Monhtly gathering SPACE

Since May 2025, Sula Bruce and Rachel Houghton have been running 

The Gathering Space, offering a monthly pause. A chance for professionals in the aid and development sector to breathe, reflect, and connect amid uncertainty and change in light of changes in the aid and development sector and explore what the future may look like. 

 

 

 

Working as a group builds strength, understanding, and a recognition that we are not alone.Through this shared space, we make sense of change together and build  commitment and intention to move forward

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This isn’t about providing answers.
It’s about being witnessed, processing together,  finding 𝐩𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 in the noise.
 

Across five sessions, we’ve explored what it means to navigate transition - both personally and collectively — through models of change, presence, and renewal. Each month has held its own flavour, yet together they form an unfolding spiral - circling back with new awareness each time, deepening as we go.

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🌱 Session 1: Starting Where We Are
We began by arriving - grounding ourselves in the present and naming what had brought us here. We explored transitions underway and the feelings and hopes that accompany them.

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🌊 Session 2: The Arc of Change
Through frameworks like the change curve and Three Horizons, we reflected on endings, uncertainty, and emerging possibilities - noticing where we each found ourselves on the arc of transformation.

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🔥 Session 3: Identity and Renewal
As we moved through the middle of the journey, we explored identity - what we shed, what endures, and what new parts of ourselves may be taking root.

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🌿 Session 4: Connection and Being
In August, we took a slower breath. We focused not on doing, but on being - deepening our connection to self, others, and the wider field of change.

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☀️ Session 5: Energy and Sustaining Ourselves
We explored how to sustain energy and meaning in a changing world - recognising both the vitality and the gentleness that life asks of us as we grow and evolve.

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Now, as we move into our penultimate and final sessions for 2025, we’re turning towards integration and emergence:

 

Session 6: Listening for what’s next, personally and collectively.

 

“What you can plan is too small for you to live.”

David Whyte

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The Gathering Space continues to evolve through the presence and contribution of all who join - a co-created community of reflection, purpose, and hope.

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🗓️ Next sessions:
Thursday, 16 October – Penultimate Gathering Space
Thursday, 20 November – Closing Session

🌿 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐮𝐬. 𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.