During the Community Gathering 2025, Tim Slack and myself led an Appreciative Inquiry session into community education using a SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Resources/Results) framework. (We sometimes change the order of letters, and discovered that SAOR means freedom in Gaelic, so we love using that term too.)
As Appreciating People we have worked with Appreciative Inquiry in a range of settings for many years, so it was a joy to bring it to the current explorations in the Community around the future of the educational impulse, including the organisational options, as we consider the future of the Findhorn Foundation SCIO and the Education Circle, and the delivery of education in the community context.
This post describes the session on the 26th November 2025 in the Universal Hall and invites your participation. Our SOAR/SAOR summary is a living document that will evolve as more people contribute the outcomes of their inquiry.
Inquiry topic: To explore how educational activities and resources can best be organised and aligned to serve the community – both locally and globally; and to further our relevance and sustainability by strengthening connection, communication, and collaboration.
Task: in small groups co-create a SAOR framework to feed into the Ed SCIO community consultation process, and other partnership relationship building. SAOR (SOAR) is a generative alternative to a SWOT analysis and contributes to creating strategic plans. It provides an opportunity to co-create, co-design and maximise engagement.
Discuss the questions in each quadrant (amend/add to as inspired). Then write short statements capturing the group answers on A5 post-it notes. Place those post-it notes on the large flipchart SAOR framework.
You can make 4 quadrants or draw circles, marking S O A R in consecutive sections. Begin to fill in the sections. It’s useful to start with strengths. Then look at ‘aspirations’ as this can make the other sections easier to engage with. The questions are offered as prompts and you do not have to answer all of them. You may want to adapt the wording or create your own questions.
The questions in each quadrant are based on the inquiry topic. (The illustration is to show the framework, the questions we offered as prompts are in full below – you can also create your own questions.)
Strengths
- What collective skills, knowledge and strengths do we the community bring to the “education impulse”- including ecological, the subtle realms & spiritual?
- What experience and knowledge can our community organisations contribute locally and globally to best serve?
- What strengths and skills can our other specific groups & organisations bring to support the “education impulse” & spiritual education?
- What challenges might arise to prevent us from fully utilising all our strengths?
Opportunities
- What are the opportunities to serve, locally, regionally, and globally that we can build upon? How can we collaborate more to access those?
- What are the opportunities for spiritual, ecological, and subtle education to grow?
- What might be the challenges to fostering better communications and connectivity- internally & externally?
- What can we learn from other education centres and facilitators?
Aspirations
Imagine – we successfully foster high levels of collaboration, partnership working and shared resources to bring our key strengths (ecological, spiritual and subtle) to the world and ensure the sustainability of our community.
- What new ways of working do we need to co-create and co-design to meet our aspirations?
- What do we need to do (and to let go of) to collaborate effectively?
- What strengths/skills do we need to foster or source elsewhere?
- How are we maintaining respectful & supportive loving relationships with each other?
Resources/Results
Resources
- What resources do we need to help move things forward? How can we best access those?
- Who/what could help and support us to meet our aspirations?
- What would be the smallest actions we could take, and what would be the most innovative steps?
Results
- As an education centre how will we know we have got there?
- What would success look and feel like to us in the community?
- How will we celebrate our achievements?
Reports from the session
Following the small group conversations, each group brought their notes and placed them in four sections laid out on the floor in the Universal Hall.
We are sharing here a couple of different summaries as well as the raw notes.
These are living documents which can evolve with future contributions to this inquiry. This is where you come in – please add results of your own group conversations to the Comments below. Instructions: meet with four or five others and explore together the SOAR questions listed above, create your own raw notes and post them in the Comments section below. We will collate them with others and publish the results in this post.
