Canoeing retreat: Stillness & Flow - 4 nights in woodland on The Sharpham Estate

Cathy Harshaw

Growing up on the west coast of Ireland Cathy developed a relationship with the coastal environment around her from an early age, spending most of her time either in, on or near the water. This connection took her to Plymouth in 2002 where she has continued to develop this connection and her career in outdoor education.  

Cathy is a keen canoeist and has also maintained a mindfulness meditation and yoga practice for over a decade. Sharing the power of spending time in nature and connecting to ourselves and the environments around us is at the core of Cathy’s professional practice. Her calm, friendly and supportive approach will put you ease both on and off the water. 

David Stacey

David has been involved with the Canoeing and Mindfulness Retreats at Sharpham since they started in 2019.

He has been a canoeing instructor and guide for over thirty years and paddled in many areas of the UK and abroad in New Zealand. He is a level 3 open canoe coach and advanced canoe leader. His working life has included adult mental health support, organisational health and safety and he has contributed in the past to conferences on the therapeutic benefits of the outdoor environment.

He lives locally in the Dart Valley and loves introducing others to canoeing on the river and some of its background and history. There is always something new to learn and see each time you paddle out onto its waters!

Hannah Woolley

Raised as a wild child, Hannah grew up in or on the water.

She carried her adventures into a career as an outdoor instructor and now with 30 years of experience, is passionate to encourage people to embrace nature and discover their wild self through adventurous activities.

Working regularly with children and young adults, Hannah is especially interested in the development of resilience, and respect to self and others that these journeys offer. 

More recently Hannah has discovered the symbiotic power that activity and meditative practices can create whilst on the river Dart working as a canoe guide at Sharpham.

Jess Stein

Jess offers retreats that combine mindfulness, nature connection and creativity. She has been facilitating mindfulness spaces since 2012, initially as part of the Plum Village tradition and for the last six years at Sharpham Barn, House and Woodland. 

Reverence for nature informs all that Jess does. Initially trained as a yoga teacher all that she teaches takes its inspiration from the organic shapes of the human body and the forms and patterns of the natural world. She offers practices that awaken each person's unique capacity for awareness, creativity and connection. The spaces she holds are welcoming, intuitive and gently transformative.

Alongside retreats, Jess is a palliative care nurse and holds a degree in English Literature. Eternally curious, she has completed training in Dru Yoga, Scaravelli Inspired Yoga, Creative Writing and meditation, Embodied Anatomy, Nature Connection and Cultural Repair, Qi Gong, Adaptive Yoga, Yoga for Women’s Health and much more

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.

Ollie Frame

Ollie Frame works as an integrative therapist, mindfulness teacher and retreat leader. He is a co-leader on the Mindful in Nature programme at Sharpham, for which he has produced a large range of meditations and resources. He teaches the eight-week course in various settings, including to the general public, to teachers and students in schools and colleges, and to various other client groups on behalf of Devon County Council. Also trained to teach the Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living (MBCL) course, he is especially enthusiastic about self-compassion, Metta meditation and other heart-based approaches within the world of mindfulness. As an integrative therapist, Ollie has a particular interest in Psychosynthesis, depth psychology, inner journeying and the therapeutic use of meditation and the imagination. 

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.