Located close to Lake Karapiro, you’ll find an all-inclusive, women-only health and wellness retreat. Resolution Retreats is the outcome of Joelene Ranby’s vision to have a luxury retreat designed by women to help other women. focus chatted to Joelene to find out more about her journey.
JOELENE, PLEASE SHARE YOUR JOURNEY TO LAUNCHING RESOLUTION RETREATS.
It has been an interesting journey indeed! While on my own weight-loss journey, I realised there was nothing like Resolution Retreats where women could go to refocus on themselves and have the sort of education, understanding, support and encouragement that I needed when I was improving my own health.
In 2012 I ran my first retreats as a side-interest, during weekends and while on leave from my role as a Financial Accountant at a large NZX corporate. It was a lot of work at first, but also a lot of fun as it was something I was truly passionate about. It was rewarding seeing guests get inspired and achieve results.
I made the decision to focus on the business full time in late 2015, once the demand for retreats exceeded what I could manage part time. We ran retreats for seven years exclusively from the Bay of Plenty before we outgrew our venue, and, in 2019 finally opened the Resolution Retreats Lakeside Health & Wellness Centre. It’s a purpose-built, 5-star retreat centre providing world-class programmes exclusively for women and is comparable with some of the world’s top retreats, such as Gwinganna in Australia.
WHAT DIFFERENTIATES RESOLUTION RETREATS FROM OTHER RETREATS?
Our health and wellness retreats are run by women, for women. Exclusively. We are the largest retreat centre in Australasia catering solely for women’s health and wellness needs.
WHAT FACTORS DID YOU CONSIDER WHEN DESIGNING THE PROGRAMMES?
All of our team have their own health and happiness stories, and these experiences have helped us mould programmes that reflect what women need the most when they are resetting and refocusing on their health and happiness. We are always learning, and are constantly refining and creating amazing content, and engaging speakers who will inspire and support our guests, no matter what their individual health story may be.
WHAT’S THE CORE FOUNDATION OF RESOLUTION RETREATS?
Understanding, support, encouragement; in that order. Realistic and pragmatic solutions for real women. Strive for progress, not perfection.
TO YOU, WHAT IS THE IMPORTANT THING(S) THAT GUESTS TAKE AWAY FROM THEIR TIME AT RESOLUTION RETREATS?
Guests come on our retreats for all sorts of reasons: some come for weight loss or to de-stress, some come for time out, inspiration in the kitchen, a health re-set, better sleep, or to break bad habits. Some come for one, or all of those things, and others’ health puzzles are more complex again. It’s our job to help our guests solve their health puzzle, to inspire them with a refreshing approach to overall health and wellness, but also to provide insights into the psychology behind ‘why we do what we do when we know what we know’, and how to work on changing whatever it is which underpins individual health challenges.