Summaries
The analysis of such complex statements is not a perfect science. We offer two different summaries here to allow for a more diverse look at the notes gathered by the groups on the 26th November. In addition to the lists of statements there is also a narrative summary. I resonate particularly strongly with this one:
Findhorn stands at a threshold of renewal, drawing on its rich spiritual lineage, diversity of skills, and intergenerational knowledge. Opportunities lie in strengthening educational infrastructure, deepening community coherence, reimagining education, and presenting a unified presence to the world. The aspirations point to a community ready to regenerate its culture, expand its educational ecosystem, and create a thriving, inclusive, spiritually alive village for the next generations.
(Click the arrow on the left to expand the text)
SOAR Analysis Summary
This document synthesises the community’s inputs from the SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Resources/Results) session held in the Universal Hall on 26 November 2025. It is designed to support Trustees, the Education Circle, and community members in understanding the emerging themes and strategic directions.
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STRENGTHS
• Deep spiritual foundations: long-standing traditions of attunement, inner listening, and the Sanctuary as a subtle centre.
• Wide-ranging skills and experience across education, ecology, spirituality, festivals, and community living.
• Culture of pioneering, experimentation, and learning through life experience.
• Diversity of practices, global reach through social media, and international reputation.
• Rich human resources with professional, practical, and spiritual expertise.
• Strong goodwill and willingness to contribute, even amid challenges.
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OPPORTUNITIES
• Renew educational pathways (Experience Week evolutions, apprenticeships, mentoring, visiting presenters, embodied spiritual education).
• Strengthen mycelial collaboration across organisations (SCIO, EF-CBS, NFA, FHT).
• Engage youth and deepen local integration with Elgin, Forres, and schools.
• Improve infrastructure for WWOOFers, accommodation, event spaces, and community cafés.
• Increase visibility, coherence, and accessibility via improved communication platforms and a shared portal.
• Regenerate culture through festivals, themed events, shared grief processes, and community storytelling.
• Expand community networking, hospitality, and contact-making in the absence of traditional programmes.
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ASPIRATIONS
• More ritual, spiritual connection, collective attunement, and trust-building experiences.
• Regenerative financial, ecological, and personal resilience practices, including a thriving Cullerne Gardens.
• Clearer identity, respectful culture, strong safeguarding, reduced burnout, and joy in contribution.
• Strong partnerships among all Findhorn organisations with logistical support for educators and programme hosts.
• Welcoming new energies while honouring legacy; identifying pioneers and project leaders.
• Inclusive education across age groups, apprenticeships, and bridges to local communities.
• Development of relational capacity—letting go of rigid opinions, supporting others to flourish, and expanding the relational field.
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RESOURCES & DESIRED RESULTS
Resources:
• Digital presence, potential for coherent online portals.
• Volunteer availability and mentoring networks.
• Shared facilities for events, accommodation, and food.
• New buildings emerging, revived spiritual and personal development potential.
• Enterprise models, gift economy ideas, and intuition-led governance.
Results (Indicators of Success):
• A visibly thriving village life (“busy beach with morning dippers”).
• Infrastructure capable of hosting conferences and global events.
• Accommodation for volunteers and WWOOFers.
• Children’s groups, youth engagement, and community-wide participation.
• Live-streamed trainings and hybrid education.
• Synergy across organisations, reduced duplication, and a felt sense of “me in the us.”
• Renewed wave of local and global engagement.
—
Overall Summary:
Findhorn stands at a threshold of renewal, drawing on its rich spiritual lineage, diversity of skills, and intergenerational knowledge. Opportunities lie in strengthening educational infrastructure, deepening community coherence, reimagining education, and presenting a unified presence to the world. The aspirations point to a community ready to regenerate its culture, expand its educational ecosystem, and create a thriving, inclusive, spiritually alive village for the next generations.
A full SOAR Analysis
Here is a full SOAR Analysis of the community session held at the Universal Hall on 26 November 2025, structured by the SOAR subtitles and grounded in the content of the collected notes.
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🌟 This analysis distils the essence, patterns, and strategic insights from the community’s post-it notes, mapping them into coherent themes that can directly support ongoing work in the SCIO, Education Circle, and wider community coherence processes.
