This weekend, I had the privilege of traveling to the Dutch countryside with a group of 23 of the home group leaders from Zolder50 for our semi-annual Home Group Leaders Retreat.  And, as always, we had a great time to connecting with each other and learning together.

Eva and Patricia organized and executed a wonderful seminar on conflict management, which proved to be very intellectually-stimulating as well as instantly-applicable to our personal lives and our various home groups.  It's embarrassing how ill-equipped most of us "grown-ups" are at handling interpersonal conflict -- and how quickly we can revert to patterns learned (consciously or subconsciously) during elementary school!  So to have a seminar where we could carefully and deliberately learn about the causes, effects, and practical ways to deal with conflict was extremely valuable.

And it was just plain fun to be able to learn together with a quality group of people.

And getting to visit another one of the Natuurvriendenhuizen (Friends of Nature House) in the wooded Gelderland countryside was also a wonderful experience.  Our home group leaders have used two of these spaces (originally developed by Jewish Socialists in the early part of the 20th Century) now, and they've proved to be wonderful facilities for hosting small conferences like this:  cheap, comfortable, equipped with fabulous industrial-strength kitchens and airy meeting spaces -- and out of the city... Way out of the city...

And, of course, one of the best parts about staying at a Natuurvriendenhuis is the ability to go for an afternoon walk at the end of the retreat (this has become something of a tradition for our home group leaders retreats).

Even at a time of the year when the weather is less-than-ideal, these
walks are always a great time for stretching our legs, connecting with
each other in deeper, more personal conversation, and enjoying nature
together.

It ended up being a great weekend.

For those who might be interested, there are a few more pictures from the weekend that can be viewed in the Zolder50 pictures section of the website.