We did it! Above, happy but exhausted participants, assistants, trainers and assessors celebrate the end of their gruelling intensive Clean course at St Catherine's College, Cambridge.

Some in the Clean Community were sceptical when Clean Change Company announced this event. Could it be done? All four foundation-level modules, plus assessment and certification, in a single, non-stop block?

It seems that it could - thanks to hard work by everyone concerned. And a new crop of 17 Certified Clean Facilitators have been unleashed on the world as a result.

A key reason for staging the event was to enable people from outside the UK to experience Clean Change Company's training led by Wendy Sullivan. In the end, eight countries and four continents were represented at the event.

Despite a mixture of backgrounds, the group was soon working well together. There was no time for much else, since practice sessions continued well into each evening! Wendy in particular seemed to be working round the clock to keep the training running smoothly.

All that meant that by the time Penny Tompkins and James Lawley arrived for the two days of assessment, the group was ready to match the high standards set at other Certification events this year.

Ten-year-old Amanda Stanton-Nelson became probably the youngest person ever to have formal training in Clean, attending the first four days of the Summer School and reaching an impressive level of skill. Look out for more news of her in the future, as we predict she'll go far.

Many thanks from the Clean Change Company to everybody involved in making this event such a success. And if you'd like to join us next year, please get in touch! Judy Rees

What they said...

"In all honesty I have not been involved in anything so challenging, thought provoking and vision enhancing as the last few days doing Clean Language.  It certainly was a skill changing experience and I am going to be putting the process into action as soon as possible." Summer School 2007 participant Pamela Hadfield, UK

"Thank you for a wonderful experience. Moving from nervous questioning to joyful curiosity was great.

"I am so pleased that you and Wendy went ahead with the summer school. It has added so much more to my understanding of clean and the environment seemed to push us all along so easily. Congratulations on a wonderful job.

"I am already studying the schedule for modules 5-8 in 2008 and wondering how I'll get there.

"Before committing to the summer school, I had expressed uncertainty about the effectiveness of Clean as a change agent as I had little personal experience of it. Well, I am now convinced. I think the breakthrough for me was when we did the 'enacting the metaphor' exercise. As a client I started off with a picture, from a previous session, of a baby eagle on a cliff top needing to learn to fly. When I ended that earlier session I didn't see how I was going to convince that birdy to jump. The enacting changed all that. I gathered so much information by being that chick that flying off became completely natural." Summer School 2007 participant Rasjad Johnson, Australia

What they did...

´Summer School in England…´

Rita Snoek from the Netherlands writes:

"It's still like a little song in my head a few days after returning from 12 days of Summer School in Cambridge.

And it was fantastic… because of the residential character of it; because of the so much experienced trainer Wendy and her 10 assistants; because they did their best all the timeto fulfil the wishes of the participants.

It was interesting… because of the differences between all of us, coming from different countries and backgrounds; because of the new ways of working with clients that we were learning.

It was amazing… because of the tempo and the flow we were in while we were listening, trying and practicing.

It was sunny… because of the sun - almost every day high in the sky and because of the nice garden where we could practice new skills.

There were tense moments during the assessments and afterwards lots of joy during the cool down activity.

And there was the relief while holding my certificate in my hands, and immediately the

excitement… can I do it? What needs to happen for me to further develop my skills in working with clean language?

Driving home with Joke, we were talking about the next step… how will we go forward with Symbolic Modelling and Clean Language?

It's like being surrounded by an energetic field since I returned from summer school."

Thanks to the Trainer Trackies!

A team of current and future Clean trainers acted as assistants on the summer school. Look out for them on a course near you soon! Pictured (from left): Andy Nelson, Sharon Small Livingston, Maaike Nooidgedagt, Wendy Sullivan, Annemiek van Helsdingen, Hans-Peter Wellke, Susan Bates, Martin Roemer, Gina Campbell, Judy Rees.

Go here for details of the 2008 event