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1. STRENGTHS
(“What gives life?” — our core capacities, identity, and unique assets)
Across the contributions, the community named a deep well of strengths that fall into six major clusters:
1.1 Spiritual & Energetic Foundations
● Long history of nurturing community through spiritual principles, attunement, inner listening.
● Presence of subtle places, Sanctuary, angelic awareness, and a shared identity as a “place of light.”
● Ability to support awakening processes through heart-led leadership and spiritual practice.
1.2 Community Skills & Experience
● Rich diversity of educators, facilitators, gardeners, cooks, builders, dancers, musicians, eco-designers, and festival organisers.
● Strong tradition of focalisation, co-creation, practical collaboration, and holding group processes.
● Deep collective memory of delivering Experience Week, conferences, eco-village education, and global training.
1.3 Culture of Pioneering & Experimentation
● Willingness “to pioneer,” make mistakes, and learn through exploration.
● Life itself is held as a learning experience.
● Emergence is valued — “cannot be directed or controlled,” but supported.
1.4 Diversity & Global Reach
● Global community followers; strong social media reach.
● Many models of living, spiritual expressions, and cultural practices present and welcomed.
● Youth education potential and intergenerational memory.
1.5 Human Resource Wealth
● Many people with professional, academic, ecological, and spiritual training.
● Deep expertise in building eco-homes, regenerative gardening, and experiential learning.
1.6 Motivation & Goodwill
● Despite challenges, a “large amount of willingness” persists.
● People want to contribute and be part of emerging forms.
Overall Strengths Story:
Findhorn holds a uniquely interwoven fabric of spiritual lineage, lived experience, global influence, and highly skilled, heart-centred people. This positions the community as an enduring incubator of experiential, ecological, and spiritual education.
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2. OPPORTUNITIES
(“What is possible?” — external openings and internal potentials ready to activate)
Community input identified a very wide opportunity field. These cluster into seven strategic areas:
2.1 Expanding Educational Offerings
● To create new forms of Experience Week, apprenticeships, mentoring, and community-led programmes.
● To become a platform for VISITING presenters and global partners (Gaia Education, GEN, Robert Holden, Danielle, etc.).
● To offer embodied spiritual education to the world; “everyone is an educator.”
2.2 Collaboration & Mycelial Governance
● Learn from Auroville, Damanhur, and other communities.
● Develop asset allocation and programme development using mycelium-inspired, collaborative structures.
● Strengthen inter-organisation collaboration (SCIO, EF-CBS, NFA, FHT, etc.).
2.3 Youth Engagement & Local Integration
● Make youth buildings accessible; engage youth in leadership and storytelling.
● Expand involvement with Elgin, Forres, schools, politicians, and local communities.
● Young people raised here can become carriers of Findhorn DNA into the world.
2.4 Strengthening Infrastructure
● Need for accommodation for WWOOFers, affordable housing, spaces for workshops, access to food and meeting facilities.
● Develop a community café, seasonal events, and new gathering formats.
2.5 Increasing Visibility & Coherence
● Improve FF website reach and alignment with community aspirations.
● Build a shared communication platform and greater collaboration among event hosts.
● Create coherent portals for bringing offerings to the world.
2.6 Cultural Regeneration
● Upcycle previous themed events and festivals.
● Celebrate independent initiatives as well as collaborations.
● Create avenues for sharing grief still present in the field.
2.7 Build Stronger Community Networks
● Open homes to one another in the absence of traditional Experience Week.
● Engage community storytelling and “real contact.”
Overall Opportunity Story:
The community stands at a threshold where spiritual authenticity, intergenerational wisdom, education innovation, and the desire for connection converge. Many opportunities revolve around renewing infrastructure, increasing collaboration, and expanding Findhorn’s role as a learning ecosystem.
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3. ASPIRATIONS
(“What do we care deeply about becoming?” — our shared vision and inspiration)
These contributions express the future that wants to emerge.
