Hi, I love this proposal ❤️thanks for moving this forward. I like the survey approach so as to more precisely address Kiez Burn needs. I support this initiative and Im keen to help in some form if needed.

1. I believe we do need this!

2. I would like to go 🤗

3. I think in regards to budget it wouldn't be a problem as well as participants contributing if they can.

4. So as to make any different, I dont think so, but there are two things Id like to point out:

   • From my experience retreats and off-sites tend to be pretty full of activities of all kinds which I find very nourishing and useful, however, all these are group activities. We have breakfast, we do games, body exercises/workouts, sharing rounds, workshops etc, etc. For those who are rather introvert, this is very challenging and might find the overall experience a bit overwhelming; Usually, when we organize these retreats or offsite we tend to miss out on this detail and forget to schedule a "me time" where we encourage participants to take some time alone, go for a walk and have a moment of self-reflection and find a peace of mind without feeling we/They are missing out content or activities.

     I wonder if a time off could be added to the agenda, or at least, to the Survey (?) to see what participants would need to really make the most of an event like this.

   • I would add some content about best practices on how to express gratitude and thankfulness to show appreciation to other realizers/participants.

   Thanks once again for taking the initiative🙏

Very cool, yes I love this. I think it's a great use of the verein's resources.

• I am happy to assist in any way that I can. I have a few workshop ideas and useful tools for leadership I think, especially in self-regulation under stress.

• I would like to highlight that the kitchen situation last time was less than ideal. We had 2 volunteers working pretty much full time to feed everyone (and not everyone cleared up after themselves!). They could barely take part in any of the activities. It was a lot to ask of volunteers. Two potential solutions are;

  • We compensate them for their time. (Which in this case I think could be fair)

  • We have more kitchen helpers and distribute them around all the participants, taking shifts. That way everyone loses out on something, but everyone get's to take part in most activities.

  • Or we have a much bigger kitchen team, giving them more opportunity to take part in the other activates.

There is also plans for us to have a scavenger hunt around about that same time period. Hopefully we can allocate the rainy weekend to the leadership and the sunny weekend to the scavenger hunt :P

Thanks for initiating this. Looks great!

Heyyy, super happy if this is happening again and happy to offer my support in organising or facilitating depending on what is needed <3

I think this is a great way to bring more active people in the community and to the critical roles.

1. Do we need this?
   Yes! We are still a young community and event, with lots of new members since the last retreat. It was great for giving many folk the skills and confidence to take leadership roles in the events last year. Would be great to gift that opportunity to even more people.

2. Would you want to come and apply?
   Yes please. Also happy if you need help with some orga hands.
   

3. Is this money well spend and is this where we want to invest into?
   Personally aligns with my own understanding of prioritising building and growing the community in positive and constructive ways.
   

4. Would you do anything different?

   I don't think so. I probably wouldn't have made such an excellent Advice Process though so kudos to that! :D

1. Do we need this?
Absolutely! This was a very beneficial project the first time around, and this even more thought out approach seems great.

2. Would you want to come and apply?
Yes but. Should we send some of the people that attended the first leadership retreat, or favor community members that didn't have the chance to participate then, to enable their leadership as ours has been?

3. Is this money well spent and is this where we want to invest into?
Yes. Community empowerment and favoring the development of our dedicated members, I believe this is one of the core of our missions as an e.V.

4. Would you do anything different?
You seem to already have this aspect under control: making sure that we have varied speakers in terms of backgrounds/social categories. It seems that having a white cis male moderator predominantly leading the retreat last time had good and bad parts as you know.

1. Do we need this?
   Yes! Echoing points mentioned by Bee and Cairn.

2. Would you want to come and apply?
   Probably not, I personally cannot stomach another weekend spent learning currently and there's a 50% chance I cannot attend anyways. But I'd love to because the last time was such a valuable experience*, so it would depend.
   

3. Is this money well spend and is this where we want to invest into?
   Yes. We need more dedicated people who feel empowered to take on lead roles.
   

4. Would you do anything different?
   Nope. *Except for the dire request to not invite G. again. Any other kind of facilitator, please. Preferably with a somewhat more diverse background and a greater understanding and empathy for the challenges that actually block people in the process of taking on leadership roles.
   If the conclusion of the retreat is going to be "give less fucks about the thing that you give enough fucks about to make you spend your weekend as we do here" I am going to loose my marbles. Thanks.

Thank you for the initiative @Franzi , this is A M A Z I N G!

1. Yes, absolutely! without having participated at the last leadership retreat i would have probably not joined the board, so I would hope this gives more people confidence to take roles at the event or the verein (or just benefit of it in general on a personal level!)

2. I would love to, but would also give preference to people who have not been at the last leadership weekend. But I would like to support where I can.

3. definitely. Money well invested! If we dont have enough budget we could also ask a "contribute what you can" sliding scale for participants? And/or self reliance regarding food.

4. agree with all points mentioned already, especially "anti-social time" (I liked the quiet lunch!) & diversity in speakers (here I am personally pro payment! I know its against burn values, but then again we will only have speakers who can afford to work for free and that's not reality though..)

