Rachel is Events Director at Forgather, where she manages and delivers live, virtual and hybrid events for clients in the tech and innovation ecosystem. Whether it’s an intimate dinner for software founders, a large-scale conference or awards ceremony, or a CEO offsite in the countryside, community and connection is the thread that runs through all our events.

Working with so many founders and CEOs, we often see people overstretched, exhausted and facing burnout – so wellness, and tools to tackle these problems is an important element of many of our events. Wanting to explore this passion for wellbeing further, Rachel is hosting this retreat to bring together our community to find space to relax, decompress, embrace nature and find peace in simplicity.

Rachel devotes her spare time to enjoying nature, hiking, travel and fitness. She lives in Clevedon, near Bristol with her husband and two-year-old daughter, who she hopes will learn to love camping and the great outdoors.

Belinda is the founder of Forgather. We’ve spent the last 14 years designing events for organisations championing business and innovation - from Balderton, Boardwave and Microsoft to The Times and Unilever.

Much as we love working with clients, our favourite events have always been our own passion projects. Back before it was a ‘thing’, we co-hosted the Mindfulness Summit with Calm, whilst the annual Snowball ski retreat continues to forge new friendships and make a difference to a vibrant community spanning Europe.

Engineering serendipity is a favourite phrase, so when Rachel started talking retreats, I was right behind her and have loved adding to the pot from my own experience. Whether on a yoga mat (ideally with a view of sea) or on nicely sprung dance floor, there’s nothing better than being in the ‘flow’.

Violet is a 550 hour trained yogt eacher, trained in Hatha, Yin, Advanced Vinyasa and teaching children. Her classes offer variations for those wanting to go deeper, or take a slightly lighter class. Whether it is a hot dynamic Vinyasa Flow or a deep Yin class, she loves to focus her classes around themes and a deep connection to the breath. She invites people to arrive on the mat, let go and surrender deep into their bodies

Xanthe is a lover of wild spaces and leads nature connection and outdoor education groups including bushcraft, wellbeing and leadership events. Her work includes running Ancestral Skills & Forest School groups, programme creation and facilitation for the rewilding eco retreat Embercombe, leading at events with WildWise and supporting creative practice camps for the charity Lifebeat.

Xanthe holds various yearlong outdoor leadership training certifications including: 8 Shield’s Art of Mentoring, Forest School, animism and numerous WildWise courses, including Call of the Wild and Tending the Green Fire. She has a BA/ BSC degree in Business and Psychology, following which she worked in teaching, tutoring and mentoring. She creates safe, inclusive spaces for groups to be curious, explore, relax, rejuvenate, co-create and learn together. Xanthe additionally managed a thriving community health food store for eight years, becoming a finalist in multiple national awards.

Xanthe is dedicated to deepening her personal relationship with the natural world, through vision quests and rites of passage and by holding tree planting days, earth ceremonies and fireside circles.

Charlie discovered yoga in her early 20s alongside an exploration of various ‘healing’ modalities. She began to study different forms of healing and immersed herself in daily yoga practice for several years which took her to Vrindavan, India for a life changing initial yoga teacher training within the Sivananda tradition in 2011. Since then, she has gathered a vast amount of training and practice in different systems of yoga, meditation and healing including Yin, Restorative, Flow, Hatha, Kundalini, and especially Kirtan & Mantra. Charlie is a qualified music psychotherapist (MA) and sound healer. She is especially passionate about sound and nada yoga, and has spent many years deep diving into the various practices and philosophies around mantra and sound. Her company Nadapriya yoga & therapies was born in 2011, directly after her initial Yoga Teacher Training through the Sivananda tradition, in which she was initiated with the spiritual name Nadapriya (which can be translated as she who creates the sound of the Divine).

Ben is the co-founder of Raaise (platform funding climate startups), Rebel Book Club (global learning community) and EarthAI (AI innovation for the climate era).

From crowdfunding and building a tropical island eco-village (in the time of MySpace, to reinventing book clubs, and to accelerating impact careers and climate startups, Ben has spent over 20 years exploring how to use tech & community tools to make a positive change in the world.

"I love connecting with people who are motivated about making the world better through their work and building businesses that have this in their DNA."