3.1 Deepened Spiritual & Ritual Life
● More ritual, more asking for spiritual help, more attunement in circles.
● A reconnection to collective trust and inner listening.
3.2 Regenerative Ways of Living
● Regenerative finance, gardening, and personal resilience.
● Thriving Cullerne Gardens; education in regenerative practices.
● Seasonal rhythms and deeper connection to nature.
3.3 Community Coherence & Respect
● Clear identity, respectful culture, anti-bullying and anti-burnout policies.
● More joy, honouring contributions, safe and attractive conditions for next generations.
3.4 Integrated Partnerships
● Strong partnerships among EF CBS, SCIO, and other organisations.
● Shared logistics through a central coordinating body.
3.5 Welcoming the New While Honouring the Old
● Allowing new energies without suppression.
● Valuing pioneers and supporters of inspiring projects.
3.6 Inclusive, Multi-Layered Education System
● Opportunities for different age groups.
● Long-term apprenticeships.
● Building bridges to the outside world.
3.7 Strengthening our Relational Field
● Collective experiences that help us trust one another.
● Letting go of rigid opinions; supporting each other to flourish.
Overall Aspiration Story:
The community longs for renewed spiritual vitality, relational safety, regenerative living, inter-organisational partnership, and an inclusive educational landscape that honours both heritage and innovation.
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4. RESOURCES & RESULTS
(“What do we have to build on?” & “What outcomes will show we’re succeeding?”)
4.1 Resources Identified
● Strong digital presence, with potential for a coherent online portal.
● Volunteering potential (“even one hour a week”).
● Shared facilities across organisations for food, accommodation, events.
● New buildings emerging; revived S&PD (Spiritual & Personal Development) possibilities.
● Mentoring, gift economy models, intuition-guided governance.
● A Centre for embodied spirituality; enterprise fair models.
4.2 Desired Results (Indicators of Success)
The results named reflect a vivid sense of community aliveness, practical readiness, and global engagement:
4.2.1 Community Vitality
● Busy beach with morning dippers — a metaphor for visceral community life.
● Mutual support systems, informal working groups, and shared apprenticeships.
4.2.2 Strong Organisational Infrastructure
● Ability to host conferences, events, and international education.
● Accommodation for volunteers and WWOOFers.
● Live-streamed training and digital learning.
4.2.3 Inclusion & Family Life
● More children and family groups, improved transport (“catch a ride”).
● Youth-focused programmes and a safe environment for next generations.
4.2.4 Collaborative Culture
● Synergy rather than duplication.
● Feeling the “me” in the “us.”
● A new tide of engagement, both online and in person.
Overall Resources/Results Story:
The community sees itself succeeding when infrastructure, spiritual connection, and community vitality are working together—when Findhorn becomes again a thriving, inclusive, regenerative campus alive with learning, seasonal rhythms, children, visitors, and daily expressions of shared purpose.
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🌿 Summary: The SOAR Narrative for Findhorn (2025–2030 Horizon)
Findhorn is a spiritually rooted, globally connected, highly skilled community ready for a new phase of regenerative education and inter-organisational collaboration. Its opportunities lie in renewing its educational infrastructure, deepening trust and ritual life, engaging youth and local partners, and presenting a coherent presence to the world. The community aspires to become a thriving, inclusive, nature-aligned, spiritually vibrant learning ecosystem—with shared governance, clear identity, and results that show in the everyday aliveness of village life.
Raw Notes
Strengths
● We are unique in our history and energy, we have RPs (Resource People) and we have global community followers. We have a number of established groups, gardening groups, singing groups creating groups with participants.
● We have focalisation skills and the ability to create together, and cook garden etc.
● We empower participants to be part of the process.
● Alignment to spiritual principles. Angelic Realms supporting community
● long history of community nurturing skills
● We provide foundation for many to take skills into the world
● A place of light for people to choose to find ways of living eco and spiritual
● We have many expert people for programs eco Village design education conferences etc
● We are an active community
● We have a rich diversity of skills models expressions and practices
● We have collaborative knowledge how to weave spirit and spiritual principles eco and
● and eco building.
