Faith, Fun and Formation at the First Annual Directors Training

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the first ever, annual Catholic Schoolhouse Director’s Training Weekend, in sunny (and warm) St. Augustine, FL. It was a fully loaded weekend with training classes, ‘speed dating’ Q&A sessions, spiritual growth, and a little bit of fun and sight seeing.  Here’s the weekend in pictures.

Speakers included:

The Catholic Schoolhouse founder, Kathy Rabideau:

The CSH Chapter Coordinator, Toni Graff, Upper Level (and other behind the scenes magic) Amy Kemerer, and several gracious directors who shared some of their best practices, like Flo and Renee:

It was full of important information for a new and upcoming director (like me!), and still extremely valuable for our transitioning directors (those taking over as director of an existing Chapter), second year directors, and those really experienced directors too.

Betsy led us in some amazing spiritual growth throughout the weekend, challenging us as mothers, leaders in the community, and as children of God.  She led us in Divine Mercy Hours, devotions, and helped focus the weekend not on us, but on how we can serve our God through the grace and mercy He’s provided us.

And of course, it was sunny Florida, and we did go into St. Augustine for Mass and a little bit of sight seeing.

I don’t even have words for the Our Lady of Le Leche Shrine.  You just need to go.

The St. Augustine Cathedral was beautiful as well.

I don’t think we were all quite ready for this one 🙂 but hey, we are all in it.

(This mosaic picture is def coming out in Tour II, when we learn about them here)

And among all the learning and praying, we still had some time for fellowship.

This soup was delicious… almost too good to eat on a Friday.

A huge thank you to Kathy, Toni, Amy, Jean, Renae, and especially the St. Augustine Chapter for an amazing Directors Training weekend.  Where will we have it next year? Maybe someone should start a chapter in Hawaii… 😉

If you are interested in becoming a new director, or are an experience director just looking to expand your knowledge and grow spiritually, the directors training weekend is a great way to do so! For those who were unable to attend this year, there will be online training sessions for new directors.  And although we can’t completely replicate the networking that went on in person, remember Basecamp is a great way to network with other directors!

See you next year,

Kristen