Biovilla, a gift for the Stone Soup community

I have been a member of the community since the beginning of 2021, so I did not have much chance to meet other consultants in person. I love  that we are a community of people living in different places and working remotely. However, I also like the opportunity to meet up in person without having that rush that the virtual life pushes us into.

The agenda of the gathering was quite open, so from the beginning I was expecting a comfortable environment, and I knew that I was going to feel at home. The whole group came together from Lisbon or other cities in Portugal sharing the ride, which was a first moment to get to know some of the people in the group better.

Once in Biovilla we understood immediately why Stone Soup chose this place: the nature, the values of the project and how all its spaces made as disconnect automatically from our daily’s responsibilities.

The facilitation techniques during the sessions, quite often used both in Stone Soup internal virtual meetings and in the projects with clients, allowed us to share personal experiences, professional curiosities, lessons learned within Stone Soup, and new individual challenges, among a lot of other topics.

We also had time to share conversations around the table (with delicious food) and to listen to the music of those who dared to play the guitar and sing beautiful songs in Portuguese. And we even had time to learn a bit of capoeira!

From my side, it was really nice to exchange tips with other consultants on how to organise yourself with different projects. What brought us also to discuss on wellbeing and professional-personal life balance.

Biovilla has been a gift to me, an island in the middle of a busy life. I returned home with a clearer mind, full of new energy and very proud of being part of a community that cares for all its members.