A reflection on GOM 2025-2026
By Georgia McCrory-Bowick
Tēnā koutou Wangapeka Community,
Georgia here, sharing a few reflections on the journey leading up to and during GOM 2025-2026.
This is the first GOM that myself, Ross, Ronnie, Malu and Hadleigh cocreated. GOM was originally started by Tarchin and Mary at least 20 years ago (rumour is it may have begun sometime in the 90s) and is the longest running retreat at Wangapeka. Since then it has been held by many in the Wangapeka community, most recently Mira Riddaford.
It’s hard to describe exactly how this GOM felt, and what it was like, but I will do my best.
Personally, it has been such a joy to participate in cocreating this experience with the 5 of us on the planning committee, and to have the support of Mark and Kath holding the dharma, Jacinta and Dan looking after the kids space, Benjamin on cooking, Britta, Lily and Noah who held moments of song, storytelling, lantern processions and everyone who attended and contributed in their own way.
Together we created something which is not new to the history of GOM, but new to us. For this GOM we planned the kaupapa around the following themes:
- People feeling supported to share their offerings with the group
- Creativity & play
- No set teacher or hierarchy
- Community gathering & co-creation
- Diversity: People feeling that they could come regardless of age, relationship status or family structure.
- Affordability
As someone who does not have children, it was important for me to push for the idea that GOM could be a place for all of us to gather together. Those with children, those without, those with partners, single people, elders, teenagers and wee ones.
The result: A beautiful moment of intergenerational community. People of all ages and stages who were encouraged to share their gifts and support the ecosystem that was GOM 2025/26.
Experiences included daily meditation classes, kids drop off zone for parents, daily team time and ‘open space’ offerings, arts and crafts, water slide, morning dance party, song circles and more.
In the leadup to GOM we navigated a few challenges that reflect what many are experiencing at a wider scale. Climate impacts from recent weather events created health and safety implications on site, and subsequent limitations on how many people we could safely accommodate.
With the help of the BOT, numbers were capped to 40 people (with an extensive waitlist!). We are so grateful for the interest people have shown us, the keen-ness to participate and the BOT for navigating a way through these challenges with us.
My hope is that experiences like this can be built upon, to feed Wangapeka’s continual evolution & community aspirations. Jacqui Chan’s infographic following the 50th anniversary Labour weekend echoed themes which felt very much present for this year’s GOM and the organising phase.
Unlike on more formal retreats, we had 3 film cameras floating around which anyone could take a photo with. I’ll let the images communicate some of the experience.
