Strategy days, board days, planning sessions
A Meeting Room With Fields Outside the Window
Wijhe, on the line between Zwolle and Deventer. A heated barn that seats thirty, and 1.3 hectares to walk the hard conversation out of the room.
In short
A strategy day that does not feel like a meeting room.
Beamer, screen, sound, wifi and whiteboards. No badges, no corridor, no second group.
One room, and a lot of places to break out into
The Hay House is 65 m² with a heated floor, and it holds a plenary of thirty. What most venues charge extra for — breakout rooms — is here simply the rest of the property: the tea house, the benches by the pond, the attic space, the fire circle, the paths between the trees.
Four groups of five can go four different directions and still be back in ten minutes. That is a different meeting from four groups sitting in four hotel rooms off one corridor.
The equipment, listed plainly
Beamer and screen. Sound system. Wifi strong enough to run a video call, so a colleague who could not travel can still be in the session. Whiteboards on request. Heated floor, so a January morning is not a coat-on morning.
What there is not: a reception desk, printed name badges, a conference concierge. If your day needs those, a hotel will serve you better and we would rather say so now than on the day.
Half a day, a full day, or a day with a fire at the end
There is no fixed eight-hour package to buy into. A morning session that ends at lunch is fine. So is a day that finishes at the fire circle with the sauna warm, which is where teams tend to say the thing they were circling all afternoon.
Catering is arranged for you: a chef or caterer from our directory who already knows the kitchen, matched to the group size and the diets in it, on the same invoice as the room. The professional kitchen is also there if a group would rather cook its own lunch as the break.
Reachable without anyone losing an hour
Wijhe has its own station on the Zwolle–Deventer line with intercity trains twice an hour: about nine minutes from Zwolle, fifteen from Deventer. We meet the group on the platform.
Driving, it is roughly fifteen minutes from Zwolle, twenty from Deventer, thirty-five from Apeldoorn. Free parking on the land for ten to fifteen cars. From Schiphol, the train to Zwolle takes about an hour and a quarter.
Why The Makers Barn
65 m²
Heated barn with beamer, screen, sound, wifi and whiteboards
10–30
Participants in plenary — breakouts spread across the land
1
Group on the property per day, one contact, one invoice
A strategy day, sketched
One shape that works when a team has a decision to reach. Bring your own agenda and ignore this.
- 09:00Arrival from the station, coffee, laptops closed
- 09:30Plenary in the barn — frame the decision to be made
- 11:00Breakouts across the land — tea house, pond, attic, paths
- 12:30Lunch at the long table
- 14:00Bring it back together, write the decisions down
- 16:30Close, then sauna and fire — or the 17:12 back to Zwolle
Questions worth asking
Can we book only a half day?
Yes. There is no fixed four- or eight-hour package. Tell us the hours you want and we quote those hours.
Can someone join the session remotely?
Yes. The wifi carries a video call and the barn has a beamer, a screen and a sound system, so a hybrid session works. It is still a barn, so bring your own laptop and camera.
Are there separate breakout rooms?
Not in the hotel sense of four identical rooms off a corridor. Small groups use the tea house, the attic space, the benches by the pond, the fire circle and the paths through the land. In bad weather the barn and the attic take two groups indoors.
Does a strategy day count as work for tax purposes?
A day with a demonstrable work purpose — training, strategy, skills — can fall under a targeted exemption in the Dutch werkkostenregeling rather than the free space. The judgement is your accountant’s, not ours. We will describe the day on the invoice as what it was.
Do you cook the lunch?
We arrange it. A chef or caterer from our directory who knows the kitchen, matched to the group size and its diets, billed with the room. We do not cook it ourselves. The professional kitchen is open to the group if you would rather cook together.
Tell us the date and the decision
Group size, the hours you want, and what the team has to work out. We come back with the room set up for it and one price.