Nature, Self & Community: a 4-night retreat at The Coach House

Barry Thurgood - Coach House Manager

Barry has a long term connection with Sharpham - he was a volunteer Retreat Coordinator at The Barn and has lead many retreats in the House and the Woodland Campsite.

He feels a deep connection to the land, especially Dartmoor, and so is delighted to be the Coach House manager with its nature connection ethos. He says "Sharpham has been a big support to me over the years and it is an honour to offer that same support to others".

Barry is inspired by sharing his passion for deepening a sense of connection with ourselves, each other, nature and something bigger than ourselves, all in a spirit of kindness.

Coach House Coordinators

Our Coach House Coordinators will be co-leading this retreat, providing support and holding the space for your experience with us.

Find out more about the team at The Coach House on this page

Emma Thom

Emma has worked in mental health for over 20 years. She has a Post Graduate Diploma in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (University of Exeter). She works at the AccEPT clinic in Exeter teaching mindfulness courses to adults with depression and health and social care staff. She also teaches mindfulness to adoptive parents, teenagers, and families with learning difficulties. Emma’s life has benefitted in many ways from mindfulness. She first discovered mindfulness during an extensive period of ill-health and has no doubt that mindfulness gave her what she needed to recover.  Emma loves sharing what she has learned with others and is particularly interested in the ways that mindfulness supports wellbeing and flourishing along with increasing capacity to manage stress and ill-health.  Emma especially enjoys practicing mindfulness in movement, through yoga and walking.

Ruth Breznay

Ruth has been leading retreats at our Coach House retreat centre since it opened in 2022. Her professional background is in supporting vulnerable adults.

Reconnecting with nature at a retreat at The Barn in 2004 led her to a profound and life-changing experience which, in turn, led to her facilitating retreats there.

Her main mindfulness practice is nature-based. “I find sitting outdoors, allowing all my senses to be fully present with the natural world around me and feeling part of the web of life, a very profound and joyful experience,” she says.

She is passionate about rewilding our Earth and our hearts and empowering others to rediscover their place in nature and become more compassionate towards themselves and all life on Earth.

Ruth has practised Hatha Yoga for over 30 years, and completed 300h & 500h teacher-training courses in Rishikesh, India, in 2014, seeing her yoga asana practice as a mindfulness practice, that emphasises mindful movement and still awareness.

The success of yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures. but in how it positively changes the way we live our lives and our relationships

- T.K.V. Desichankar

Steve Banks

Steve trained as a mindfulness teacher with Mindfulness UK. He started practising meditation in 1990 within the Buddhist tradition, and has attended retreats, mostly at Gaia House, with many different teachers. He first came to Sharpham in 1997 for a Barn retreat, and fell in love with the beautiful setting, with the Dart winding its way through the green hills. Steve is a qualified Psychosynthesis counsellor and has engaged in many forms of personal development and menswork, including co-leading transformative Rites Of Passages retreats for men. He is a musician and composer - his sacred choral work, ‘Blue Pearl: A One World Oratorio’, had its world premiere in 2022 (the film is on YouTube). He has attended the one-week Mindful Self-Compassion retreat with Chris Germer and Kristin Neff. Steve lives just down the river from Sharpham, and loves boating and swimming in the Dart, and hiking and camping in the beautiful Devon hills and coast. Steve is passionate about passing on the gifts of mindfulness, meditation, and deepening our connection with nature.