Who’s organising?
Clare Palmer and Graham Timmins have many years’ experience of teamwork, playing leading roles at NVC camps, holding space, running workshops and planning community events. We think we have a good idea of ‘what works well’ in the context of NVC camps, and we share a vision of a lived community experience informed by a constant awareness of feelings and needs.
See Clare at https://nvc-uk.com/member/clare-palmer/ 
Read Graham at http://www.therightword.info   

Where’s it at?
The Clophill Centre ( www.clophillcentre.co.uk) is centrally placed between Luton airport, Milton Keynes and Bedford. It’s a 14 acre private site with fields, gardens, orchard, woodland, and lots of room to breathe. Indoor facilities include a meeting room, a breakfast/ tea room, and a cosy yurt; semi-outdoor spaces include a roundhouse with a firepit. You need to bring your own tent or camper van, and bedding. If you don't have a tent, we may have some to hire, please ask.

What’s special about this camp?
The whole week is carefully structured to promote connection, learning and growth for all of us. Underpinning that though, and perhaps not always visible on the surface, is our effort to hold an awareness of feelings and needs in our consciousness throughout our time together, as constantly and as deeply as we are able. We don’t want to just ‘do NVC’ in a workshop, we want to ‘live NVC’ in our daily interactions. That includes an intention to be fully present, to see and to think clearly, free from assumptions and pre-judgments and grounded in compassion. We believe that our needs are not separate from the needs of other people, of all other beings we share this life with, and of our precious Earth itself. We aim for an ability to more consistently choose needs-based actions which resonate with our higher or deeper selves.

We will stick to the traditional daily structure used for many years at other NVC camps, whose  pillars we identify as:  morning meetings for the whole camp after breakfast, empathy groups after lunch, and ‘celebrations and mournings’ after dinner. Each of these key moments of the day fulfils a vital function; we see participation as important both for community cohesion and for the kind of personal growth which only happens in interactions with others and which camp facilitates.

Because it’s important to us to know that the pillars are standing firm, we will invite some of the more experienced participants to lead the empathy groups and we will check in with them regularly as camp progresses, in case any additional support is needed. Similarly our expectation is that all campers will enjoy and draw benefit from the morning and evening meetings. If you don’t want to be at a community meeting for some reason, our request is to come anyway and to tell us about it! Otherwise your precious voice and unique perspective will be missing from our community.

Within the framework created by the three pillars, morning and afternoon workshop spaces will offer the chance to focus on particular aspects of needs-based connection, as well as other skills and practices members want to share.  Popular topics in the past have included: an introduction to NVC, embodied NVC, empathy skills, working with anger, making requests, grief and loss, NVC parenting, transforming core beliefs, finding our boundaries, NVC and social change, etc.

Quality assurance
Lead trainers for the week are Clare Palmer, Magiari Diaz Diaz, and Graham Timmins.  Other trainers, both CNVC certified and candidate and independent, are in the pipeline. To further ensure that a high quality of NVC modelling is available at the camp, we have also invited guest presentations by a number of highly experienced UK trainers who will visit for an evening or afternoon.  So far these include Jo McHale, Ruth Cohen-Rose and Bridget Belgrave (tbc).
We are very interested in constructive feedback and will give opportunities for this after the camp.

Children
Children are welcome to join the camp, but for insurance and liability reasons, no children’s activities or supervised childcare are included as part of the camp framework. Informal arrangements may however be made between participants. Most workshops and groups will not be suitable or interesting for most children, but there are always exceptions so please contact us if you would like to talk about how it might work for you to bring your child/ren.

0-5 years old: 25% of adult prices
6-11 years old: 50% of adult prices
12-17 years old: 75% of adult prices

Will I like the food ?
Meals will be freshly prepared, healthy and vegetarian with vegan options; hot and cold drinks, fruit and snacks will be available throughout the day. We’ll have caterers but all camp participants will be asked to contribute to supporting our physical needs during the camp, whether by chopping vegetables, making coffee, washing up, or keeping showers and toilets clean. Working together in small teams to take responsibility for everybody’s basic human needs is a valuable part of the camp experience.
In order to favour self-awareness and the comfort of all, we ask you not to bring alcohol for consumption on site or to smoke where other people may be affected.

Who is this camp for?
All are welcome with or without previous experience of NVC / NbC.  We intend to offer a space where people of all backgrounds and life experiences are accepted, have a voice and take part.
We intend the camp to be a place where people can reflect on and explore their own feelings and needs, where some support may be available from other participants, facilitators, empathy groups and workshops. However, the camp is not a therapeutic space and this support is limited. We would like all who attend to be able to balance their own personal needs with those of the community. So the camp might not be suitable for you if you need more support than our resources can offer. In the unlikely case that a participant’s behaviour becomes harmful and disruptive to others beyond what we or the site owners feel able and willing to cope with, we may require them to leave the camp.