STAFF EVENT: Quiet Day for staff

Set on a lovely bush block in the hills near Gidgegannup, the Quiet Day provides some space to 'be alone' in the company of other UWA academics with the intention of marking out some good quality thinking/reflection time.

There is no formal 'content' to the day – no presentations or butcher's paper! Rather we seek to create an environment of quiet, trust and collegiality in which things become clearer and creative new ideas can emerge. This involves a combination of small group reflections on poetry (which helps slow down the pace and takes us into a deeper level of contemplation) and an extended period of silence, in which participants can rest and reflect. ‘We do less in order to achieve more’.

The Quiet Days builds on the end of year retreats which Michael Wood and Heather Deighan have been offering at UWA for several years with the support of UWA Teaching and Learning. The underpinning principles are based on the work of Parker J Palmer (The Courage to Teach), more of which can be found at: www.couragerenewal.org There is no specifically religious content.

Please RSVP to [email protected]

Previous participants have commented:

"this retreat provided a rare opportunity to quietly reflect on what's going on for me internally as a teacher, helped by excellent facilitators and a wonderful peaceful location"

"the benefits of this retreat to my personal and professional life have been immense"

“Thank you for the retreat - I found it really useful, have a sense of focus, realised I was missing an important work goal and came home and wrote a research paper that has been bugging me for some time” (from unsolicited email)

“it is good because it forces you to disengage in order to more fully engage – well done and many thanks”

“useful, health-giving and creative time”

“definitely go!”

“The best thing about the day was the space to think (but the whole deal was great) – yes, go. Important opportunity to reflect. Thank you to the organisers. I feel positively that UWA supported this”.