Annual Retreat: Restoration and Resilience
October 22-25, 2023 • Five Oaks Centre
What to expect
The Retreat Center Collaboration’s annual retreat will be hosted at Five Oaks Centre in Paris, Ontario, Canada.
Registration is now open
Registration closes October 1
Space is limited! Register early to secure your spot.
The retreat begins with dinner on Sunday, October 22nd, and closes after breakfast on Wednesday, October 25th.
This year’s theme
Our focus is restoration and resilience.
Come share delicious meals, vibrant conversations, and fireside gatherings. Surrounded by brilliant fall colors, we’ll relish the beauty of coming together and the strength of this community.
The annual retreat is an opportunity to sit down with peers and exchange ideas about our work and the future of the retreat center sector. You’ll head home afterward with new friendships, new ideas, and a restored appreciation for the transformative gift of retreat.
You belong here
The annual retreat is open to:
retreat center professionals - leadership team, board and staff members
allied organizations who are furthering the retreat center sector
movement builders and changemakers who partner with retreat centers
Cultivate connection
The annual retreat planning team—Nanci Lee, Paul Mach, Marta Mulholland, Ben Scott-Brandt, and Michael Shewburg—has designed a beautiful agenda for these four days, orienting our time together toward cultivating connections, sacred rest, and emergent learning as a community.
Arrivals are welcome between 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, October 22nd, followed by a group dinner at 5:30 p.m. The retreat will continue through a closing ceremony on Wednesday morning, followed by lunch.
Departures begin at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, October 25th.
We encourage you to reach out ASAP to Five Oaks directly if you’d like to extend your stay for a personal retreat.
Celebrate the senses
The retreat will celebrate our physical senses and embodied relationship with the earth, each other, and ourselves—highlighting these connections through simple ceremonies and centering reflections to frame each day, and intentionally creating space to unplug from computers and screens. We’ll co-create this container with the help of facilitators drawing from their own cultural and faith traditions in ways that are accessible to all.
You will also have the option to participate in workshops, hikes, campfires, and games.
Explore with others
Three of our sessions will be organized by “Open Space,” where participants share their work and ideas in six to eight simultaneous offerings. You are invited to lead a workshop to share your expertise or call a conversation on a theme you’d like to explore with others (no expertise required). This structure allows us to draw on collective wisdom, “look under the hood” on retreat center business issues, and socialize as peers.
The agenda also includes a plenary session on racial healing at retreat centers, led by Brenda Salgado, program director for the Racial Healing Initiative (RHI). You’ll have a chance to hear from centers who have participated in RHI, and experience some of the embodied and ancestral approach of this program through group activities.
Where you’ll stay
Sacred confluence of two waterways
You’ll be staying at the Five Oaks campus, which is situated between the Grand River and Whitemans Creek on 116 acres. This land is the traditional territory of the Cayuga, Haudenosaunee, and Anishinaabe peoples. The campus features an interfaith prayer room, 2 wood-burning fireplaces, a labyrinth, wooded trails, a bookstore, river access, and more.
All your meals and lodging are included
Single bedrooms with shared bathrooms
For this retreat, RCC has reserved the Main Building, Peace House, House on the Hill, the Chalet, and the Hermitage. To learn more about and view the accommodations at Five Oaks, please visit their accommodations page.
Getting to Five Oaks
It’s easy to fly in and out
Five Oaks is located at 1 Bethel Rd, Paris, ON, N3L 3E3, Canada.
Five Oaks is a short drive from metro airports in Toronto, Buffalo, and Detroit.
1 hr drive (100 km) from YYZ in Toronto
2 hr drive (160 km) from BUF in Buffalo
3 hr drive (300 km) from DTW in Detroit
Participants are responsible for their own travel arrangements. If you’re interested in regional carpooling, check the appropriate box in the registration form below.
Taking care of you
Accessibility options
The Main Building at Five Oaks is fully wheelchair accessible, with an exterior door operator, an accessible washroom with shower, and a lift to access the lower level Meeting Spaces and Dining Hall.
There is one wheelchair-accessible bedroom at Five Oaks, located in the Chalet. It features an exterior door operator, accessible washroom with shower, and bedroom door operator.
Learn more about room measurements and accessibility options here. If you’re interested in reserving the wheelchair-accessible room, check the appropriate box in the registration form below.
Joyful reviews
Here’s what participants are saying about RCC gatherings
“Thanks to everyone who helped to put on this retreat. It’s been a real joy and definitely needed!”
“RCC is a place to count on for collaboration, information, and support - to hear what’s going on in other places.”
“Thank you to all who shared with me. It's been very special and helpful.”
“RCC provides an opportunity for us to see one another as colleagues, in new and creative ways, instead of viewing one another as competitors. There’s a lot of value in that.”
Registration tiers
Three tiers so all can participate
Please select the registration tier that best matches your financial capacity.
The Supporter Tier - $900 USD. Registration fee pays for event costs and invests in the RCC’s Equitable Participation Fund. If you are able to claim parts of this retreat as a business expense, please select the Supporter tier.
The Standard Tier — $600 USD. Registration fee pays for event costs.
The Discounted Tier — $300 USD. Registration fee pays for a portion of event costs. If you need additional support from the RCC Equitable Participation Fund for your travel costs and related expenses, please contact us before registering.
We recommend registering no more than 3 people per center, but if you’d like to register more, please contact us to discuss.
Supporting your needs
Equitable participation fund
Our community is rooted in core values: the power of place and space, the interplay of inner and outer work, and a commitment to universal flourishing. Equity practices are key to living out these values.
We offer three registration tiers to acknowledge the differing levels of privilege and/or systemic barriers that participants experience. The Equitable Participation Fund supports our collective ability to claim space from our day to day concerns and responsibilities, so that while we are on retreat together we can focus on being present to our individual and collective rhythms and needs.
If you select a lower tier when you could afford a higher tier, it makes it harder for us to provide financial flexibility to those who need it most.
Questions about the fund? Learn more.
Cancellation policy
How it works
If registration is full, your name will be added to a waitlist, and you will be contacted as spots become available.
You may cancel your registration by August 1, 2023 for a full refund. Please inform us promptly if you will be unable to attend, so waitlisted participants may register.
Cancellations received after August 1, 2023 will receive a partial refund, with the remaining balance added to the equitable participation fund.
Cancellations after October 7, 2023 will not be refunded.
Comments, questions, and ideas
Your questions are important, and we’re here to help. Please contact us with any comments, questions, and ideas.