KYS Retreat – Celebrating Clarity & Stability While Marching Towards Our Vision

Of late, we have been making time-efficient and soul-nourishing choices for our team retreats. Meeting early in the morning and taking off early in the evening. Not only does it help us beat the traffic, it also helps us beat the heat and breathe in a bit of fresh air before the pollution levels kick up! And the major plus – a fresh mind. We were surprised by the wonders  a fresh morning mind can do in a meeting!

Soaking Up The Nature Vibes

So this time, we decided to get together in Cubbon Park at 7 am under our favorite Volunesia tree. It’s been a year since we kicked off Volunesia, and it felt apt to celebrate it by sitting at the feet of this wise old tree! It was a joy to take a stroll in the park while finding a silent place where we could kick off our first pre-breakfast quick check-in circle. We found some rocks with the right amount of shade and sunlight, and plonked ourselves right there!

We began with a few moments of silence with our eyes closed. The chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, feeling the breeze in our hair, was just divine. All of us took longer than usual to open our eyes; we wished to go on. Sometimes all it takes to be transported to paradise is to close your eyes, and this applied wonderfully to our beautiful morning!

It was tough to disturb the sounds of nature with our voices, but we had to! We checked in with the question – “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of this place? (Cubbon Park)” We had some nostalgic musings and memories that followed, which brought big smiles to our faces. 🙂 We spent some more time in the park and then headed off to MTR for a yummy breakfast.

Bonding Over Breakfast

Over hot dosas, steaming idlis and delicious coffees at MTR, we used our breakfast time to update each other about our personal stories over the last month. Over the years of working at KnowYourStar, one thing that has happened slowly, but surely, is blurring the lines between our personal and professional lives unintentionally. If you ask why? It’s not because we are unprofessional, but it’s because our profession doesn’t seem like a ‘job’ anymore in the traditional sense.

The problems that we try to solve through the work that we do feel as much as the ones we face at home, with family and friends. Our perception of family is ever expanding, which is why discussing personal stories, sharing happiness and sorrows alike come naturally to us. 🙂

Circling Around Our Core Vision

After bonding over breakfast, we headed to Starbucks Cafe, to get some respite from the heat and to jump into our topics for discussion for the month! It’s great to see how with every retreat we attain more clarity and stability, which was not the case in our initial retreats. We are glad that less things are changing now with respect to our core offering (What and Why), while all the major changes and discussions are in our planning and execution part (How). We have taken up a very exciting project, and we were happy that everything is on schedule. We plan to tell you more about it next month! 😀

If there was one major takeaway from this retreat, it’s that we are more clear than ever that every one deserves a role model, especially students! How to introduce role models to the students? The methods are many, and we are working on bringing them to you. Another important takeaway is that we have to empower the teachers of India. There is a need to hear their voices, understand their challenges, and work towards making role models out of every teacher; after all it’s a teacher who can make or break a student! 

More updates on this coming up soon! 🙂

Happy Doses Of The Day

After a 3-hour intense circle, chalking out our path for the next month, we set off to meet Krishna Sir, one of the role models in our collective lives, to just say hello and soak in the positivity of the space he has created at Bookworm! That’s when Jaideep retrieved from his Santa bag, a polaroid camera, and clicked our happy moment together, which we were happy to gift to Krishna Sir! <3

What followed was a sumptuous Nagarjuna Andhra lunch, where we succumbed to our ‘Pappu'(Andhra style dal) greed! With happy tummies, we bid goodbye and headed back to continue with business as usual… ensuring access to role models through stories and/or in real life! 🙂

Enjoyed reading about this? Then you might like to read KYS Retreat – Creating New Milestones For Ourselves In 2018

If there’s a story that needs to be told, we are ready to tell it. Write to us at contact@knowyourstar.com with your story lead, or contact us on Facebook or Twitter.

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