If I Ruled the World
7th to 10th August
The most extraordinary weekend of your life.
4 days in south west France, at the foothills of the Pyrénées, on the stunning Clos de Gaye estate
A call to action for everyone to come together with people from all over the world, taking part in life-changing workshops, performances, discussions and dining under the stars, to restore our shared humanity
Camp Schedule
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Thursday - Welcome to Camp!
4pm Arrival and Welcome Drinks
7pm Dinner
8pm Campfire Introductions and ‘Frozen Picture’ Workshop - Building a Future For Us All: Where We Are Now, Where We Want To Go, How Do We Get There?
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Friday - Being the Leader The World Needs
8am Breakfast on the field at Clos de Gaye
Adults and Young People
9.30am - 11am Leading with Purpose and Vision with Caroline
11am Break
11.30am Leadership Presence and Compelling Communication with Caroline and Jennie
Children
9.30 - 11am Peter and the Wolf, Music workshop with Milos and Anja
11am Break
11.30 - 1pm Peter and the World, Music workshop with Milos and Anja
1pm Lunch in the Courtyard
Everyone
2 - 4pm New Ways of Seeing - Photography workshop with Gina Badenoch
4pm Afternoon Tea and Storytelling, Rose Garden
5 - 7.30pm Rest and Reflection time
7.30pm Dinner
9pm Lantern-lit Tango Concert under the trees with Milos Milivojevic and Anja Trtovic
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Saturday - Going Out Into the World
8am Breakfast on the field at Clos de Gaye
Adults and Young People
9.30 - 11am Cross-cultural Communications: Mastering the Challenges of Life as a Global Citizen
11am Break
11.30am - 1pm Negotiation and Conflict Management Skills – Getting What You Need With Confidence and Respect
Children
9.30 - 11am ‘Poetry in the Potager’ with Alex and Hannah
Break
11.30 - 1pm Beekeeping and Honeymaking
1pm Lunch in the Courtyard
Adults and Young People
2 - 4pm Empathy Workshop with Gina Badenoch
Children
2pm - 4pm ‘Frozen Picture’ Workshop
4pm Afternoon Tea and Storytelling, Rose Garden
5 - 7pm Rest and Reflection Time
7 - 8pm Dinner
8pm Campfire Sharings
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Sunday - When the Show Ends, What Begins?
8am Breakfast on the field at Clos de Gaye
Adults and Young People
9.30 - 11am Building a Portfolio Life - A Roadmap for your Future
11am Break
11.30 - 1pm When the Show Ends, What Begins?
Children
9.30 - 1pm Mural Making and Arts and Crafts
1pm Lunch
2pm Goodbyes and Departure
All of our workshops can be delivered in either French or English or a combination of the two. Most of our facilitators are bilingual and we always have translators on hand to ensure our workshops can be enjoyed by all.
The Centre for the Arts and Global Leadership reserves the right to change the programme schedule and to add additional workshops and performances as capacity requires.
Milos Mililvojevic and Anja Trtovic
We are excited to have at this camp only, two award-winning musicians from Serbia who will be giving a tango concert under the lantern-lit woods of Clos de Gaye on Friday night, a truly magical experience
Our Facilitator Team
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Milos Milivojevic
ACCORDIONIST AND MUSIC EDUCATOR
Award-winning Serbian born Miloš Milivojević has been described as “A hurricane of imaginative invention” by Hilary Finch, The Times. His versatility as a musician performing different genres including classical, tango and world music, has ensured he is in demand internationally. Miloš is a first prizewinner at international accordion competitions in Germany (Klingental), France (Grand Prix), Italy (Castelfidardo) and Denmark (Diremose Prisen).
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Gina Badenoch
PHOTOGRAPHER AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR
Gina uses transformational tools such as mindful storytelling through participatory photography, sensory movement, and inner self-awareness as the path to becoming more resilient and adaptable in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world. Works with marketing and communication teams to re-frame their narrative, increase representation, innovation and growth.
