Faculty/Board In-Service Day, January 2, 2012

The faculty and board began the year by engaging in some practical and artistic work during the in-service day on January 2nd.  In the morning, the full faculty prepared for our upcoming open house (this Saturday, January 9 at 2 pm) with a whole-group brainstorming exercise to highlight important points we'd like to convey about Waldorf education and about Bright Water School.

At noon, the full membership of both the Leadership Team and Board of Trustees held a half-day retreat with the school's Mission Statement as the theme. This included both artistic and practical elements. We began with eurythmy led by Melissa McCall and accompanied by Gust Burns.  Our next hour and a half was taken up with an artistic activity devised by board members (some participants pictured at left).  There were three components to the activity, two that were created with paints and one that was done using dip-ink pens, charcoal, calligraphy brushes, and pencils.  Our final step was to write our current Mission Statement out for use in the second portion of the afternoon.  Board members had prepared a large sheet of paper (with a colored border of course!), with lightly penciled numbers in place of each word of the Mission Statement.  Each participant took one (in some cases, two) word to write on the sheet, using whatever medium they chose.  This was a satisfyingly unique way to bring the Statement into focus.

After light refreshments we returned to the art room and discussed the process and the results of the artistic activity and then adjourned upstairs to work with the Mission Statement as the final segment of the day.  Among the points discussed were:

• purpose of a mission statement
• founding intentions
• age of the school
• geography, and the role it plays
• goals and ideals

A small committee will be formed to continue the work on our Mission Statement.  You'll hear more soon, and the current parent body will be invited to participate in this endeavor.

Our group would like to thank the owners and staff of the Shafer Baillie Mansion.  They generously donated the use of several of their rooms and facilities for the afternoon.