Halifax/Kjipuktuk · Miʼkmaʼki · Part of a 26-year global lineage

Our Purpose

FINDING OUR WAY BACK TO EACH OTHER.

Dear friend,

Something is happening in the world right now that many of us can feel, even when we struggle to name it. The funding cuts, the political dismantling, the erosion of institutions and relationships that people have spent decades building - it is a lot. And underneath all of it is an even less visible loss: our diminishing capacity to stay in relationship long enough to think clearly and act together.

We have been feeling this too.

The four of us - Sera Thompson, Gabrielle Donnelly, Tim Merry, and Dennis Adams - have been working in the thick of it. In conservation fights where entire species hang in the balance. In spaces where young Black social workers went home election night and couldn’t come back to work the next day. In community organizations, told they were essential on Friday, and defunded by Monday. In institutions and civic spaces where people are searching for ways to lead without burning themselves or each other out. In training rooms where people arrive so depleted that simply being together in a thoughtful, well-held space can feel like water on parched earth.

We care deeply about finding our way back to each other, and we’re inviting you to join us.

This October, we are coming together to offer something that has been alive in communities around the world for more than 26 years - the Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter. This is a practice lineage, a set of methods and orientations, and above all, a way of working together that helps people navigate complexity, build meaningful participation, and lead with collective intelligence.

But we also want to be honest with you about why this training - and why this team - right now.

We are not offering a retreat from the world. We are not promising that gathering in circles and asking beautiful questions will somehow make everything okay. We have all experienced the gap between the beauty of participatory practice and the actual weight communities, organizations, and frontline leaders are carrying right now.

What we are offering is a space where honesty and humanity can coexist. Where the joy of being human together - thinking, grieving, questioning, laughing, imagining - can exist alongside courageous conversations about power, difference, conflict, and what leadership actually requires in difficult times. Where the practices are grounded, the methods are tested, and the people holding the space have spent decades learning what it means to stay present and resourced when things become uncertain.

Between us, we bring experience in large-scale systems change efforts across government, non-profit, education, and private-sector contexts. In deep democracy and liberatory facilitation. In frontline community leadership with people who have been consistently overlooked by the training and development world. In higher education, mentoring emerging practitioners and supporting the next generation of leaders. And in the practices that help people slow down enough to think clearly together.

We are honoured to be part of a wider community of practitioners and facilitators doing this work in many different ways in this region and beyond. This training emerges from a particular constellation of relationships, experiences, and practices that have been unfolding across this region for many years - and we are grateful to offer it together now.

You may already be carrying too much. This training is for the consultants and facilitators helping organizations navigate impossible terrain. For community leaders and sector workers being asked to do more with less while still somehow holding their teams together. For emerging practitioners looking for mentorship and a practice that can sustain them over time. For anyone who senses that the quality of our conversations shapes the quality of our futures - and wants to strengthen their capacity for both.

If you have ever wondered whether an Art of Hosting training could truly speak to the realities of the work you are in - the complexity, the exhaustion, the hope, the responsibility - we hope this gathering might feel different.

Come. Bring a colleague. Bring your team. Help us re-knit the fabric - through conversation, practice, hospitality, music, creativity, laughter, and the kind of gathering that nourishes people for the long haul.

With warmth and steadiness,
Sera Thompson, Gabrielle Donnelly, Tim Merry & Dennis Adams

1.  We hold both truths

We believe in the deep commonality of our humanity - and we take seriously the real differences in power, race, class, gender, and lived experience. We won’t pretend those away. Engaging them honestly is what builds genuine trust.

2.  We name the world as it is

We won’t tell you things are getting better if they aren’t. We commit to honest, grounded, non-patronizing presence with hard reality - because that is the only foundation for real wisdom and lasting action.

3.  We care about the people in the room

Not as abstractions, but as human beings. If something unexpected happens - if the room needs to go somewhere we didn’t plan - we have the experience, collectively, to go there with you.

4.  We give away what we know

We are at a stage in our lives and practices where transmission matters. We want to open more doorways - for young practitioners, for people who thought this work wasn’t for them, for the communities that most need these skills and have been least served by training culture.

5.  We stay rooted in this place

This is a training from and for Atlantic Canada - connected to the global lineage, with the grain and texture of this region, these communities, and these particular challenges.

Sera Thompson
Deep Democracy · Equity & Conflict

Practitioner, educator, and community builder with deep roots in liberatory facilitation, conflict work through an equity lens, and the long work of building community capacity across Canada. Doggedly determined to make a difference.

Dr. Gabrielle Donnelly
Academic Research · Youth & Next Generation

Scholar and practitioner with a deep passion for young people and emerging leaders. Brings academic rigour and mentorship to the question of how we grow the next generation of hosting practice - people who don’t fold under pressure, but turn toward each other.

Tim Merry
Systems Change · Large-Scale Institutions

Founder of The Outside. 25+ years bringing participatory approaches into large institutional contexts - from the International Red Cross to municipal climate departments to environmental conservation. Returning to the Art of Hosting lineage with hard questions and renewed commitment.

Dennis Adams
Community Leadership · Resilience & Frontline Wisdom

Community leader, social entrepreneur, and advocate working at the intersection of equity, youth, and organizational life. Known for radical honesty, contagious enthusiasm, and the lived wisdom of showing up fully - and staying brave - when the world has been unkind.

This training is for people who are already doing the work - and want to do it better.

• Consultants & facilitators

• Non-profit leaders

• Government & public sector

• Community organizers

• Climate & environmental practitioners

• Equity & social justice workers

• Emerging practitioners

• Private sector leaders

• Indigenous community leaders

• Anyone who leads through dialogue

Primarily serving Atlantic Canada, with participants welcome from across Canada, the USA, and beyond. We are intentionally designing for a room where at least two-thirds of participants are rooted in this region - so the conversations are grounded in the particular conditions of this place.

If you have attended an Art of Hosting before and want to reconnect, deepen, or simply be in community with others doing this work - you are welcome too!

Art of Hosting Nova Scotia is part of the global Art of Hosting community of practice.