Directors Retreat Reunion Held at NWP Annual Meeting

By: Barbara Bass
Publication: The Voice, Vol. 6, No. 1
Date: January-February 2001

Summary: Ten NWP site directors gathered for an informal reunion in Milwaukee to discuss the value of the annual Directors Retreat and to revisit some of the many good ideas and plans generated there.

Milwaukee in November: brisk breezes and snow flurries scudding in off Lake Michigan, bratwurst and beer, municipal parks strung with holiday lights—all warmed by a host of familiar faces at the National Writing Project Annual Meeting at the Pfister Hotel. Many of us had met earlier in the year at the annual NWP Directors Retreat at the Nature Place in Flourissant, Colorado. That had been in June—five months earlier—but the experience had been so valuable that we knew we had to make time to meet again. Milwaukee was a perfect opportunity to gather. "Pass the word," we relayed to one another. "Breakfast at 7 a.m. on Saturday."

Ten of us came together that morning in the Pfister Hotel's cafe to reconnect, remember, and revalue the Colorado experience: Mary Baron, director of the Jaxwrite WP (Florida); Linda Hanson, director of the Indiana WP; Melanie Burdick, director of the Greater Kansas City WP (Missouri); Jane Frick, director of the Prairie Lands WP (Missouri); Dolores Johnson, director of the Marshall University WP (West Virginia); Lucy Ware, associate director of the Western Pennsylvania WP; Marjorie Roemer, director of the Rhode Island WP; Jim Davis, director of the Iowa WP; and Linda De La Ysla and I, co-director and director of the Maryland WP. Angelina, the cafÈ hostess, made us feel welcome with orange juice and quips, calling late arrivals Melanie and Jim, "Twinkie" and "the King." She plied us with coffee and attention and set the convivial tone of this early morning gathering.

"What did you take back with you to your sites from the directors retreat?" Jim asked. His question triggered a discussion of some of the many ideas generated during the electric atmosphere of the retreat: ideas for embedded institutes, ways to promote inservice, techniques for using Inverness data to best showcase our sites, methods for enhancing group process, inspirations for writing. Linda and I recalled how we spent our flight home to Maryland debriefing each other of what we had absorbed during those five days. In talking about the experience, we realized how essential it had been for us to attend the retreat together. We compiled an idea list, some of which we've begun to implement back in Maryland.

The enthusiasm of this early morning gathering in Milwaukee stressed the value of the directors retreat even as we discussed what we would like to see happen at the next one. We learned that good ideas reverberate wherever NWP directors gather, whether in the mountains of Colorado in late spring or on the wintry shores of Lake Michigan in November. In Milwaukee, there were no scampering prairie dogs, no Ponderosa Pines or quaking aspens, no long, leisurely hikes through the woods. On this cold Wisconsin morning, however, we came to understand that the retreat generated not only ideas but also feelings, all of which remained with us even five months later: the quiet calm that comes with morning walks through an alpine meadow, the spiritual rejuvenation that comes from gazing at a sky full of stars, the palpable connection with the earth that is so often neglected in our daily administrative duties. We vowed to try to return to Colorado in the coming spring to recapture the essence of that experience.

The sixth annual NWP Directors Retreat will be held in Estes Park, Colorado, from May 30 through June 3, 2001. For more information on the retreat, contact the NWP office at (510) 642-0963 or email Sherry Swain (sswain@colled.msstate.edu) or Jim Davis (jdavis@aea10.k12.ia.us).

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