Silent retreat: Find Your Peace - 5 nights in Sharpham House

Dene Donalds

Dene is a lay Ordained Dharma Teacher in the Zen Buddhist Tradition of Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.

Dene offers Buddhist and mindfulness retreats across the UK and Europe, with a focus on engaged Buddhism and social action.  He has been a student of Zen Buddhism since the mid-nineties and joined The Order of Interbeing in 2007.

He is based in the North of England where his work includes offering Buddhist chaplaincy within Prisons and Mental Health Hospitals.

Nina Jankelson

Nina began practising mindfulness in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, attending retreat in Northern India and Nepal and later finding inspiration in the Insight Meditation tradition and the teachings of Zen monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.

Nina was first drawn to Devon by the opportunity to volunteer as a residential coordinator at Sharpham’s Barn Retreat Centre and has been supporting and facilitating retreats at Sharpham and elsewhere since 2016. She has been the Assistant Manager at The Barn since 2023.

Her practice is grounded in a connection to the land and in contacting moments of ordinary beauty and grace in the everyday, noticing that aliveness can be found almost everywhere we look - waiting for a bus, reading poetry, watching the sunset, cleaning the toilet, weeding the garden, washing the dishes. She supports a spirit of discovery and experimentation in each person’s exploration of their experience on retreat, and perceives there is no one-size-fits-all approach to deepening our connection to ourselves, each other and everything.

Patti Summerville

Patti Summerville has been cultivating a personal meditation practice for over 25 years in both Buddhist and secular settings.

She volunteered as a co-ordinator at The Barn Retreat Centre, an Insight Mindfulness Meditation Retreat centre at Sharpham in 2013. She went on to complete Mindfulness Teacher Training Level 1 and 2 with Exeter University and is a Hatha Yoga teacher and Occupational Therapist. From its opening to 2024, Patti was the manager of The Coach House.

On a personal level, Patti has found great benefit integrating mindfulness practice into her everyday, private and professional life as an Occupational Therapist and Sharpham Trust retreat leader. She is passionate about supporting others on their journey towards more contented, peaceful and compassionate lives.

Toni Spencer

Toni Spencer works in retreat, training, and community-building settings where cultivating presence, and “the power of pausing” are central to her approach. Her practice of embodied awareness is shaped by Buddhist, somatic, and mindfulness teachings, and by 18 years of sitting, being, and training with Fanny Behrens and Colin Harrison (Movement of Being).

Woven through all her work is an invitation to reconnect with - and remember ourselves as - nature, recognising how deeply resourcing this can be, and how essential it is to healthy culture. A long-time facilitator of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, Toni brings a sense of compassion, welcome, curiosity, and grounded inquiry to all she offers.

She is also a consultant, curriculum designer, participatory artist, forager, cook, and poet. All her work is as a response to the suffering, the mystery and the beauty of the world, exploring how we might - particularly as Westerners - cultivate the ground of collective change with more heart, equity, diversity, and imagination.

Toni has lectured, trained, and mentored for Schumacher College, Goldsmiths College, Wildwise, Ulex, and St Ethelburga’s, and has curated projects with The Emergence Network, Encounters Arts, and Transition Town Totnes, amongst others.