This was a very exciting retreat. It was so much fun to get to know everyone better, and I learned so many new things about our group as a whole. At the beginning of the retreat, we set three goals for ourselves – to make more connections with people in our What’s the Story community and to get inspired by each other, to be able to describe in detail our topic and our team, and to be ready to start story chasing. I definitely think that we were very successful at feeling more connected to and inspired by our What’s the Story community. I already feel so much closer to everyone, and so much more comfortable around them. Everyone’s ideas inspired me to think in so many new ways, and to expand my ideas to new lengths.

I can describe the topic and team I’ve committed to in detail, and I’m pretty sure everyone else can as well. The lengthy discussions and brainstorm sessions we had have really helped to shape our projects, and give everyone a general understanding of what’s going on and the next steps. They have helped to narrow down the broader topics into more specific, local ideas. I’m so excited to continue to work with my team, and see where our project goes. It was so cool to see how so many different topics could turn into just a few, amazing ideas. My team’s current driving questions are, “What insight do mothers have about body image that they can share with their daughters? What do daughters want their mothers to know? How can we provide a way for the two groups hear each other?” I feel confident that we can all explain in detail why these three questions are so important to our topic, and how we might go about finding answers to these questions.

I definitely think that we are all pretty ready to begin story chasing. I know that my team’s next steps are to do a lot of research, and reach out to some people who we think could benefit our project by sharing their stories. We have made a pretty solid plan of what we are doing, and when we are meeting weekly to discuss that plan. We had so many great discussions this weekend about topics that mean so much to us, and I think those discussions have lead to amazing connections, and the desire to start story chasing. In my opinion, we did an excellent job at working toward and reaching all three of our goals for the weekend – we feel more connected and inspired by our Whats the Story community, we are all able to give a detailed description of the topic we’ve chosen to focus on and the team we’ve agreed to work with, and we are all ready to dive into our projects – to start story chasing. It was so much fun to learn so many new things about our topics and about each other, and I can’t wait to see what will happen next!