The Uplands Center was delighted to welcome the Byron Fellowship for their annual changemaker retreat this August. The Byron Fellowship supports a cohort of emerging leaders each year toward the realization of their social impact goals, selected from a pool of nominated global applicants. The retreat was conceived as “five days of deep connection, clarity, and practice for embodying what is essential to bring your vision into reality.”
Guided by a core group of eight seasoned mentors, 2026 Byron fellows include emerging leaders in law, health systems, housing and community revitalization, poverty alleviation and gender justice. This year’s cohort also includes several professionals dedicated to climate action, naturalism, social entrepreneurship and harnessing finance for positive change.
Before the retreat took place, participants had already done introductions, recommended reading and exercises with a partner. This pre-work fed into the carefully curated agenda which integrated distinct methodologies and distributed leadership over distinct sessions across the seven mentors. The group mainly moved between the yoga studio, small-group breakout spaces both indoors and outside and a tent set up in the horse paddock in front of the main house.
Throughout the week, participants began their day with a group movement practice, often then grounding as an entire group, followed by small group breakouts using multiple separate spaces throughout the facility and surrounding areas. In the afternoons, small group conversations interspersed with solo time for integration and reflection unfolded with ease, before the group came back together again as a whole by the end of the day’s work. Evenings were spent in the pool or hot tub or in plush chairs in the living room, sharing stories and notions of what is possible.
The group really enjoyed the land. After a rainy start to the week, the group walked up to the Vista Shed for a session on Tuesday before dinner. That evening they partook in a vision-sharing exercise by a tall fire, together with a drum circle and some encouraging words that the mentors had collected from the fellows’ wider communities. On Wednesday afternoon the group enjoyed an Uplands-guided nature immersion practice followed by an optional swim in the pond as well as a post-dinner sound bath, where they were immersed in the vibrations from crystal bowls, chimes and gongs.
By the retreat’s end, the fellows had relished the opportunity to clarify the way to achieve their intended social impact. They returned to their personal and professional lives with a sharpened sense of purpose and a deeper awareness of the various dimensions that will affect the realization of their vision.