● Subtle Places in the park. Knowing the Sanctuary.
● East West and North Whins and Cullerne gardens music and dancers universal expressions of Unity and diversity co-creating and expressing together
● There are many strengths they are disparate and evolving. This emergence can be supported but not helpfully directed or controlled
● We have many people with long and deep experience in various types of education: academic, practical spiritual, ecological, holistic.
● We can support people in their awakening with attunement, sharing, inner listening. leading from the heart.
● We are a community that wants to pioneer, we need to make mistakes and try things out. It’s important to allow exploration before creating too many structures.
● Can we recreate a community experience like experience week.
● Youth education.
● We model life as a learning experience.
● We have the knowledge of how to put on festivals like sacred dance etc.
● We have social media platforms with a good reach.
● There is still a large amount of willingness in the community, even through challenges.
Opportunities (and Challenges)
Opportunities:
● We can learn from other Communities such as Auroville and Damanhur?
● How are we living through the transfer/transformation stage moving from founders into successes and the next 60 years
● let’s appreciate and be hospitable to visiting presenters as they expand our reach
● Can we stream these community processes
● Active support and promotion of community members events e.g at the work that reconnects network
● What do we have to offer the world: embodied and experienced spiritual education
● Can we have WWOOFers as a community? Where do we house them and feed them and have rotas. We could have them working in Culllerne/ Park Garden/ Maintenance.
● Programme development team needed
● opportunity to write a song and sing it
● There are many organisations and leaders affiliated and interested in holding programs here: Gaia education, GEN, Robert Holden, Danielle
● Asset allocation group can model mycelium, collaborating healthily as critical yeast community culture
● More people are seeking human connectedness and more than human spiritual we offer that
● Building School eco construction tiny homes courses
● FF website to serve as it does and more needs to broaden to serve more of the Communities aspirations
● Include youth more and inform and integrate
● Create apprenticeships and mentoring programs
● Use options like community cafe being open over Christmas
● Increase communication and collaboration
● Be aware of the gaps
● Make youth building more accessible
● Make existing spaces more collective and accessible
● Find a new communication platform
● People who grew up here can take the DNA of one into the world. Young people creating a new story of Findhorn. Learning from other places in Elgin and Forres. Widen the understanding of education. Local involvement: young people, politicians, variety of client groups
● The idea that everyone is an educator
● Strong infrastructure needed.
● Have a vision
● Increase visibility.
● Upcycle previous learning themed events for community.
● To have all who live here feeling included so that the love spreads energetically
● High dream of Unity, while dealing with all the practicalities
● A different kind of experience week, more local less travel
● let the enthusiasm lead in a creative space, and the energy flow and be supported
● Recognition that all organizations have challenges all the time
● Support to develop and promote education, experiential happenings, mentorship and coaching
● Offer ways to cultivate universal spirituality
● We have an opportunity to move on releasing old energy bound and sadness
● Have curiosity about what brought people here, looking for real contact and community
● It’s not a question of building upon, it just is
● Somewhere where someone wishing to bring a group run a workshop can go and get information and support. Voluntary reports from those who are run things could inform this
● With no experience week like before can we open our homes to each other
● Having awareness of different lifestyles or life nourishment.
● Findhorn Foundation is being promoted on Facebook, are we the community? How the foundation was perceived in the outside world
● Learn from past mistakes and from experiences in other communities
● Celebrate both independent initiatives and collaboration
● Grief is still in the field and it needs to find expression.
Challenges:
● How do we do what’s needed and deal with the Maintenance issues in the village.
● We are struggling to emerge into a new identity with an imperfect group. how to refine the ‘We’.
● How do we get to know everyone.
● How do we manage the insecurities and wobbliness? Do we have Global relevance?
