Morning
Attention before agenda
Slow starts, shared language, and the conditions for people to say the true thing.
Presented by
The campfire beside the public square.
Futureproof Festival is the public square. Futureproof Retreat is the trust layer: a smaller Hollyhock path where ethics, creativity, access, and relational practice can mature before the larger public work asks for coherence at scale.
30-50 pilot
Hollyhock target
Ethics + creativity
Trust layer
Source signal
The retreat builds the framework.
The May 8 planning conversation clarified the retreat's job: it should not replace the public weekend. It should make the larger work more coherent by giving the core people a quieter room to build trust, language, and practice.
"The retreat is not a side quest. It is the framework layer for the public square."
Post-meeting synthesis
Retreat rhythm
A different pace because the work is different.
The retreat page should feel less like a sales sheet and more like a threshold into a room where people can think carefully together.
Private enough for trust
A curated room where artists, educators, founders, policy people, and community builders can slow down before making public claims.
Midday
Frameworks in practice
Ethics, creativity, governance, access, and AI craft pressed against real cases.
Afternoon
Making and synthesis
Small-group work that becomes artifacts the public festival can actually use.
Evening
The campfire layer
Conversation, field notes, trust, and the relational glue that does not happen on stage.
Planning source architecture
The dossier becomes the spine, not another loose note.
The retreat work now has to fold three source streams into one decision path: the new Futureproof Retreat dossier, the older spring-retreat thread, and the broader festival-week concept.
Canonical source
futureproof-retreat/README.md + DOSSIER.md
Use this as the source of truth for the retreat's thesis, audience, partnership rationale, program shape, and unresolved decisions.
Superseded source
spring-retreat/README.md
Treat this as historical context now that the Futureproof Retreat framing exists. Preserve useful instincts, but do not let older spring-retreat copy drive the current offer.
Festival relationship
bc-ai-festival-week/README.md
Keep the retreat tied to the festival-week vision: it is a framework-building container that can make the public festival more coherent, not a separate competing brand.
Care as infrastructure
Access and trust are part of the architecture.
The retreat only works if the participant mix is curated with care, scholarships are designed early, and the room produces artifacts the public festival can use.
Dossier anchors
Ethics and creativity belong in the same room.
The retreat is not a side quest for the festival. It is the place where the movement can practice its own claims: curious and critical, values-led and practical, human enough to survive contact with real work.
2026 pilot
30-50 invite-led participants
Use a smaller Hollyhock window as an execution bridge: pressure-test the curation model, partnership mechanics, documentation flow, and sponsor or scholarship readiness.
2027 flagship
60-120 curated participants
Build toward an international, values-led retreat with BC roots, stronger public artifacts, and a durable pipeline into Futureproof Festival and BC + AI programming.
Strengths
- Creates deeper alignment among leads and builders
- Uses nature, distance, and daily rhythm to make the conversation different
- Can turn the Futureproof Retreat dossier into a focused Hollyhock partnership offer
Watch-outs
- Not a public launch vehicle by itself
- Requires a clear partner owner at Hollyhock
- Needs careful source consolidation so it does not compete with the festival
This wins when
- The team needs trust before scale
- Hollyhock wants a revived AI retreat partner
- The retreat dossier clarifies audience, promise, and partner asks
Design principles
What makes this a retreat, not a smaller conference.
The retreat is a trust and framework layer before it is a public product.
Ethics and creativity have to reshape each other in the room, not sit in separate tracks.
The Hollyhock partnership question comes before dates, pricing, or polished sales copy.
Nature, distance, and offline depth are strategic design constraints, not decor.
Scholarships and access belong in the architecture from day one.
First-room people
The guest list is the strategy.
Artists and creative technologists actively working with AI
Educators, youth-centered leaders, policy people, and governance practitioners
Founders and product leaders building with public-interest intent
Community organizers, movement builders, and relational governance practitioners
International guests who can contribute to the room, not just consume it
Hollyhock / Cortes partners who understand the venue's culture and constraints
Draft program tracks
Four tracks for a practical retreat spine.
Ethics in Practice Lab
Creative Intelligence Studio
Embodied Leadership and Relational Practice
Futureproof Field Notes
Boundary conditions
Say what this is not before the offer hardens.
Not a startup pitch weekend
Not a generic corporate offsite
Not a coding bootcamp
Not a wellness escape disconnected from hard AI questions
Not a hype event pretending to be a movement
Possible outcomes
What the retreat would need to produce.
Ethics and creativity frameworks the festival can reuse
Short films, visual essays, or recorded segments for public storytelling
Prototype concepts and policy patterns grounded in lived practice
Facilitated synthesis notes that turn retreat signal into shared language
A practical bridge between inner work, community trust, and public programming
Still honest
The retreat pathway is promising because the questions are still honest.
Question 1
Who is the right Hollyhock owner, and is Orane Cheung still interested in reviving the AI retreat?
Question 2
Who belongs in the female co-lead architecture, and what authority does that role hold?
Question 3
Which claims in the Futureproof Retreat dossier are ready to show partners, and which are still internal strategy?
Question 4
Is there a real 2026 Hollyhock cancellation slot for a 30-50 person pilot?
Question 5
What sponsor and scholarship model keeps access central without making the offer vague?
Room question