GAIA Women’s Wellness Weekend
Friday, 18th – Sunday, 20th September
The Voco Oxford Thames Hotel
Welcome to GAIA, the signature residential escape designed exclusively for women navigating life with diabetes, women’s health, and every journey in between.
Space to Breathe. Room to Belong
Living with diabetes can be a constant burden of personal responsibility with a relentless internal dialogue. At GAIA, we invite you to turn the volume down on the data and daily management and up on the soul.
The Weekend Experience
The weekend offers a curated blend of clinical advice and support with wellness, the sharing of lived experience, holistic wellbeing, stillness and nature. We’ve traded the fluorescent lights of conference and classroom for a historic setting, café and lounge comfort, forest trails and restorative flow.
Leave the medical jargon at the door. Come in your leggings, your favourite knitwear, and your truest self. This is a "no-explanation-needed" zone where checking your levels at the dinner table is the norm, and sharing your story is the greatest medicine.
Set within the serene Voco Oxford Thames estate, this is a weekend designed to bridge the gap between clinical management and holistic well-being. Whether you are living with Type 1, Type 2, Gestational diabetes, pre-diabetes, LADA, or MODY, you are the expert on your own body, but here, you don’t have to carry the weight of that expertise alone.
This is a unique space for women to come together in support, learning, discussion circles, sharing of the diabetes experience and making lifelong friends with others from the female diabetes community.
The Programme
After you have settled in to your private en-suite room, the weekend will start with a welcome reception in the hotel’s historic Medieval Barn and Gallery followed by private dining in The Little Barn.
Throughout Saturday we will enjoy a varied programme of expert, mindful and intentional discussions and networking with experts from our medtech sponsors and NHS clinical leaders who speak with you, not at you.
Movement as medicine will also be a core part of the weekend with offering such as morning Pilates, grounding yoga, and guided nature walks designed to honour your body’s rhythm.
Saturday will conclude with private dining in The Little Barn and our guest after dinner speaker.
After a healthy and relaxing Sunday morning breakfast visiting expert Dawnie will take you on an immersive sound bath experience, a visceral journey into relaxation that requires nothing of you but your presence.
Following a later morning session and Sunday lunch we will conclude the event.
The Vibe
High-End Sanctuary meets Kitchen-Table Warmth. GAIA is exclusive in its curation, but informal in its soul.
The Diabetic Health Coach
Vanessa Haydock is a type 1 diabetes coach, qualified personal trainer, & Board Certified Behaviour Analyst (BCBA), who helps people living with diabetes improve their health, fitness, mindset, & diabetes management.
Living with type 1 diabetes for over 30 years, Vanessa has turned her own journey — including years of denial & struggling with diabetes management — into a mission to support others through education, behaviour change, & personalised coaching. Through her business ’The Diabetic Health Coach’, she provides tailored online coaching, education, & mindset support designed to help people “dominate their diabetes’ and live healthier, happier lives.
The Venue
Nestled within 30 acres of picturesque gardens, Voco Oxford Thames blends modern luxury with historical charm, offering a tranquil retreat just minutes from the heart of Oxford. Dating back to the Middle Ages, the hotel provides an idyllic setting for relaxation.
Comfort meets style in the well-appointed guest rooms, featuring plush bedding, modern decor, and all the essentials for a restful stay. Each room has high-speed internet, a flat-screen TV, and a cosy workspace, making it ideal for relaxation and productivity.
During your stay with us, indulge in the serene ambience of The Riverside Leisure Club and Spa, which provide a tranquil retreat and variety of treatments designed to pamper and rejuvenate, set within the peaceful, picturesque surroundings.
Start your mornings in the bright and airy Napier’s River Room, offering stunning views across our manicured gardens and the tranquil River Thames. Enjoy our delicious breakfast buffet to kickstart your day.
As evening falls, private dinner will be served in one of the hotel’s most atmospheric spaces, The Little Barn. Here, Executive Chef Ciprian Dumitrache showcases his signature style, blending elevated British classics with a refined French influence for a truly memorable dining experience.
The hotel’s prime location makes it easy to explore Oxford's rich heritage, including the architectural beauty of Oxford University, the fascinating Oxford Castle and Prison, and punting on the River Thames.
One Price. Total Immersion.
The full cost of the weekend is £480 per person, however DRWF will subsidise this by 50% as part of the charity’s educational aims and objective activities and to make the weekend accessible to all.
Your GAIA fee of £240 is an all-access pass to restoration with no other hidden costs, no logistics to solve and includes…
Two nights of luxury residential accommodation.
All-inclusive dining including the welcome reception, breakfasts, buffet lunches, refreshments and snacks throughout the day and private dining in The Little Barn in the evenings.
The Full GAIA Programme: All clinical talks, discussion sessions, holistic workshops, activities and the signature sound bath experience.
Use of the spa facilities and hotel grounds.
A curated collection of wellness essentials to take the GAIA feeling home with you.
Step out of the daily grind and step into GAIA and register your place here
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