Transitions
This weekend, we celebrated Lauren Paitson’s time with Northern Life Yoga with an outdoor picnic. Lauren is returning to Columbus, Ohio to be closer to her daughter and grandson. We’re so thankful for her time and Tai Chi C’huh instruction at NLY and glad she’ll remain connected to us as a participant on our Thrive Facebook page (and her classes will remain available for replay to members on Thrive). Serendipitously, Richard Askwith reached out a couple months ago to express interest in teaching Tai Chi at NLY on Wednesdays. We are thankful to be able to continue our Tai Chi offering with Richard’s delightful and experienced instruction.
As announced recently, Gabbie Pepin wrapped up her time with NLY and transitioned the studio manager role to Morgan VanWinkle. Lola, Nancy, Gabbie and I celebrated a few weeks ago – but missed taking a photo! We wish Gabbie all the very best as she celebrates her wedding and sets off for adventures in Thailand with her husband to teach English. We will always welcome her back to her NLY yoga home when she’s visiting her parents.
Our two recent farewells are balanced with welcoming new faces to our NLY instructor family. Abbey Stolle moved from Manhattan and settled in Hessel with her husband in 2019. She recently finished her yoga teacher training so we look forward to incorporating her into our NLY instructor team.
As a new mom, Morgan is adjusting to both parenting and studio management – both which can have unpredictable demands. In addition to training on Mind Body, Morgan is managing our social media and website to keep our community informed through ongoing transitions.
We are planning a mentorship program for our newer instructors (Morgan, Marquita, Abbey, Autumn) to build confidence and experience with teaching so that we can continue to offer a variety of classes and special events for our NLY community.
As a physical transition, we are taking ownership of our studio space (figuratively and literally – more news to come) and look forward to announcing positive changes ahead. The Court Street construction project will wrap up soon (thank you everyone for your tolerance of noise and re-routing) and we’ll be so thankful for the beautification of our street.
In a year that could have brought our business to a permanent close (but thankfully didn’t thanks to our supportive community), we are finding the silver lining and exercising ways to rise above the challenges. As always, the decade of support of our yoga community is what enabled us to celebrate our 10th anniversary in March 2020…and the enduring strength and continual transition allowed us to reach our 11th anniversary and beyond.