Stop Press: We now have organisers for all the meetings listed below apart from the picnic (proposed) on July 10th. Please consider if you would be prepared to organise this, especially if you haven’t organised anything else recently. Hint: it could well be the easiest thing to organise of the whole year!
Please note: If you want to reply to this post, please click on “more”, when the normal options will become visible.
As Hilde pointed out to me a while back, it is probably about time we thought about planning the next batch of meetings. We spent a little while discussing this at the last two seedgroup meetings, but it was difficult to reach any conclusions because only a few of us were there.
So this is a call for your ideas, and hopefully for volunteers to organise meetings. If you are a new person and have an idea, please feel free to suggest it anyway, even if you don’t think you can organise it. And who knows, perhaps you can organise it with the help of one of the more experienced members. So please, please, can experienced people volunteer to help organise some of these meetings (yes, it applies to me too). In general, we are looking for a main organiser and a helper for each meeting.
Here are my suggested dates. The suggested ceremony dates are the closest Sunday to each festival, and the suggested seedgroup dates are roughly midway between the festivals, as we agreed at our AGM last year. While we probably shouldn’t move the ceremony dates, there is no problem moving the seedgroup dates back or forward by a week if it helps anyone.
1st May – Beltane Ceremony – Lorraine has volunteered, location Hainault Forest.
22nd May – Petra’s seed group (already agreed)
19th June – Summer Solstice – Liz Murray has provisonally agreed to do this at her house, with possibly one other organiser (volunteers?)
July 10th – Looks like this will be our summer picnic date (suggested at seed group meeting recently). At Primrose Hill unless the organiser would like to choose another reasonably accessible location. This is relatively simple to organise. Volunteers?
July 31st – Lughnasadh – looks like Hilde and Andrew are organising (see below)
Aug 21st – Seedgroup visit to the Ankerwyke Yew. I (Daniel) have volunteered to co-organise this with Francesca.
So – your ideas, please! You can make and read comments if you click on the heading above.
Daniel, you got there before me! If I hadn’t been having computer problems I would have posted something very similar.
Could people volunteering please remember that, for events up to and including 10th July, I need complete meeting time and place details by mid April so that I can send out a quarterly paper Raven for members who are not online.
Comment by hilde — 22/2/2005 @ 11:43 pm
I volunteer for assisting on anything except Beltane.
It is very frustrating. For some reason we can’t post new articles today. Alex is looking into it but not getting anywhere. Hopefully I can post properly again soon.
Comment by hilde — 22/2/2005 @ 11:48 pm
We’ve been having trouble with our internet connection, which is why Hilde has had trouble posting new articles. It’s also made it difficult for us to send mail (but we can receive OK). It seems to be fixed now, fingers crossed. In any case, I’ve used my work’s internet connection to post Hilde’s articles for her. (-Alex)
Comment by site admin — 23/2/2005 @ 10:44 am
Oops sorry. Didn’t put my comment in right place!
Comment by francesca — 23/2/2005 @ 5:53 pm
Ah. I’ve just noticed that I won’t be around for the 10th July. I’ll be on a course with R.J. Stewart. I was going to volunteer to organise it and everything.
Where do we usually have Lughnasadh? Or have we not had it? I wouldn’t mind organising that if it’s somewhere that’s easy for me to get to. I don’t want to lug sheaves of corn through too much of the London Underground. Any suggestions for a location anyone?
Comment by hilde — 23/2/2005 @ 10:25 pm
In the past couple of years at least, we haven’t celebrated Summer Solstice or Lughnasadh. Instead we had just one summer ritual in between those two times, at Camlet Mote with Chris and Linda Street (and last year with some Catuvellauni Grove members present too). At the AGM we decided we’d like to do all 8 celebrations for a change. It might be a nice idea to have one of the summer celebrations at Camlet (and possibly collaborate with Chris or Catuvellauni, who have expressed interest in doing another shared ritual sometime). I can’t remember whether you’ve been to Camlet Mote, but it’s a lovely site, part of Trent Park, in Cockfosters. I don’t know whether that would be difficult for you, otherwise there’s always the option of going somewhere else for Lughnasadh. We need more sites!
