the raven

This is a very important document for us, so here is Maureen’s version in full.

Sunday 3 October 2004, 3pm at 15 Malden Place, Kentish Town, NW5 4JL

Present
Michael Bingas, Julie Bond, Maureen Cowen, Trui, Hilde Liesens, Daniel and Lorraine Mack, Liz Murray, Petra Rauchaus, Tony Sykes, Mark Hassell

Guest: Rosalind

Apologies
Amelia Carrington, Cilla Conway, Samantha Conway, Anna Robinson, Chris Street

Continuation of London Grove and the Raven

It was the unanimous decision of the assembly that the London Grove would continue.

Anna had requested to stand-down from preparing the Raven as from the next issue and its future was discussed. Hilde volunteered that her husband, Alex, could make a free website for London Grove. Most of this website would be password-only accessed, and would contain an events diary and other information, including write-ups of past events, and a list of grove members telephone numbers and email addresses (only for members who have given permission for their details to be listed). A quarterly paper events listing would also be posted out, especially for those without web access, which Hilde would also prepare and distribute for a small subscription.

There would probably be a small public area of the website in due course, to show non-members what the Grove does.

Agreed: The way forward would be a shared co-operative of members doing various tasks, rather than the bulk of responsibilities falling onto any one member.
Agreed: A general principle that for each ceremony or seed group, we should look for a volunteer to organise the event, and a second volunteer to help out the organiser (unless the organiser doesn’t want this).
Agreed: We will discuss having a repeat of this meeting in one year’s time in order to review the situation and make any appropriate changes.

New Members Contact
Maureen volunteered to be the named person for OBOD and Touchstone for new members to contact, with Lorraine Mack also sharing this role as backup.

Future Meetings

• Ceremonies
Agreed: There will be meetings for all of the eight festivals. The standard OBOD brown books will be used, at least for the next year for these. Each festival to have one self-elected co-ordinator with one back-up helper.

The meetings should be on a Sunday nearest to the ceremony ‘official day’, and commence at 3pm most of the year, but ideally Samhain and Imbolc to start at 2pm and winter solstice at 1.30pm due to lack of daylight hours in the winter months.

The meetings should continue to be at various sacred site locations.

• Seed Groups
The seed group meeting on 17th October at Daniel and Lorraine’s house, and the meeting at Hilde’s house on 14th November would go ahead as planned.

In future, seed group meetings would be held at intervals half-way between the ceremonies. A further meeting will consider their content in greater detail, this was elected to be the 14th November meeting at Hilde’s. Hilde’s meeting will also spotlight cards used in divinations, and she asked that people bring along cards that they personally use with them to this session.

Offers to accommodate future seed group meetings were made by Maureen, Hilde, Liz and Daniel & Lorraine.

Props for ceremonies and literature (previous specially-written ceremonies, etc) database
Petra volunteered to keep a database of these. This will probably be transferred to the private part of the website in due course.

Counselling

Mark raised the matter of pastoral care for members who had issues about leaving and who should be the grove support people for this. Also, there might be other membership issues and advice needed for newcomers. Lorraine, Julie, Maureen and Mark all said they were willing to be listening ears for these.

Writing to Local Authorities for permission to hold ceremonies in public places, and chase-up phone calls etc.
Maureen and Trui volunteered. Trui mentioned making contact with the Woodland Trust, who own several woodland sites around London. Maureen and Liz discussed access to Parliament Hill. Liz offered to provide Maureen with letters of permission and contact names that she may have from past grove events.

Forthcoming Ceremony co-ordinators:
Samhuinn: Lorraine and Petra (at Youth’s House)

Winter Solstice (Alban Artuan): Tony Sykes (at Oxleas Wood)

Money
Existing funds to be converted into stamps for mailings, to be held by Hilde. It was agreed that no formal arrangements for keeping funds should be made at this time and that members would make ad hoc collections at meetings as required.

Pub moots
It was decided that these should be arranged informally by members in contact with one another. A possible venue on High Holborn, close to the junction with Chancery Lane, was discussed.

Meeting closed at 6.35 pm.