Why I keep coming back to Kingbridge

By Tim Dixon, Czar of Creativity and Chaos

I have been privileged throughout my career to have travelled to and stayed at some truly amazing places.  I have designed and facilitated multiple-day workshops on The Great Wall of China and in a tee-pee in San Antonio, Texas.  Through my work with InCourage clients, I have created team and leadership learning adventures (outside and indoors) from Beijing to Buenos Aries, from Vienna to Punta Cana.  Sure I've been stuck in airports and stayed overnight in dives; but mostly I have been profoundly grateful for opportunities to eat, slept and worked in many beautifully appointed resorts, conference centres and board rooms.  So if you asked me where is my favourite place to work my craft, I'd likely have to explain my answer - every client would meet me in King City at the Kingbridge Centre!

Let me rewind a bit to a time before InCourage, when I was working as a Senior Consultant at the CIBC Leadership Centre; where – you guessed it, in King City.  Hubert St.Onge had brought me onto his team of consultants as the resident “experiential learning and large group facilitation” expert. I loved working there because the place really had a family feel and my learning curve was so steep surrounded by so many talented colleagues. I had the support from everyone ranging from IT to the kitchen staff, that if I dreamed up some teambuilding challenge that required support from others to pull off – I knew I could always count on the Leadership Centre team.

When John Abele acquired the centre from CIBC he was thinking big and well ahead of the curve on cutting-edge conferencing , I simply introduced myself to John as “the experiential guy that comes with the building”. Since the day John declared that he had a mandate beyond owning a building, we have shared many ideas, projects and even clients in pursuit of realizing his aspiration to develop a world-class conferencing institution. As the years have passed, many faces have changed at The Kingbridge Conference Centre and Institute but that family feel never left the building– or should I say, the Kingbridge team.

So when InCourage is at the “The Centre”, I know that we are working in partnership to ensure we are creating the ideal learning environment for the client group.  In fact, we recently received the following praise from Neera Shukla, who has been developing and coordinating the Rogers Leadership Matters program for which we provide a half-day component at The Centre:  "Kingbridge and InCourage have partnered very well with us in providing our learners a unique experience that they can draw insights and reflections from."

Whether we are using the state-of-the-art AV system when we climb Mount Everest in the auditorium (now that’s a big screen!), or if we are heading outside for a ropes course or search and rescue challenge – I know the Kingbridge team has my back. Nothing like a back-up plan in the event of a lightening storm or lap top lock-up. Sure the venue as a building offers everything we need within a 30-minute drive from Toronto; yet once we are on-site, it is the knowledge that the gang at Kingbridge will respond like an extension of my own facilitation team – that is why I keep coming back to King City!

I am not the only one from the “good-old days” of the Leadership Centre who is finding his way back to King City. Hubert will be working with the Institute team to provide support to groups who look to Kingbridge for help in designing their own meeting process or learning programs. We are stoked about the prospect of working again with Hubert!