Comment by Lorraine — 24/2/2005 @ 9:41 am
I will organise Beltane with help from Daniel, on May 1. I will post again confirming the location, probably not Horsenden Hill, because there would be too many meetings close together in West London at that time. As with Hilde, if anyone has any bright ideas about a site I’d like to hear them! Otherwise I’ll work something out.
Comment by Lorraine — 24/2/2005 @ 11:20 am
If an old hand can partner up with me I would be happy to take on responsibility for organising Lughnasadh. Can you give me some guidance on what is acceptable in terms of travel distance then I can work out where we might be able to go? I have visions of doing this surrounded by fields of wheat, but this might be quite difficult to achieve!
I’ve volunteered for this for a couple of reasons:
1) calendar circumstances look like they may keep me away from the meetings on 22nd May, 19th June *and* 10th July, so I don’t want you to think I’ve disappeared over the Summer.
2) the god Lugh is supposed to have invented one of my favourite boardgames, Gwyddbwyll, which might make an interesting topic for a seedgroup sometime (its mentions in the Mabinogion, symbolism, even play a game or two!) Some links about Gwyddbwyll here:
http://merryrose.atlantia.sca.org/archive/1995-11nov/msg00054.html
http://www.greathallgames.com/aworld/evkch.html
Comment by Andrew — 26/2/2005 @ 8:02 pm
So that’ll be you and me for Lughnasadh then, Andrew! But I really honestly have no clue where to do it. We have some time to work that one out, though.
Comment by hilde — 27/2/2005 @ 6:33 pm
I had a couple of thoughts about the summer seedgroup meeting. For one, would it be a good idea to have a Primrose Hill picnic this year? (Or Parliament Hill if people prefer). Also, is it worth having another AGM, and is it worth combining the two? I wouldn’t anticipate there would be as much to sort out if we did have another AGM, just maybe some fine-tuning on how we organise things. There may not be a need, but I thought this was worth bringing up just in case.
Comment by Lorraine — 10/3/2005 @ 4:25 pm
I’ve been racking my brains to try to think of ritual sites, and was wondering if Hampstead Heath is too heavily populated and ditto Highgate Woods or Epping Forest?
Comment by francesca — 10/3/2005 @ 9:59 pm
Don’t know about Hampstead Heath, or Highgate Woods as I haven’t been around them to see whether there are secluded enough areas. We had a ritual in Epping Forest for the autumn equinox the year before last and I thought that was an excellent location. I think Karen and Trui who organised it at the time had some difficulty obtaining permission, it took ages to come through (I believe it was the Corporation of London who were in charge of that). That said, I wonder whether we should get too hung up on site permissions as we’re not doing anything like lighting fires or making loads of noise, and we’re quite a small group at present.
Comment by Lorraine — 10/3/2005 @ 10:32 pm
I like the picnic idea, Lorraine. Sadly, I honestly can’t make the date, but it sounds like a fairly easy thing to organise and we should be able to get someone to do it. If we sell it as a combined AGM, you might even get more than 4 people turning up ;-)
I hope a decent number of people turn up to the Spring Equinox so we can have a chat about it, hopefully rope in some more people, and talk about use of the site.
Francesca, I have actually never been to Epping Forest, so I quite fancy it. I’m sure I could get some corn and a loaf of bread over there if I really wanted to (you should have seen me carry art materials on Sunday!) So do you think we should ask for permission? What are the possible consequences if we don’t?
