The LEAP Mid-Term Meeting for the 2021 cohort of the Advanced Track took place from 25 to 31 of July. This year, the Meeting was a hybrid event which some participants had the chance to attend in person, in regards to more loose travel restrictions between Switzerland and the countries they come from. Others, whose home countries’ pandemic situation wouldn’t allow to meet up in person, had the opportunity to learn as a participant of the online meeting.
The Mid-Term Meeting is a vital part of the LEAP Advanced experience, where participants take a dive into an intensive leadership development experience. The in-person aspect of the Meeting is key as it provides a unique opportunity for LEAPers to meet and interact with each other. These interactions allow for a deeper connection and understanding among participants in a special atmosphere in which they not only gain knowledge and insights, but also get to practice together the skills which help shape their leadership development.
With its great importance for the nine-month LEAP journey, it was only natural that the same opportunity was provided to participants unable to travel to the onsite meeting. This year the online participants had the unique chance to play the flow game, a board game depicting your personal development journey. They would bring one burning question, shape it with the help of the game facilitators to make it very concrete and clear. After rolling the dice, they would pick up a question, a picture or an invitation with others in the group acting as advisors, which allowed us to not only get to know each other better but also learn from each other’s experiences.
This playful way of self-discovery was enhanced by two Biodanza sessions to help ground the participants and connect them to their bodies and inner self, a common connection session where fun and getting to know each other better was at the center, two oiCoffee sessions were randomly assigned participants connected and called each other for a coffee chat, a bollywood movie night and daily reflection questions that connected the online and the onsite events.
This year 32 LEAP participants met up in Leysin, Switzerland. Over the course of a week, the onsite participants got to experience the challenging, yet highly rewarding program, with many lovely memories and learnings to take away from it. The program offered a space for participants to explore, exchange and rethink different aspects of leadership and their visions for life. The sessions focused on finding one’s own ikigai, using the seven essential leadership capacities within the framework of the Theory U and the 4-Fold practice, for learning to host yourself, host others, being hosted and forming a community of practice.
Guided by our amazing team of coaches, the participants went through an intense agenda of activities, which provided a fruitful platform for learning about interpersonal relationships as well as diving deep and exploring their inner selves, their emotions, purpose and the impact they want to have in the world. For the most part, the weather served us well which further enriched the experience of going through this fulfilling journey surrounded by sunshine, nature and tranquility.
As the best way to reconstruct the in-person experience during the Mid-Term Meeting, we look no further than participants themselves. Over the week we provided them the opportunity to recollect, reflect and put on paper their own perspective of the program. With a small group of memory keepers by our side, we want to share with you their experience, their emotions, learnings and takeaways from their Leysin adventures – we want to tell their story.
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The decision to host the onsite meeting amidst the pandemic was made together with all participants of the LEAP Advanced Track. To ensure everyone feels safe and minimize the risk of infections we created a common COVID concept with all onsite participants leading up to the event. It established our policy on wearing masks, testing, etc and acknowledged that we all have different concerns and needs to be met in order to feel safe. Everyone showed a great consideration and respect for each other’s boundaries and the rules in place. It was this, along with regular testing, which made the LEAP onsite Meeting the only group event at the time in Leysin without a single COVID case among participants.
For us, this is a great achievement and something to be proud of for both the planning team and the participants. It’s something to take from and build further upon for future oikos events, to make sure they are as safe as possible in regards to the health of our participants.
LEAP onsite Mid-Term Meeting is financially supported by Movetia. Movetia promotes exchange, mobility and cooperation within the fields of education, training and youth work – in Switzerland, Europe and worldwide. wwww.movetia.ch
