Men Behaving Well – Five Alive !

This year’s Gents Retreat – 5^th year - took place on the weekend of 21 & 22 June.  The theme this year this year was “Sadhana and Spiritual Enlightenment With Brothers”.

As per the previous retreats, two cabins and the sports hall at Beaumanor Hall were booked for two days. Beaumanor Hall is a big country house belonging to Leicestershire County Council, and its extensive grounds has residential cabins which can be booked for overnight stays.

Again, as per the previous years, about 30 devotees had agreed to attend this year and everyone turned up early, eager to start on time at 9:00 on Saturday morning. Straight after registration, we gathered into the ‘meditation room’ – one of the common rooms converted for the weekend into our meditation room – and started with Bhajans. As always, this was a wonderful start to the retreat.

Sureshbhai then welcomed everyone to the retreat, and wished everyone, with Swami’s grace, a wonderful experience over the next two days. And we were straight into action with yoga session in the sports hall! Ashokbhai conducted the excellent yoga session, at all times explaining what benefit was gained from each of the exercises and the yoga session prepared us well for the session on Health Awareness after lunch. 

Our own ‘doctor in the house’ – Dr Nishith Patel – conducted the study circle on Health Awareness. Nishith explained the do’s & don’ts on food and exercise. He quoted results from very latest research, particularly in relation to diabetes and high blood pressure. His main message was that we should have a balanced diet and more exercises.

We were then into the first of two team building exercises. The first one, conducted by Dipakbhai Fakey, was to create a poster on Healthy Eating and on Smoking. We were told that the target for the posters were children. All teams came up with some very interesting designs and Dipakbhai commented on the quality of some of the designs.

Next was our own version of Twenty20 cricket match! The rules were explained to the two teams – captained by Satishbhai & Subashbhai. And everyone joined in the match, even our Special Guest Dr Kishanbhai Gadhia had a bat! For the record, Subashbhai’s team won the match by a narrow margin! 

Unfortunately, it started to rain so we had to make some last minute adjustments to our programme – the BBQ was re-arranged to the next day and the evening meal of freshly cooked soya mince koftas and nan bread, with fresh salad, was enjoyed by all – thank you to the excellent cooks Vinodbhai & Jerambhai. 

Our Guest Speaker was Kishanbhai Gadhia. He narrated a number of personal experiences with Swami. Everyone was enthralled by the talk and counted ourselves lucky to have Dr Kishanbhai amongst us. A wonderful, inspiring talk. 

Then it was entertainment time! Satishbhai sang a number of songs and recited his own brand of jokes! Entertaining it certainly was! Morarbhai had prepared a play which was amusingly acted out by some of the gents – one in particular took a lot of joy in playing a part of a woman! (Stand up Vinodbhai!) 

We all retired after the very enjoyable entertainment session and finished with Bhajans.

Early wake up call – at 4:00! – and we were all ready for Meditation at 6:00 and then Nagarsankirtan around the grounds of Beaumanor Hall. The weather was fine and we all enjoyed the Bhajans. What a wonderful start to our day! 

More Yoga session by Ashokbhai before breakfast. Breakfast was simple – cereal and toast, plus tea, coffee and orange juice. 

By 9:00 o’clock we were ready for the second team building exercise, again conducted by Dipakbhai. This time the teams had to produce poster on our values – truth, right conduct, non violence, love & peace. Much discussion ensued amongst the team members and some good, thought provoking designs were produced in a short time. Shows what can be achieved by working as team! 

Next was a workshop on Effective Communications – conducted by Champakbhai. This is such an important part of our daily livelihood that everyone found the session very beneficial. The workshop was run in a very interactive manner by Champakbhai and everyone gained something for it. 

Naginbhai then conducted a study circle on Right Conduct. Naginbhai has many years of experience of Swami and of running study circles, and this was no exception. It was very lively as everyone joined in the discussions and conducted in a relaxed manner on the lawn! 

And then it was time for the BBQ. With Swami’s grace, the rain kept away and we all had opportunity to enjoy the barbequed burgers, vegetable parcels, corn, mogo, fried onions, etc, whilst we shared our personal experiences amongst friends. And as special treat, we had ice cream! (Nishith did say it was okay to have special treats occasionally!) Very enjoyable! 

This year we decided that before finishing the retreat, we would give everyone opportunity to reflect on the retreat and to come up with the good/positive points & bad/negative points, and if possible to come up with suggestions on how we can make future retreats better. Overall, everyone agreed that there were more positive things to say about the retreat than negative points, and that we should continue with this annual event. A full review of the comments recorded on the day has been prepared and will be circulated to all those who attended. 

Sadly, it was then time to end the retreat for another year. It seemed only a few minutes ago that we were registering!

We finished with bhajans and vote of thanks by Satishbhai. 

And we all said our goodbyes to the friends, and all vowed to be there again next year.