LDP Community Gathering at West Dean

19 and 20 June

This event will be the biggest in-person gathering of LDP practitioners for over a decade!

Our intention is to reconnect, explore, and engage in topics you are curious about and/or will help your practice. So far we've got nine topics/activities to choose from for the morning and afternoon sessions.  There will also be "movement" activities to top and tail each day plus time for shared meals.

Here are the details on the nine topics/activities:

Using new research into the nature of consciousness to find solid ground in an increasingly polarised world Karen Ellis and Judith Ward are currently exploring how to use research about the nature of consciousness to navigate an increasingly polarising social field; they will lead an inquiry into how we (and our clients) can have our meaning-making hijacked by our own neurobiology in ways which both hurt us on an individual level and are damaging to our collective lives, and will explore some practical ways in which we can develop our own robust and somatically grounded ethical compass.

Exploring our meaning-making through art In this session Siân Lumsden will invite you to respond to a sentence stem by painting, rather than writing your completion. Come and experiment getting beyond exploring our meaning-making purely through the cognitive and allow the brush to take us where it wants to go!

Alchemy asylum with Anastasia Nekrasova and Malcolm Lewis. Have you ever pondered the true origin of developmental thinking that underlies the Leadership Development Framework? Surely, its ancestors-in-theory didn’t just invent it? When we ‘do’ development – with ourselves and clients – we participate in a process more profound than we often think. What guides you when you play your part? If you are a leader – who’s leading you? What’s your relationship with the consciousness of the Source?     

Alchemy is “the magic of the world”, it seeks to transmute – to change in the nucleus of an atom - to transform into a higher element or thing. We talk about ‘self-authoring’ as a requisite step in development. What happens to the self-authoring nucleus as life alchemy transmutes it into…what exactly? 

Welcome to Alchemy Asylum - whyever we use this name?! – a thin space in which we invite the Source to cast us into its own alchemical processes, right there. Leadership and development, time and space, myths and archetypes, symbols and patterns, occasional dirt and dust – plus your Secret Ingredient – all goes in! 

Want to experience what comes out? Join us and see what happens.

Transformational Capabilities coaching cards Ben Phillips, Christina Lombardi-Somaschini and Rebecca Stevens have developed a set of Transformational Capability coaching cards that can be used in isolation or as a practical bridge from the LDP to the So What. The cards provide a practical entry to developmental conversations, whether they precede or follow the LDP. Together, we will explore what the cards are, how we might facilitate their use, and seek your input and suggestions for changes before the cards become more of a thing!

Whole self intelligence: harmonising left and right hemispheric perception – an experiential exploration of the work of Iain McGilchrist with Jane Brendgen, Suzan Stub, Nickie Bartlett and Nial O'Reilly. Chapter 1 of McGilchrist's astonishing book The Matter with Things, is entitled The Hemispheres and the Means to the Truth. This sets the tone for an extraordinary journey of exploration into the phenomenon of 'functional hemispheric lateralisation'. In Chapter 10, he asks What is Truth? and goes on to explain the ontology of truth and its continuing evolution and emergence. The book explores the 'means' and the 'paths' by which we collect and channel data to make sense of the world. In this session we will focus on the value of expanding our use of those means and paths by bringing our whole selves to the party! 

Everything is spiritual: reflecting together on meaning-making, spirituality and showing up with Ian Mitchell. Three years ago, buried in his LDP report he found this practice: ‘What matters? Make it your urgent business not to forget. Live from that source’. 36 months and a lot of development later he's beginning to understand. And the thing he has seen is that pretty much all of that understanding has come from allowing him to disappear into We - into several We in fact - and collectively discover loving praxis. Pico Iyer in The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere says ‘…in an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still…’ - and that is what this session will seek to honour. It will be a session of paying attention to each other, of listening to each others’ stories in stillness, and of learning what it is that might really matter to us as a group of spiritual beings who are learning to be human, through making meaning from our environment and showing up in a way that genuinely bears witness to all this. 

Practical frameworks for striking the balance between strategic and intimate engagement in group coaching/facilitation with Nial O'Reilly and Deirdre McLoughlin. Back in 2003 the Gestalt Review magazine published an article authored by Sonia Nevis, Stephanie Backman and Edwin Nevis entitled Connecting Strategic and Intimate Interactions: The Need for Balance. In this practical, experiential session, Deirdre and Nial, who have co-facilitated workshops for almost 10 years, will share thoughts, ideas and experiences of leveraging this model in their work. We will circulate the magazine article for people to read in advance. The session will give participants an experience of some practical tools to leverage in team and group coaching to help with the 'needed balance.' 

"Just imagine if…” - creating possibilities through imaginative practices integrated with co-creation, systemic thinking and leadership capability develop with Sarah Cowley and Nickie Bartlett. Click here for more details.

So, now I’m older – what the f*** should I be doing? In this session, Ian Mitchell and David Rooke, both born in 1952, will explore with you some questions that have emerged for them (and we guess, perhaps you) about the opportunities and challenges of later life. What is the work, inner and outer of later life? What becomes relevant and does becoming irrelevant matter? Is later life a time of wisdom or surprising stupidity? We’ll explore these questions, and any you have, in a session we hope will not be entirely sober. 

Date: 19 and 20 June
Cost: £375 inclusive of VAT.  Includes lunch, dinner and over night accommodation on the 19 June and breakfast and lunch on the 20 June.