Welcome. I’m glad you’re here.
I’m a facilitator, community builder and the person behind Birch + Bloom.
I've spent more than twenty-five years working with people, organizations and communities, often in moments of complexity and change, when something needs to be imagined, or when people are simply looking for a different way to come together.
My work has taken me across the non-profit, charitable, education, tourism and community sectors. I've led both small and large teams through complex periods of change, facilitated conversations among people who hold very different perspectives, designed community engagement and relational approaches to organizational change, and worked alongside leaders, volunteers, boards and communities trying to figure out what comes next.
Through all of it, I've become increasingly interested in how we gather.
I've seen what can happen when people are given enough time to really listen to one another, when a good question changes the direction of a conversation, or when we move away from the boardroom table and find another way into something we've been struggling to understand.
That's a big part of why I created Birch + Bloom.
My approach to facilitation is thoughtful, but it isn't particularly conventional. I draw from my training in dialogue and engagement while also using creativity, reflection, storytelling, nature, movement and making. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we write or draw. Sometimes we spend time outside. I'm interested in what becomes possible when people have permission to show up as people, rather than only as the roles they carry.
I'm less interested in arriving with the answers than I am in creating the conditions for people to remember what they know, learn something new and imagine what might be possible.
My practice is informed by formal study in communications, peace and conflict studies, dialogue and civic engagement, and embodiment coaching, as well as more than twenty-five years of leadership, facilitation and community-based work. I'm continually learning from the people I work with, from different ways of knowing and from the natural world.
Birch + Bloom is also informed by my own life. I've known devastating grief, change, uncertainty and the experience of having to find myself again. Those experiences have changed what I pay attention to and deepened my belief that there is room for all of who we are — in our work, our relationships, our communities and the lives we're creating.
Sometimes I host a public gathering or retreat. Sometimes I work alongside someone one-to-one. Sometimes an organization, team or community brings me in to help create a different kind of conversation or experience. And occasionally, I’m invited to share my story.
The subject may change, but what sits underneath it doesn't:
Our humanity is worth making room for.
If you're curious about working together, I'd be glad to hear what you're thinking about.