Mindfulness for Beginners: 3-night Sharpham House Retreat

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.

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.

Ethan Pollock

Ethan has been facilitating mindfulness groups and retreats for over a decade.

He spent five years training at Plum Village with the internationally-recognised mindfulness teacher & Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

He is a qualified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher. He facilitates and teaches around the UK, including at the Sharpham Trust, Schumacher College, The Royal Drawing School and local meditation groups.

Lindsay Alderton

Lindsay has been practising meditation since 2003, studying with teachers from the Tibetan and Insight Meditation traditions.

She lived and worked at the Ecodharma centre in the Spanish Pyrenees, and helped launch the Ulex Project in 2016, a European training programme which supports activists to navigate burnout and build impact across social movements. Prior to this she was involved in full-time climate activism.

Trained in Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living, Lindsay is passionate about how meditation can open up views of identity to support greater intimacy with all life, and how compassion can be a vital resource for navigating ecological anxiety and grief.

Currently completing her clinical placement hours as an integrative counsellor, since 2021 Lindsay has been a part of the Barn Retreat team, helping design, develop and deliver their LGBTQIA+ strand of retreats. What motivates her is a deep commitment to a culture of awakening and care for all beings.

Lynette Robinson

Lynette is a qualified Breathworks teacher and accredited life coach who has been practicing meditation for over 20 years. She teaches mindfulness in a diverse range of settings that include residential complexes for elder’s, prisons and residential retreats in both Devon and Yorkshire.  With a previous career in the public sector, Lynette is a mother and grandmother who lives the second half of her own life as a space to explore new possibilities, creativity, and self-discovery. She is the author of ‘Reclaimed- turning an uneventful life into an adventure’ and re-located, at 56, to live at the Barn Retreat Centre as a Co-ordinator (initially for a year) and liked Devon so much she stayed!  Lynette facilitates mindfulness retreats in Sharpham House and also a Totnes group for over 55’s – established 5 years ago, for residents to learn and practice mindfulness and meditation; as they age mindfully - a theme very close to Lynette’s own heart and practice, as she enters her 64th year.

Martyna Raczka

Martyna is a qualified MBSR, MBCT-L and Finding Peace in a Frantic World teacher. She has delivered online and live courses and retreats to adults and children. Martyna spent a year at the Coach House as a volunteer mindfulness and nature connection retreat leader.

Martyna is passionate about supporting participants as they begin to make conscious steps towards transformation and discovering their full potential. She has a genuine compassion and empathy for the challenges that bring people to mindfulness. She is an advocate of openness and awareness as the first steps towards realising one’s full potential as we begin, without judging ourselves, to recognise how the consequences of long-held habits might hold us back. 

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. 

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.

Ramiro Ortega

Ramiro started practising meditation in 2005 in the Soto Zen tradition, continuing his practice at Gaia House when he moved to the UK in 2008.

He trained to teach mindfulness at the University of Bangor and at the University of Exeter, and later he completed the Dharma Teacher Training Programme at Bodhi College.

Ramiro has a background in philosophy, which he considers as a way of life. He is also a trained counsellor and has a counselling practice.

Rupert Marques

Rupert has practiced in the insight meditation tradition for nearly 25 years in Europe, America and Asia. His primary teachers have been Christina Feldman and Joseph Goldstein. The work of Toni Packer and John Tarrant have also been influential in his practice and teaching. He teaches at various retreat centres in Europe and beyond. For the past 4 years Rupert has lived and worked at Ecodharma, a contemplative retreat community in the Spanish Pyrenees dedicated to exploring the role of the Dharma in the movements for social justice and ecological sustainability. At Ecodharma he directed the Nature based Practice strand of their work that marries contemplative practice with a range of approaches within the field of experiential ecopsychology in a wilderness setting.

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.