Hazel Hill aims to offer valuable and enriching experiences to groups that centre around developing wellbeing and resilience through connections with nature. We have worked with a wide range of groups, and we can offer tailored inputs for visiting groups, ranging from a couple of hours to a complete programme. If you would like to explore this further, please email us at: bookings@hazelhill.org.uk.
Here are some of the themes we can cover:
Resilience and wellbeing: life and work are becoming more challenging and changeful for many of us. We offer workshops and training for individuals, work organisations and community groups: we draw on such proven methods as mindfulness, emotional intelligence and positive thinking. Natural ecosystems like Hazel Hill are a great role model of resilience, so we involve the wood as a teacher.
Woodland ecology and conservation: Hazel Hill offers over twenty years’ experience on these topics. We can provide guided walks and hands-on conservation activities, as stand-alone events or as an input to longer programmes.
Wildlife and bushcraft sessions: would you like to get up close to the hidden wildlife of Hazel Hill Wood? Or learn how to light a fire without matches? Suitable for adults and children over 5 years old. Choose 2-4 activities from this list for a 2 hour session, or book 4 hours and do it all.
- Pond dipping
- Bug hunting
- Fire lighting
- Den building
- Woodland games
Regenerative practice: we intend our project to embody and teach regenerative practice in many aspects, including renewing the health of humans and ecosystems, reconnecting people with nature in an inner and outer way, and collaborative approaches. For more on our vision, click here: we will be happy to explore this theme with visiting groups.
Climate crisis responses: we can help groups explore this in many ways, including processes to face the emotional impact (such as the Work That Reconnects), systemic responses such as Deep Adaptation, and practical sustainability, see below.
Sustainable living: Hazel Hill is an ideal place to explore many aspects of this theme. Visitors to the wood experience the benefits and challenges of living with a low-carbon footprint, such as sharing cooking and domestic tasks, conserving electricity, and using wood fuel efficiently. Our off-grid facilities demonstrate many eco-technologies: including three pv systems, five types of compost loo, and six wood-burners including two biomass boilers. We can arrange guided tours or short seminars on topics of interest, or longer events including resilience and wellbeing.
Workshops for organisations: we have hosted programmes for numerous business and non-profit groups. The themes we can facilitate include: team building, strategic visioning, leadership, change management, regenerative practice and climate responses.
Rituals, rites of passage, vision quests: A ritual is a way of honouring, witnessing, celebrating or grieving a major event. Rites of passage are rituals for key transitions in life such as moving into elderhood. Rituals could take from 2 hours upwards, rites of passage 1-4 days. The Vision Quest is a rite of passage for adolescents moving towards adulthood. Its heart is solo time in a beautiful natural setting, and the whole process may take 4-8 days.
Spiritual Ecology: All older and indigenous cultures embody a worldview that the living world is not simply a collection of objects; but a sacred and interconnected whole to which humans belong. We explore this ‘inner dimension’ to our relationship with the wood, exploring what it means for us to enter back into this ancient way of being through reciprocity, deep listening and reverence.
Previous visitors to the wood include:
- Family groups
- Staff teams
- Home educating families
- Guides, Scouts and Cadets
- Young carers
- Adult carers
- Adults with learning disabilities
- People living with dementia
- Schools and colleges
- Children with additional needs
- Adults with mental health conditions
- Young homeless adults
- Veterans and military families
- Frontline workers
- Hospital doctors
- Mental health professionals