Comment by hilde — 10/3/2005 @ 10:40 pm
I don’t know the laws on asking permissions – I suppose one has to because it would count as a public gathering and in theory the police could disperse it because of the laws designed to quell demos that seem to be rather stringent these days? On the other hand someone would have to complain and tell them about it first and if we could find a quiet spot I doubt anyone would notice. Thinking about it, I would guess Hampstead Heath is a bit crowded on weekends, but I don’t know about Epping, I haven’t been there very often and not for years. I suppose one would have to go there and recce, before going to all the trouble of writing to the Corporation of London!
Sadly I’m not going to be able to make it on Sunday, by the way. Equinoctial blessings to all, all the same, and I hope it goes really well! I shall be thinking wistfully of everyone.
One last thought – does anyone know what Syon Park is like? Over in Twickenham. I guess it might be a bit ‘civilised’ and over-populated. Has anyone had a look at the Woodland Trust website? I’m actually a member but haven’t got my bumph handy. Will check it out and report back!
Comment by francesca — 15/3/2005 @ 9:46 pm
Francesca, I had a look at the Woodland trust website the other day. I was looking up Hainault Forest as this is managed by the WT these days, which might well be a promising place although probably not as good as Epping. I am thinking about going there for Beltane.
I have a feeling Syon Park is quite open and grassy but I haven’t been there for years.
Update on Hainault – I went for a recce on Saturday and it’s a wonderful location for a ritual, not too many paths, not too many people and a good ‘feel’. You can get lost in the woodland area (and we did!)
Comment by Lorraine — 16/3/2005 @ 12:13 am
Hilde, you should have plenty of time to wait for an answer from them if you did want to ask permission. I don’t know about the consequences of not asking since London Grove always has asked, AFAIK in the couple of years I’ve been a member.
Comment by Lorraine — 16/3/2005 @ 12:17 am
Aha Hilde – funnily enough I wondered about Hainault Forest too when I looked at the Woodland Trust website the other day. It did sound promising. Is it manageably near the Hainault tube stop out at the end of the Central Line?
HAPPY SPRING EQUINOX TO ALL by the way – I hope today’s ritual went really well.
Comment by francesca — 20/3/2005 @ 9:21 pm
I went for a look at Hainault Forest (after Mark H suggested the idea recently). The location we liked was not walking distance from Hainault tube station, but only a few minute’s drive away, so when Daniel or I posts the directions up for Beltane, we’ll suggest that any car drivers meet at Hainault tube. It would be easy enough to make more than one trip to pick up people if there were more non-drivers than drivers. Happy Spring Equinox to you too (and I thoroughly enjoyed today’s ritual thanks!)
Comment by Lorraine — 20/3/2005 @ 9:51 pm
Hi guys, sorry about my recent silence. I’ve just arrived back from a week in Belgium (always less bad than I think it will be, and always good to be back!)
Looks like we’ve got this pretty much covered now. Thank you so much Daniel for phoning around.
Do you think it is time to make this item non-sticky now?
Comment by hilde — 31/3/2005 @ 3:22 pm
Thanks, Hilde. I’d rather it stayed sticky in the hope it prompts someone to volunteer for the picnic. But I have put a “More” in so it doesn’t dominate the home page any more.
Comment by Daniel — 31/3/2005 @ 9:11 pm
Positively enthused that May ceremony coming to Hainault forest – only a certain north part
managed by Woodland Trust rest c/o LB of Redbridge. Cafe by lake should be open after. Is site
settled or decide on day?
If are you still considering a site for Lughnasadh, I can either make tentative enquiry of site
in NW London &/or make a definate date for Epping Forest, where held previously. trui
Comment by Trui — 15/4/2005 @ 5:34 pm
Trui, I think the part we looked at is Woodland Trust managed, certainly the bit where we walked into the site (we parked opposite the Camelot) had a Woodland Trust sign. I had a rough idea of a couple of places we might go on the day, but everywhere we walked was pretty quiet on the whole, so I will probably have another look to decide, either beforehand or earlier on the day itself. If you have a particularly good spot in mind, let us know!
Comment by Lorraine — 15/4/2005 @ 9:31 pm