Would also add to kitchen, that the noise level has also to be taken in account (the room had really difficult noise travel in my opinion). Don't really have a solution for it though, except If everyone brings/prepares their own food in the lunchbreak

Hey @Kate @Mareike @Cairn (Clément) @Saskia thanks for your all your input and taking your time.

• silent lunch noted

• more individual time for whatever people wanna do aka processing time noted

• I can have a look and see if we can find a different accommodation - You are right, noise level were a general problem, also no break out groups

• in terms of facilitators: we got a bit mixed feedback last time in terms of quality and 'match to KB' -> thats why we decided the program will be less co-created this time

• the program we are running is a program that I run at organizations in my professional life, David and I worked for the same place (at different times) so he is also familiar with it (and offered to help facilitate)

• the program is based on research (explained above) coming from some of the leading institutes for organizational & leadership development, it starts with a survey which will be conducted with all guides/realizers/kkorgies/boardies etc, based on that we assess what will be a focus area(s) for this program (values/structure/relationship) and run workshops based on that

• I received a 'train the trainer' some years ago and have all the workshop material ready..we just need to plug n play

  • meaning the facilitation will be mostly between david and me (and Animal indicated that she would be up for it) - now, it will be different because it will be all workshops, no stage talks

• So, this was a long answer now :D

  • I hope this will help with better quality content

  • I am confident that this will really tailor to what KB needs now

  • This program will be completely different than the first one (no talks, just workshops, really 'you' in the driver seat, base on stronger needs assessment etc

  • This program is valuable for both groups - have been to the retreat, have not been

Does this answer some of your concerns/raised points?

I hope this answers a lot of questions <3

hey franzi,
wow, what a well organized and thought through proposal. thank you! I feel I have nothing additional to add but still wanted to react to this, even though I have nothing new to add.

1. Do we need this? I think this is super valuable and a great approach to help people grow and then also help the community and kiez burn grow.

1. Would you want to come and apply? If the dates suited me, probably yes. But also depending on the overall time investment (I spent (too) many weekends with seminars in the last year(s)).

2. Is this money well spend and is this where we want to invest into? See point 1.

3. Would you do anything different? Many valuably comments have been given. Maybe: Sometimes reading "diversity", and also selecting people on the grounds of diversity in the process sounds good, but it is unclear to me what it means (not abstract but concretely).

Hey,

thank you very much for this initiative! I also feel there is a lot of good feedback already which i can second (yes to the introvert/me time). I don't want to dedicate to being involved with the facilitation and planning but am happy to give further feedback.

1. i feel this is working towards a more sustainable, organized and overall professional structure which is what KB needs right now to get on tracks for the next years and to develop into a solid community.

2. I attended the last one and I am not opposed to joining again, depending on dates. I would need funding, but would also be happy to leave my spot to another interested person. I would love to find a great result from the experience which really strenghtens a core team and I would get involved in a reliable and progressive community.

3. money well spent!

4. This seems well planned. I liked the community experience more than the actual facilitated workshops last time. Personally I need less fun, games and rituals and more concrete work. In accordance with Saskia I was sceptic againist G.s start-up approach the last time. Since this will be different now I like the concept with distributed and themed workshops a lot. Should be coherent, straight, concrete, continuous work on the main question: how do we do things? That doesn't mean "all work, no play" but focussing on results the community can rely and build on.

   For me it always seems to come down to these questions:

   • how do we communicate? (easy, transparent, intuitive, open, clear...)

   • how are things organized? (teams, camps, leads, board, korg...)

   • what is the structure? (existing set of rules, experiences, facts, knowledge, vision...)

   So yes, I like the concentration on vision, structure and team. There are still struggles between the centralized and decentralized approach, however it is impossible to distinguish that. We need to manage to find a practicable hybrid solution which approches both, decentralized freedom for the crazyness, synergies and spontaneity and the centralized part for the critical, too big to fail, necessary areas which have huge implications and need a lot of experience, care or knowledge - and which generally seem necessary to carry bigger projects. There are a lot of very (!) capable persons around, we must not frustrate (aka burn out) them and enable a smooth involvement to ensure a safe and fun event in the future and digest the growth into a bigger and more complex community to overcome the childhood diseases of every collective work.

   Some thoughts on vision:

   • Do we want to grow beyond 1000 people? How big do we want to grow?

   • How do we enable other burns organized through the KB network throughout the year?

   • Do we want to become/have a permanent burn structure with a permanent space? (i.e. embassy)

   • How can we increase the positive impact of the burn community on our everyday life?

   • How can we increase networking opportunities? (business, event, social life, revolutionary activity)

   • Are we political? Do we get involved with social events and developments?

   • How can we improve on our collective work online?

   • Self reflection: how progressive, inclusive, tolerant, critical, hedonistic, sustainable are we?

   Considering the layout of the space, confined rooms would be better for a program with more workshops. The church atmosphere of huge ceilings was impressive and nice, but not exactly helpful for concentrated work, also because of acoustics. Since I won't look into other suitable spaces or think about what could make sense - could we rent a Berlin club or another closed institution and thus help them? - I just shut up.

   Thanks so much for the effort!

   take care, stay strong and safe & cheers to everone!