SS#177: Build Real-Life Community (with Hayley Beck!!)

It is easy to assume that meaningful community requires a large conference, an established group, or someone who already knows how to organize everything perfectly. But often, building real friendship begins much more simply: one woman decides to invite two or three others into a room.

In today’s episode, we’re talking with our behind-the-scenes extraordinaire, Hayley, about hosting a local group for this fall’s Scholé Sisters retreat on prudence. She explains exactly how the hostess process works, what resources we provide, the different ways women have organized their retreats, and what she has learned from helping hostesses over the years.

But this conversation became about more than retreat logistics. We talk about why embodied, local friendship matters in an increasingly isolated and digital world—and why you don’t need to feel completely prepared before you begin.

A retreat does not have to be large, elaborate, or perfectly executed to be worthwhile. Sometimes you make the commitment, invite the women, and discover by doing that you were more capable than you thought.

If you’ve considered hosting but have been intimidated by the details, this episode will show you how manageable it can be—and why gathering even a few women in person may bear fruit long after the retreat itself is over.

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Today’s Hosts and Guest

Guest: Hayley Beck

Hayley and her husband, Randy, have 7 children and live in Montana. She has been with Scholé Sisters as their administrative assistant for over 8 years.

Make a community day happen!

The Scholé Sisters fall retreat is a one-day, streamed event designed to help homeschooling moms think deeply and discuss important ideas together.

This year’s retreat focuses on prudence: what this classical virtue is, why mothers need it, and how it shapes the countless practical judgments we make in our homes and homeschools. Women may register individually and participate from home, but the retreat is especially well suited to local groups who gather to watch the sessions and discuss them in person.

A local retreat can take almost any form. A hostess invites women to meet in her home, church, community center, or another convenient location. The group watches the retreat sessions together and uses the provided discussion time to work through the ideas.

Some groups include only two or three friends gathered in a living room; others bring together dozens of women from across their area.

Lunch can be catered, potluck, or brown bag. It does not need to be elaborate. Scholé Sisters provides hostesses with planning instructions, promotional materials, checklists, technical guidance, and access to other experienced hostesses inside Sistership.

Hosting is worthwhile because good ideas become more fruitful when we discuss them with other people.

The point of the retreat is not merely to listen to Mystie, Brandy, and Abby deliver information. It is to take the ideas they introduce, test them against our own experiences, hear how other women understand them, and consider how they apply to the real work before us.

A conversation around a table can clarify an idea in a way that watching alone rarely does.

A local retreat can also create connections that last beyond the event itself. Large conferences are wonderful, but the women we meet there may live hundreds of miles away.

A local retreat gathers women who could realistically meet again, help one another, and become part of one another’s ordinary lives. Women have attended these retreats without knowing anyone else and come away with genuine local friendships. In an increasingly digital and individualized culture, simply putting women in the same room—where they can see one another’s faces, laugh together, and share a meal—is itself a meaningful good.

You also do not need an established group or exceptional hosting skills to begin. Invite a few women, divide the responsibilities, and use the plan provided.

The event does not have to be large or perfect to succeed. Hosting gives you a reason to make the gathering happen rather than continuing to wish that someone else would organize it.

Sometimes local community begins because one woman commits before she feels entirely ready, opens the door, and discovers that other women were hoping for the same thing.

Hayley’s Tips for a Successful Retreat Day

Hosting a local retreat does not mean you have to do everything yourself. If managing all the details makes you want to hide under a pile of books, divide the responsibilities among several women.

One person can handle the technology, another can organize registration, and someone else can oversee coffee, snacks, or lunch.

Your local retreat can also be as small or as large as makes sense for your circumstances. Most groups include ten women or fewer, although some have grown to twenty-five, fifty, or more.

You can gather in a living room, reserve a room at church, meet at a community center, or turn the retreat into a weekend at a cabin.

You might cater lunch, organize a potluck, ask everyone to bring a brown-bag meal, or simply make sure that copious amounts of caffeine are available.

There is no single correct model. Choose the arrangement that serves the women you are actually gathering.

Do, however, get your ducks in a row before the night before the retreat.

Find the videos, test your login, and practice running the stream at home—even if the retreat itself will take place somewhere else. If possible, check the equipment and internet connection at your venue ahead of time.

Last-minute technical problems are much less alarming when you have already learned where everything is and how it works. Hayley is happy to help, but she is, in fact, a real person with a family and not an AI chatbot stationed at her computer at eleven o’clock on Friday night.

We make a homeschool mom day out easy!

We provide hostesses with an outline, planning information, invitations, flyers, a sign-up sheet, a retreat-day checklist, and troubleshooting help.

Hostesses also have access to a dedicated area inside Sistership, where they can ask questions and learn from women who have hosted before. Experienced hostesses often share photographs, setup ideas, and practical solutions.

You do not need to invent the entire event from scratch; use the resources and the collective wisdom already available to you.

Finally, do not wait until you feel entirely capable. Sometimes we discover that we can do a thing only after we have committed ourselves and begun fumbling through it.

Invite two or three women and start there. A local retreat does not need to be elaborate, impressive, or perfectly executed. It is simply an opportunity for women to think together, deepen their understanding, and begin building the sort of embodied local friendships that cannot be replicated through a screen. Even if only one other woman joins you, gathering together is still better than doing it alone.

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