2nd priority on Per. Dev. and/or Social 

Impact, so basically an opportunity to switch groups

1200 Lunch with 2nd keynote speaker

(Segment 4)

1330 Small group breakout #3 – Crafting a Personal Social Impact 

Platform with action steps

1530 Coffee break and mingling

1630-1730 Each participant gets 1 minute to present the highlights of their

new Personal Social Impact Platform

1730 Closing ceremonies (end of official program)

1800 Yoga, Meditation, Sports options

1930 Casual Dinner for anyone staying for a 3rd night

2200 Nighttime/Sunset Walk and Talk

Monday morning hike

A 2 day retreat would skip Segment 0. Some retreats might also start at 1600 on Friday and conclude at noon on Sunday, in which case Segment 1 would be Friday evening, and Segment 4 would be Sunday morning.  

TIWN SPECIFIC NOTES:

Initial thought is to condense Segments 1-4 so that we have space for additional segments such as:
Divide participants into 1)Entrepreneurs & 2)non-entrepreneurs OR

1)Entrepreneurs, “)Full time corporate, academia, gov, NGO, etc & 3)Part time workers
AND/OR 1)Women with children & 2)Women without OR

1)W/ Children at home 2)Children not at home 3)No children
Probably would not use those terms, would just use those groups as the way to choose which specific workshop titles/discussion groups to add

Ideas:

1. Women in the Workforce Panels with a group of leading women to hear their stories/struggles/successes
2. Salary Negotiation – other type of Confidence Gap exercises
3. Role Playing
4. Mentorship Hour
5. What is your Need
6. NGO “conference” – collaborations with other associations in 
7. Speed Networking

PLANNING NOTES:
This is a very rough guide for how many people SotG needs in a particular area for each level of retreat. We generally anticipate that 5% of the total followers of a page would come to a Retreat within 2 hours, or a Conference within 1 hour. And since we want 50% local attendance that means that if you wanted to organize a conference for 20 people, you would need 10 locals, so a total of 200 unique followers between the cities within a 1 hour radius. 

If you want a 50 person retreat, you need 500 unique followers, etc. 

Alternatively, you can track SotG Supporters who are the people you have a conversation with who say they like our goals/organization/etc. but who for whatever reason do not become an active contributor. We anticipate that 10-15% of those folks would be likely to attend a nearby Retreat/conference. So maybe you don’t really promote your page so you don’t have a ton of followers, but if you have 70-100 Supporters, you can probably still have a successful 20 person event without too much external marketing, and you’d want 350-500 of those folks for a 50 person event. And remember, that in Europe, the US East Coast and other crowded regions, these are total numbers across all the cities within a 2 or 1 hour radius. So if we have 200 Supporters in Zurich, 75 in Bern, and 75 in Basel, and we have a location within 1 hour of all three cities, then we can plan for a 40-50 person event.

Main areas of Personal Development:
Meditation
Mindfulness

Yoga
Exercise

Conflict Resolution
Trying on New Habits

Public Speaking
Professional Growth

Confidence Gap
Etc.

Main areas of Social Impact
Climate&Sustainability
Women’s Empowerment
Entrepreneurship

Youth

Corporate Culture

Etc.