The Coach House Team
Currently, Claire Starr is the Coordinator, supported by Lynn Darke who is the Assistant Co-ordinator and Nancy Billias who is our part- time administrative assistant. The house runs thanks to them and the very dedicated team of volunteers, some of whom come regularly and others who are able to give some time this year.
The life of the Coach House is enriched by the participation of all our volunteer members, who come and stay for varying lengths of time.
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Claire Starr
Coordinator
I have been closely involved with the Coach House for many years. Having been on the team since 2016, and was appointed Assistant Co-Ordinator in 2019 and then Co-ordinator in April 2021.
I trained as a spiritual director with the Epiphany Group and have been accompanying people on their spiritual journeys for about 20 years. I have regularly offered the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and took part in the Contemplative Supervision course at Loyola Hall and offer supervision. In the past, I have been a tutor on the Growth in Prayer and Reflective Living Course.
I am passionate about the Coach House continuing to be a place to "come home to." To provide this, the house needs to be clean, warm and comfortable. And food is freshly prepared and cooked in sympathy with the flavours and textures each ingredient offers, along with trying to be as sustainable and ethical as possible. Simple food well cooked is what we aim for, working with the dietary requirements which are needed for each retreat - as long as we know about them in advance!!
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Lynn Darke Assistant Co-ordinator
At the heart of any spiritual tradition sits a need to tend to the holy, and for spiritual guides with listening hearts. For anyone drawn to ‘tend to the holy’, learning how to recognise and respond to the nuanced moods and movements within is like learning to read a compass; and by leaning into the grace offered, we can make choices that lead to the increased freedoms that God longs for each of us to know.
As I stop to look back at my own wanderings (and wonderings) I discover that I was always being met exactly where I was by a God who even now remains both elusive yet intimately knowable, and keen to be found in the midst and mess of my ‘spiritual’ and ‘everything else’ life.
This requires, as the Jesuit writer Pierre Teilhard de Chardin reminds me, patience and trust in the slow work of God, for we are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, and struggle to believe that God is trustworthy. My training to become a spiritual director came about in response to my own deepening trust and a desire to walk with others also on the way; a desire that grew naturally alongside my work as a specialist nurse in palliative care. I do both from a faith grounded in contemplative Christianity and am open to seeing God in all things, whatever your beliefs and wherever you are on your journey.
