It's been too long since I wrote my last blog entry (almost two months!) but happily that's because of the major developments taking place in the background at A Place to Write. These range from the provision of our inaugural Unique Shakespeare Retreat to the design of a new and complete spring 2025 programme, the publication of our first A Place to Write newsletter, and the beginning of a partnership with We Travel - which should make the process of booking retreats, making payments and submitting pre-retreat questionnaires easier for everyone. Even more exciting than all of these, however, is the fact that we have just heard that we been shortlisted for the Go North Wales Tourism award for Resilience and Innovation of the Year!

As many of you know, the speed of development of A Place to Write has been a response to the challenges of the current economic climate: cost-of-living, energy prices, interest rates, etc. Faced with costs well in excess of the sums which we anticipated in our first few years of business, we have had to be imaginative and determined in order to accelerate the rate of growth since we moved into our wonderful property. This has obviously involved developing our programme of retreats and looking at ways to ensure a sustainable future. Every week we have seen local hotels, guest houses and hospitality venues closing in the face of the relentless pressures faced by the industry, and yet we have somehow managed to survive. Not only that, but we have been managing to manoeuvre into a position where, if the economic situation ever really improves, we might be able to flourish. The North Wales Tourism board's shortlisting of our venture in the Innovation and Resilience category is an uplifting recognition of our hard work but also a recognition of the value of the retreat programme we offer and, most importantly, of the contribution made to our local economy by so many of our guests at A Place to Write - especially the many guests who have invested in local hostelries and, most frequently, in the wonderful local antiques emporium (you know who you are!).

As part of our development, this month we successfully completed our first Unique Shakespeare Retreat - on Shakespeare's major comedies. It was a fantastic success with some brilliant guests and many superb sessions through the week. The play readings each morning were a great way to start the day and everyone loved the fact that each reading was followed that evening with a viewing of a National Theatre/Globe/RSC production of the same play. Over the week we explored A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night - with some fascinating insights and observations created by the opportunity to read, watch and explore three different plays in such a short period of time. In addition to the play readings, everyone enjoyed a fantastic array of workshops and presentations including hearing from Dan Poole about the creation of Muse of Fire, learning from John Mitton about the challenges of setting up the Shitfaced Shakespeare company, and being fascinated by Lizzie Conrad-Hughes' explanation of Shake-scene Shakespeare's original practices and current method of production. With other live sessions exploring Shakespeare's Verse, Shakespeare and Stanislavski, Shakespeare and Musicals, Shakespeare in Ireland, Phillip Rowe's History of European Theatre Podcast and Shakespeare and Candlelight, the only criticism from the assembled group was that they would have liked a little more time to explore the stunning landscape and places of interest in the local area! A subtle shift in the programming for November's 'Tragedies' retreat will ensure this is corrected for future retreaters, without compromising the range and quality of our unique Shakespeare programme.
Having successfully completed the inaugural Unique Shakespeare Retreat, the development of our new spring programme then took precedence. Our ambition is to build a year-round programme of successful retreats with one thing in common: the warmth of welcome, generous hospitality and inspiring content that define retreats at A Place to Write. A major development for 2025 is the introduction of a 'Home from Home Wellbeing Retreat' which not only offers all the usual benefits of a relaxing, full board stay with home-cooked food in a stunning location, but also includes options to enjoy creative workshops, mindfulness sessions, afternoon tea, movie nights and even breakfast in bed on the last morning. We believe it's another unique retreat which is only possible because of our unique property and the values which Wendy and I hold dear. For the spring, these new retreats are scheduled in amongst our now well-established and extremely popular writing retreats (March's tutored retreat is already almost sold out) with some Shakespeare retreats dotted through the programme too. The provision of an almost continuous programme of retreats over a three month period is an exciting new prospect for us, and we can't wait to get stuck in.

Away from the retreats, our first quarterly newsletter has proved a tremendous success. Unfortunately we have not yet been able to find a secure way to allow the newsletter to be downloaded from our site but we are currently working on an archive option accessible to all. In the meantime, if you would like a copy of the newsletter by email let us know via info@aplacetowrite.co.uk and we'll send you a pdf copy.

Finally, the last major development of the past few weeks has been the initiation of a partnership with We Travel - an online booking company. The challenges of taking and processing bookings in-house are growing as our retreat programme grows: some of you may have already noticed the little glitches in the process increasing! This has been due to the increasing amount of paperwork that we are having to keep track of as the quantity and range of retreats expands. We began speaking to We Travel earlier this year and this week we have begun a formal tie-up which will see our booking page at www.aplacetowrite.co.uk link to We Travel's bespoke payment and schedule pages. This partnership will allow us to offer greater variety in the ways in which you can choose to pay, develop more optional extras which you can add to your retreat experience at the time of booking, and securely collect all the relevant information - including dietary requirements - ahead of your visit. The partnership with We Travel will also reduce the time we spend on transferring information from spreadsheet to spreadsheet (!) and will make the whole process of managing bookings more streamlined for everyone.
So there we go. Major developments in the past few weeks that we hope augur a bright, happy and successful 2025 for A Place to Write and will contribute to the continuing development of our unique programme of retreats for all of our wonderful guests. This all continues right now with our upcoming tutored and untutored writing retreats - and our Unique Shakespeare's Tragedies retreat - in a very busy November!
See you soon,
Nic
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