The school holidays feel like so long ago now but I really wanted to share some of the fun we had with all of our courses during Dec/Jan!
Sisterhood Evenings
We had a really beautiful final Sisterhood Evening where the regular girls that had been coming along each fortnight brought in a gift and we had a little ‘secret Santa’ fun, ate delicious treats and drank organic sparkling apple juice (in champagne glasses so it felt extra special!). We’re starting these evenings up again on 17th Feb, click here for more information.
Model Experience
We ran our full-day Model Experience workshop for a small group in December, with one of the girls already landing a meeting with one of our favourite agencies. This workshop was so much fun as always, covering catwalk training, modelling as a business, stories from a current model (past student Tayla came back to share what it’s like to model in Singapore and Greece), photographic posing, how to cast for fashion shows with the Director of Sunshine Coast Fashion Festival, Jacinta Richmond and TV commercial training – which is always a very loud and fun class! The girls did such a great job and we had a ball.
Intentional Jewellery-Making Workshop
We hosted our first Intentional Jewellery Making Workshop in December, which was such a lovely afternoon. We had a mixture of past students, sisters, friends and some of our amazing teachers there for some creative time and connection. The afternoon began by being welcomed in to the lovely Share Space and adorning each other with bindis, gold tattoos with positive words on them and even some glitter. We sat in a circle and listened to the beautiful Alex and Fran from Violet Gray Design share a little about themselves and what the afternoon was about.
We set an intention for ourselves, created our own bracelets using crystals, learned a little more about what our bracelets might mean for us, listened to lovely music and had girly chats. It was so fun! We’re so grateful to Fran and Alex from Violet Gray Design for donating their time and resources as well as making the trip all the way from the Gold Coast with their boxes of goodies to play with us. See more pics of this event in our Facebook photo album.
Tweens Course
To start 2016 off we had our popular Tweens Course – 2 half days for 10-12 year olds. They were such a fun group of girls and it was wonderful hearing them coming up with their strengths and having discussions about being a good friend. This class always love doing their nails, having girly chats around the table and, something that always surprises us, is that they always LOVE learning about table etiquette! Ha! In the image above they are half-way through their facials, nourishing their skin with a DIY fruit face mask.
Shine Personal Development Course
Finally we had our signature week-long Personal Development Course for teens. There is so much to learn during this course but I loved that one of our students said that it felt like a retreat or break – away from work, friends and usual holiday activities – where she could just focus on developing herself. How special is that?! We had a small group, as always and this time we incorporated some one-on-one coaching sessions with our resident Health Coach, Christine Smith as well as welcomed in some new teachers, Kaye Vlachos and Sharyn Holmes.
Kaye and Sharon came in to deliver separate experiences on the last day; Kaye shared her story of making it as an Australian soccer player and helped the girls find the dreams they are holding in their hearts. Sharyn then took the girls through a process of creating their own personal Mantras – bringing together everything they had learnt from the week and their intentions for 2016 together in a creative exercise. It was so lovely watching them work through the process with Sharyn and come up with such inspiring mantras for themselves.
Other guest teachers this time around included Adele McConnell from Vegie Head who always inspires the girls to get in the kitchen and nourish their beautiful bodies, Kelly from Pilates Noosa and Luxe Fitness Escapes who taught the girls how to stretch and strengthen their bodies as well as how to meditate, Kat Harding from Yoga Kiss who took us through a beautiful and fun yoga class on the beach, Zoe Champion from Follow Me Fox who taught the girls how to dress for their body shape and select their outfits for the photoshoot and our amazing photographer, Bayleigh Vedalago. We nourished our bodies with delicious produce and treats from Fresh Box and Go Vegan Deli.
See lots more gorgeous photos of our Shine Personal Development Course in our Facebook album.
We had the support of a couple of volunteers during the week including past student Shiloh, a 13 year old who gave a week of her time to support a new class and Elaine, who came from Denmark to see what we do so that she can create something similar back home.
We were so blessed to be supported by a number of businesses this time around too, who provided us with goodies for their gift bags, including:
Loving Earth choccy
Coconut Groove coconut water
Everescent’s Organic Hair Care
TOM Organic feminine hygiene products
Nebo Organics health food store at Moorchydore
Kylie’s Mineral Goddess Make Up
Easy pH – strips to test your acid/alkaline balance
Bake Mixes – organic vegan easy baking mixes
Wellineux – Journey of Me sample books & gorgeous postcards
Belle’s Brews Coffee Scrub
Twenty8 essential oil spritzers that the girls made up for themselves
+ more!
We’ve received some wonderful feedback from our courses too, like this very sweet email from Leah…
[single-testimonial id=”5755″]
Needless to say, it was a big start to the year! We’re now getting ready to start our Sisterhood Evenings back up again, get in to our school-based programs and continue with our one-on-one mentoring. We’ve also got a Mother-Daughter retreat coming up later in the year, which we’ve just moved to just after Mother’s Day in May – see the details here.
Wishing you a very happy start to 2016! If you’d like to get in touch with me, please don’t hesitate to send me an email: amanda@shinefromwithin.com.au or give me a call on 0430 035 740. As I’m often teaching or with one-on-one clients I may not answer the phone but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you within 48 hours.
Keep shining,
Amanda x