● Need a building for holding programmes that can provide food and meeting spaces.
● Working with new legislation around lets
● Rebuilding, and removing old buildings
● How to build a new education system that uses the richness in the community without causing resentment. Do we have a willingness to do the work across many areas, eco, spiritual, subtle even though there are challenges
● There is good compost here in terms of wisdom, scientific knowledge, artistic etc. Can we engage manifestation abilities in community, to do this we need to be coherent as a community.
Aspirations
● More ritual needed
● More spiritual connection and asking for help
● To be able to say we are open to groups now, gardening, cooking etc.
● Regenerative approach, including finance and personal resilience. Circles for sharing, buddy support, supervision.
● Getting practicalities sorted, being prepared to receive guests
● Space for emergent gifts and talents.
● A range of rhythms of involvement, beyond regulatory or board involvement
● The new needs to come in, without the old dampening it down.
● Valuing the new and the established. We were all one once, staying here is a privilege.
● Offer different opportunities so the eco village stands out, so we become magnetic.
● Importance of partnership, EF CBS and SCIO finding ways to work together.
● Income supports all. SEEN meetings are a good start.
● Pioneers and supporters need to be identified, who are willing to take on inspiring projects.
● Being clear about our identity
● More use of attunement in all circles
● Appreciation of all the good stuff happening
● Doing shadow work
● Aspiration to maintain respect
● To support for longer periods long-term apprenticeships
● How to build a bridge between us a community and the outside
● Better clearer policies on antibullying and he burnout culture expectation
● A desire to cook and eat together wishing to see Cullerne Gardens thriving in ways that serve the community
● Education about regenerative gardening, a juicy exploration point, different ways to relate to the earth as well as the practical
● Connections with nature that are seasonal
● Different kinds of education for different age groups
● Letting go of our opinions and tuning in leading collective experiences which help us to trust each other
● What helps us to allow others to grow and flourish. what stops us engaging. The relational field starts small with us and then expands
● A central organization to facilitate logistics, to help educators to learn how to organize their programmes.
● Aspiration to go into local schools, to engage with the young people
● Making the community safe and attractive for the next generation, for it for be professional with safeguarding, common ground and standards upheld. Bring back joy and honour for contributing, for example KP and volunteers in gardens.
Resources and Results
Resources
● Resources that are linked together. Our digital presence
● More volunteering, even just one hour of time a week.
● Creating a portal to the world that is coherent message is important
● Making the Ecovillage Findhorn website more visible.
● The SCIO or successor would be a resource to circulate information about the ‘How’ Of running a workshop in the community. They can make reports and reviews produced by the workshop leaders which would be available to glean information
● Guests who bring strengths we don’t have
● Joined up resources among all organizations booking accommodation food etc
● Idea of a ‘People nursery’, and mentoring.
● Gift economy model.
● Space for the unknown, and space to make new discoveries.
● New buildings: CC and venues
● Restore S&PD spiritual and personal development department.
● Using intuition to guide our future.
● Centre of embodied spirituality.
● Enterprise fair model, with many circles of engagement. Some circles are flourishing, and some aren’t.
Results:
● Success looks like a busy beach full of chilly morning dippers, visiting Findhorn viscerally.
● Organisational Infrastructure that can support conferences, events etc.
● Accommodation for WWOOFers.
● Facilitation of informal community work sharing, and Mutual support systems.
● Resources to support people to stay.
● Community lead apprenticeships, lead with passion and drive.
● GEN apprenticeships, GEN conference and Communication platform.
● Children and family groups, CCC, Catch a ride.
● Friday Morning conversation cafe
● Internal training that is live streamed.
● A new tide of people wanting to engage either in person or online.
● Believe in synergy rather than fearing duplication of organisations.
● The feeling of the ‘me’ in the ‘us’..
working life began in Africa, and worked in the UK public sector for 25+ years. very involved in A Course of Love community. enjoys sci-fi, yoga, dogs, being part of the wider Findhorn community
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