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Anja Milivojevic
Serbian violinist Anja Milivojevic graduated from the Music Academy of Belgrade in 2018. She is a sought-after soloist and chamber musician. She has been teaching violin at the Music School in Belgrade since 2020. Anja is a permanent member of the ensemble Metamorphosis, the violin/violoncello duo Amelie, the symphony orchestra "Makris" since 2021 and performs regularly with the RTS Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of the 2021/22 season include a solo performance with the "Makris" Symphony Orchestra at the Kolarac Concert Hall and the world premiere of the first children's opera "Children's Room" by Milenko Zivkovic with the Belgrade Music Opera Theater. Performances at the Kolarac Concert Hall, Belgrade National Theatre, Belgrade Philharmonic, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade Arena, Verdi Conservatory, Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade, as well as broadcasts and recordings for Serbian television and radio complete the list. Most recently, Anja performed with the ensemble Metamorphosis at the "MetaWorld" contemporary music festival in Serbia.
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Alexandre Fischer
POETRY AND GARDENING
In charge of our ‘Poetry in the Potager’ series, Alexandre is responsible for the vegetable garden at Clos de Gaye and is also our resident beekeeper. Anything you wish to know about bees, Alexandre is your man :-) A passionate writer and reader of poetry, and a deep spiritual thinker, Alexandre will have you exploring the more lyrical and inspired part of life!
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Hannah Wilkoff
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
With a background in leadership, consulting and creative education, Hannah brings the revolutionary Pre-Texts model, developed by Harvard Professor Doris Somer, to use language and literature as a tool to access language and meaning for young people. Hannah is also a jazz pianist and talented writer.
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Ben Meaker
Benjamin is a photographer specializing in documentary, human-centered photography. His goal is to capture the energy and personality of every person he encounters, and tell their story in the most captivating way possible. His work is often described as photojournalistic, combined with a cinematic aesthetic that creates a powerful connection between authenticity and storytelling.
Our founder, Caroline Watson, leadership coach and personal development expert to high-level business and government leaders all over the world, will also be hosting a series of workshops at each one of our 3 camps on the following topics:
Leadership Presence and Compelling Communication
Building on our founder’s background as an actress, we help you work on ways to improve your presentation skills, build your self-confidence when giving talks or raising funds, and understand how to compel others to follow or hire you!
Purpose and Vision: New Horizons for your Leadership
Digging deep and getting clarity on our values and what we stand for are the cornerstones of building a career and a meaningful family and personal life, built on a sense of purpose and vision, allowing us to achieve outsize goals and ensuring we live with integrity in line with our values
Building a ‘Portfolio Life’: Finding more Joy, Career Progression and Economic Resilience in an Uncertain World
Whether you are an artist, creative, young visionary, or looking to pivot in your career and eager to make your mark on the world, it’s a daunting time to launch out with so much uncertainty in our world. Now is the time to dig deep into what it is you have to say in the world and to build a ‘portfolio’ of activity that plays to your strengths and interests and enable you to support the life you want to live.
Cross-cultural Communications: Mastering the Challenges of Life as a Global Citizen
How do we speak so others will listen? How do we communicate in a language other than our own? How can we get across what we need in a respectful, kind and joyful way? Living across different cultures can be a challenge so it’s imperative we develop the tools and techniques to successfully achieve what we need to do in our day to day life, whilst listening and learning to what other countries and cultures can teach us too.
Negotiation and Conflict Management Skills – Getting What You Need With Confidence and Respect
Whether it’s managing difficult conversations, asking for a pay rise or asserting your independence from friends and family, this workshop uses Forum Theatre as a technique to ‘rehearse for real life’ conflict resolution skills to get you through even the toughest of negotiations with grace, diplomacy - and results!
Building a Future For Us All: Where We Are Now, Where We Want To Go, How Do We Get There?
In this innovative ‘Frozen Picture’ workshop, come together with others to reflect on the challenges facing us as a global community and the actions we can each take to build a better world. You’ll come away feeling inspired, energized and ready to build on the foundations of a relaxing and inspirational summer camp experience, able to make your contribution to the future wellbeing of our planet!
The transformation of self, in service to our world
Caroline is a captivating storyteller and an actress in her own right who frequently takes to the stage to share her remarkable story of setting up Hua Dan in Beijing at the tender age of 25. Weaving together themes of home, identity, belonging, journeys, women’s leadership, relationships between East and West, and the transformation of self, in service to our world, Caroline’s talks and workshops offer a unique blend of performance, storytelling, skills development and compelling leadership perspectives.
