Anne McDonnell

Anne trained as a nurse and midwife before working for nine years in a Christian therapeutic community. Subsequently she trained with Relate as a counsellor and while her children were growing up took a degree in English at the University of East Anglia. Currently she works at St. Barnabas counselling centre in Norwich and is regional coordinator in East Anglia for the World Community for Christian Meditation.She has completed a year's foundation course in Spiritual Direction at the London Spirituality Centre.

Her Christian faith has evolved away from a fundamentalist upbringing through increasingly ecumenical influences and is founded now on a committed Christian meditation practice. She leads retreat days at Noggs Barn and is part of the WCCM teaching team who lead a programme of retreats and workshops at venues throughout the U.K.

Anne and Mark are both committed to the notion of an inclusive approach to spiritual learning. Rather than relying on an ‘expert’ we learn also from sharing each others experience and understanding of truth.

Mark McDonnell

Mark trained as a history teacher but has spent many years working in the pharmaceutical industry both in England and abroad. He also writes poetry and is currently embarked on a five year part-time training in psychotherapy.

Mark is beginning to relish the challenge of modern Western spirituality. In the past he had a sense of losing his catholic faith and replaced it, for a couple of decades, with Buddhism. Now he feels that what he has learned and what he has left behind from both these traditions, has allowed him to let go and explore the challenge of meaning more deeply and in a more existential way. He feels that a spiritual practice, preferably based in his own cultural tradition, is an essential element in living well. He finds that it helps to nurture a sense of connectedness to all his fellow human beings and to everything that shares life with him, as well as an optimism about his ability to grow and repair himself and to make a positive difference in the wider world.

Mark is married to Anne and Noggs Barn is their joint vision.