Hi, I’m also a Pagan in Australia. I don’t have the experience you have at attempting to run public events, but I have done a little in both Paganism and other areas, and would like to contribute my two cents’ worth.
Firstly, anyone who takes on trying to organise a public event is quite possibly going to find themselves doing a thankless, really difficult task, and probably deserves at least half a dozen pats on the back and two or three big hugs more than how ever many they’re getting. I helped run a political lobby a bit over a decade ago, and, although we were quite successful, the criticism I received from my community was enough – combined with the expense I had incurred and the exhaustion - for me to decide to leave. After that, I helped organise an LGBTIQ spirituality festival in 2005, and we tried to organise a follow up one after that, but it never quite happened – despite having some great people involved and lots of good feedback (I’d like to go back to organising that 2nd festival one day … ). That was around the time I was formally exploring Wicca, and later on Paganism, and a few other matters. In the years after that festival, I helped with a few public rituals, went to the Mt Franklin Beltane Gathering (which I think has been running for quite a while) and Confest (which I had wanted to do since the 70s, when it started with Dr Jim Cairns, former Deputy Prime Minister * , playing a key role), and had a hand in running other groups – including, oddly, a Spiritualist place.
Every one of those events, including Mt Franklin and Confest, had experienced problems along the way – some quite serious, well beyond minor complaints. One of the other groups in particular (which I’m not going to name here: they’re not a pagan group anyway) went through a series of major problems, but was able to develop some problem solving procedures and rules around behaviour that have kept it going. So, when complaints crop up, it is tiring and difficult, but it can be worth working through the issues, although that may require Making A Big Deal out of the complaint. It may well be a case of the person making the complaint being unreasonable, and needing to gently be told that, or it may be a case of the group needing to make decisions about issues such as how formal or informal it wishes to be (I think the LGBTIQ spirituality festival needs to be more formally organised to keep going).
Managing group dynamics is an undervalued but truly essential skill – and the energy and effort that goes into managing the dynamics of a group is grounds for more pats on the back and hugs. (It was also, oddly enough, one of the biggest problems at the Spiritualist place – which had been running for over a century when I was there, and continues still.) More importantly, this is often where the need for care of the group’s facilitators / leaders / conveners / weavers becomes most apparent – and that is a matter which is not just the responsibility of the group leader, it is also something the group has to face up to as well. As a small positive example of this, one of the lobby members gave me a massage voucher after I’d resigned.
The issue of excuses is also one that is worth looking at in some detail. In my case, I moved from where the public full moon circles were being held, and am currently preoccupied by work problems and stresses that have increased in the last few years (particularly as we’re effectively in a recession here) and the degenerating health of one of my parents. That, combined with declining health myself means I don’t have the energy to take on the roles or levels of involvement I used to – but I am looking forward to getting involved again, to some extent, in a few years. (That will probably be when the parent concerned has died.) If I had still been living where I was, however, there were a few issues that needed to be addressed if we were to continue those events – largely around things like new people feeling intimidated by the knowledge of others, and tension between those more extrovert people who wanted more ‘theatrical’ rituals and those more introverted people who wanted less obvious rituals. I don’t have a solution to those conflicts and problems, incidentally, other than to suspect we would have had to do a lot of talking. (My experience is that it can sometimes be hard to find out what people think: surveys can have the problem that people tend to say what they think will keep the group going, rather than what they want or think.)
Cyclic decline and resurgence is also worth thinking about. My day job involves conferences, and one major one in my industry went through quite a decline in the 90s, until it reinvented itself in the early 2000s (and it is currently starting to decline again). The history of Confest involves a few periods of up and down as well – and that is four decades worth of history, so it is quite a good example. The nameless group I mentioned went through a decline for a couple of years but now appears to be doing reasonably well. And as another example, the sailing club I was in in Mackay in the 70s (which had been in existence for over 75 years) imploded shortly after I went to Uni, but there is now a ‘yacht club’ there. So where there is a need for a group to exist but it ends, I suspect it will recover and continue to exist ... but the reborn form may be missing some of the problem egos …
The Internet can be competition to meeting face to face, but, speaking personally, I’ve done what I can online, and most of what is there now does not meet what I want, and I would prefer to meet face to face. I can see some issues to discuss if other Pagans I meet would like to share ritual, but that is still something I aspire to – once issues such as parental illness etc are resolved.
In terms of the groups I’ve had a role in previously, whether they’re still going or not, I treasure the experience I’ve had, and hope the group or community has learned something useful from me. Where my role or the group has ended, I’ve had to learn to cope with moving on.
Where I've planned groups from the start, I have on one occasion included a position that I called 'the Group Conscience', whose duties included objectively determining whether or not the need the group was formed to meet had been met, or was better met by another group, and thus the group should end.
All things pass eventually. In some cases they're reborn in a different form (I am NOT counting a change of name here). And, going back to group dynamics, that can sometimes be a good way to resolve problems such as group dynamics issues arising from, say, a clash of egos, or problems such external interferences. As an example of the latter, in the case of the political lobby I mentioned, that was actually the reincarnation of an earlier group which had an unrealistically restrictive set of operating conditions as a result of being the sub-set of another, existing group in that community who had a different purpose ('mission statement') but had been the only group available to receive funds from a third party raised for the lobbying purpose.
* Dr Cairns tells an interesting tale from his time as a police detective in this interview.
PS - having finished writing the above and publishing it, I came across this relevant post over at the Wild Hunt: Editorial: Wagging the Dog
PPS - I quite like the comments here about engaging with other, larger ponds. I also suspect that many Pagans tend to look at mainstream neochristian churches, and compare having property to them. Well, if we take the Roman Catholic Church as an examples, according to this post:
- out of a total income of 422 billion lira ("expenses" 404 billion lira, giving a net profit of 30 billion lira),
- 82 billion lira came from rental of properties (expenses 56 billion lira), and
- 125 billion lira from 'financial activity' ("This brilliant result is substantially due to three factors: the appreciation of the dollar, which increased in value for almost the whole year, with a slight drop in the final months; the performance of the financial markets, in which bonds gave good results in contrast to stocks with regard to the sector of the "new economy"; and the good outcome of the buying and selling of securities that took place during the year").
All of that means that, maybe, Pagans expecting to fund properties out of donations may be unrealistic.
[2]
Please see here and my post "The
Death of Wikipedia" for the
reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of
h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as
extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather
engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy").
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr,
Wéofodthegn
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux? … Morinehtar?
… Would-be drýicgan
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible.
- One size does NOT fit all.
- Don't be mediocre - seek to excel.
- Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
- Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
- May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
- Ban the dream interpretation industry!
- A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
- Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
- Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
- Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
- Any person, male or female, who has neither a serious health issue, dependents nor an agreement about study. yet expects their partner to work to support them, is, spiritually speaking, little more than a parasite.
- The means shape the end.
- BPLF restraint of uncooperatives is NOT an opportunity for revenge or getting even - even unconsciously.
- As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
- My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be
stronger [people].
John F. Kennedy (who was
quoting 19th Century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)
Jesus loves you. Odin wants you to grow up.
We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us.
F.W. Boreham
Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.
Jane Elliott
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.
(based on
writing by) Edmund Burke
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Albert Einstein
We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children
Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
Robert F. Kennedy 1968
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
If we could change ourselves, the
tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so
does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see
what others do. (Often degraded to “Be
the change you want to see in the world” – see here)
Gandhi
Tags: about me, Australia, change, cycles, group dynamics, numbers (quantity), size, Paganism,
First published: Sunnudagr, 13th July, 2014
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Sunday, 13th July, 2014