A visionary entrepreneur, social reformer, speaker and thought leader, you will be inspired to learn about how Caroline overcame extraordinary odds to build one of China’s most respected social enterprises and how her journey has now taken her to the corridors of power to begin transforming our global governance systems, our approach to leadership, and offering radically new ways of thinking about human flourishing.
You will come away with:
An introduction to the human-centered, 21st century skills of creative thinking and resilience, flexibility and agility, leadership and social influence, curiosity and lifelong learning, that you will need to navigate the future and what you can do to continually learn and improve on those skills throughout your life
A deeper knowledge and appreciation of how important an entrepreneurial mindset is going to be for the future of work and what you can do to build your entrepreneurial ‘muscle’ to be prepared
An understanding of your ‘artistic’ and creative voice, whether that’s literally navigating a creative career, or using the tools of an artist to let go and be comfortable with uncertainty, ambiguity and change, to feel empowered and inspired to imagine a different future as the ‘architect’ of a beautiful life.
Support to take charge of your mental health and well-being, and tools to give you agency over your future and the direction of our world, being an ‘activist’ for the changes we need to see
A deeper awareness of the enormous potential you hold within yourself and the self-confidence and belief to know you can achieve anything you set out to do
A practical roadmap for the next steps in your life and career, with the leadership skills to communicate clearly what you want and have to offer
Welcome to Clos de Gaye!
Clos de Gaye (pronounced ‘guy’) means ‘Place of Joy’ and it is at once a private home, a residential retreat, a creative and artistic workspace, organic farm, community kitchen, restaurant and tea house, and a convening ground for global leaders, artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and all those charged with the care and governance of our planet. Think of it as the meeting point between the Bloomsbury set’s Charleston and Camp David. It is a place to stay, to play, to share and to transform our world.
The spirit of Clos de Gaye is one of contribution, generosity and accountability. Those that have a seat of the table have arrived there through hard work and a genuine desire to be of service to the world. Time spent here is for you to reflect on what has been achieved so far and to be a springboard into future leadership and the continued desire to be a force for good in the world.
Deep in the heart of the French countryside, embedded in the ‘old world’ rises a new way of thinking about the future. The best of European heritage, beauty and aesthetic, with interiors from all over the world, reflecting our founder’s upbringing in Asia, and bringing energy, dynamism and a sense of inclusion of the new world.
An opportunity to reclaim the very best of European culture and values, with a renewed way of thinking about its relationship with the rest of the world, restoring humanity to everyone.
Accommodation will be provided either in tents on the Clos de Gaye estate or at a local hotel or bed and breakfast.
For camping, you have the option to bring your own tent and just hire a pitch, or to stay in one of our beautiful furnished luxury bell tents or even the fabulous Stargazer tents that give you a nightly star show from the comfort of your bed! These are wonderful special experiences that would create a lifetime of memories.
We also offer the option to stay in bed and breakfast accommodation through our local partners, the cost of which includes transport to Clos de Gaye at the start of everyday. We also have four rooms available in the manor house, and additional accommodation in Rose Cottage.
Alternatively, you can also purchase just the ticket for the weekend workshop and organise your own separate accommodation and transport options.
All meals are prepared using fresh, local, and often organic ingredients, sourced either from our cottage garden or from local providers in the Béarn and Basque regions. Halal, kosher or other dietary needs can be catered for on request.
Clos de Gaye is situated in the Jurancon wine region and there will be thoughtful pairings of wine and other non-alcoholic drinks with each meal.
Our spaces are unique, artistic and soulful.
3-day Regional Day Trips
Get to know your new friends even better by taking an extra three days to discover our gorgeous region! Enjoy an afternoon in the beautiful city of Pau, taking in the castle and the famed Boulevard de Pyrénées; on the Monday enjoy a hike through the Cirque de Gavarnie or up the Pic du Midi d’Ossau; and on the Tuesday enjoy a day at the Basque or Landes coast to relax on the beach, explore the pretty little towns of St Jean de Luz or Hossegor, before a dinner of Basque tapas or a fresh seafood catch of the day.
This camp is part of our Healing for Humanity Summer Camp series
Ready to sign up?
The most extraordinary experience of your life.
Awe. Transformation. Impact
“I can't really put into words what [the programme] has done for me. It has been life-changing”
Past participant, Middle East