Dominic Barter began visiting the Findhorn Community in Scotland in the 1990's, to see his childhood friend Leo Sofer, who had moved there. In 1998 he first made contact with the burgeoning Nonviolent Communication practice group that had started there.
As a result of this connection with Leo, a prototype of the Nonviolence Intensive began with a weekend event offered by Dominic in Forres, Scotland, in 2003.
The following years this was gradually extended to a week long event at Cluny, part of the Findhorn Community.
In 2006 Dominic hosted Marshall Rosenberg's event at the Universal Hall on the community's main site, and offered follow up events at Cluny and Newbold House.
Kit Miller and Dominic had met at a conference in 2002. During these years Marshall's Nonviolent Communication work was growing strongly in Europe and Kit and Dominic were both applying their learning with Marshall to organisational, community and governmental contexts in the US and Brazil, respectively.
In conversations with Findhorn's rich community of resident facilitators, mediators and teachers Dominic saw the potential for a week long event that focused less on teaching nonviolence and more on exploring it's practical consequences at the intersection of our personal, relational and political lives.
In 2007 Dominic, Leo and Kit offered the first Nonviolence Intensive at Findhorn.
After 4 such annual events Kit and Dominic continued the event for another 4 years.
After a 9 year break Kit and Dominic took the event to Switzerland in 2024.
The next such event will happen at the end of May 2025.
"The focalisers were skilled, transparent, very, very real, human, inspiring, willing to meet all sorts of random needs, and self aware. They were good humoured and great role-models. This was an enormous opportunity to participate in a way of building community based on a willingness to be true to myself and to honour and engage with the truth of others in a constructive way."
"Everything about this training was better than I could imagine or expect. The trainers were the embodiment of the practice they are guiding us towards, and a true inspiration and model of the deepest essence of nonviolence, compassion and spiritual values. I experienced real healing and a deep shift within me that is now part of me and is totally unlike a "learning" that can be forgotten or eroded with time."
"I feel more hopeful about our ability to live sustainably and happily on the planet."
"Thank you for a massively rich, inspiring and useful week. It really has given me something exciting and tangible to chew on!"