Many thanks to Mark for preparing these minutes. 🙂
Pagan Collective of Victoria
Meeting Minutes 21/2/2015
Present: Ryan, Josie, Mei, Mark, Sarah, River, Nickole
Apologies: Cosette, Bret, Brett, Hawthorn, Lisa, Fiona, Seumas
Absent: Rosanne, Allison
Meeting Location: Magpie Cafe, Upwey
Meeting Open: 1.17PM
- Presidents Report – The collective hit one hundred members this month, that’s really exciting given how long we’ve been running. The coffee meet ups have been going fantastically, with lots of new faces young and old.
- Secretary’s Report – Due to some issues with the stickers for the membership packs the posting out of membership packs is slightly behind. The new stickers have now arrived and look great, so we can resume sending out membership packs to everyone again.
- Treasurer’s Report – The incoming and outgoing for the collective has still been $0, everything has been donated by Josie and Ryan so far. The collective bank account hasn’t been set up yet, however with no immediate income expected there isn’t an urgent need. Josie and Ryan will set one up with the Bendigo as previously agreed, it will be a standard not for profit account.
- Memberships – 47 new members have been approved for the Collective
- Newsletter – As always we are looking for people to write new content for the newsletter, submissions will be the 14th of March and hopeful send out will be the 21st. Mark volunteered to look into writing an article.
- Coffee Meet Ups – The coffee meet ups have been successful with good attendance, lots of diversity of attendees and amazing levels of enthusiasm.
The potential of a metro meet up was proposed with Sarah offering to help Ryan get it up and running and provide advice. The specifications/concerns people had were that the venue was not too loud/busy, that topics of discussion were provided each meet up and that it didn’t clash with the times Melbourne Pagans in the Pub meet up.
The action decided was that Ryan and Sarah would attempt to get one running before next meeting.
The possibility of a Central Vic meet up was raised with a few locations suggested – Hepburn Springs, Bunninyong and the Botanical Gardens in Ballarat.
The action on that was that Josie, Mark and Mei will look into setting up a meet up before next meeting.
Sarah raised the problem of exposure for the meetups, Facebook Pages and Groups struggle to make it into newsfeeds under the current format. The solution decided was that if people could try and like and share events to help everyone reach a decent audience it would be greatly appreciated and help ensure the success of the events having a good turnout.
- Samhain Ritual 2015 – Selene is available again for Samhain Ritual, the dates will be discussed with her as well as what she requires (bring a plate?, materials, etc.).
- Yule Dinner 2015 – The venue that looks best from the research Ryan did is called The Last Jar, it is located at the Carlton end of the CBD so is fairly accessible. It has an upstairs function room they would be willing to let us use. The food would allow for a vegetarian option that would also cover vegans.
Ideally the collective would need 30+ attendees to make it worth The Last Jar’s time.
The date for the dinner was tentatively set as the 13th of June with the venue being The Last Jar.
Awards to be decided on for giving out at the dinner, examples – most distant member, most active, young persons award, daggiest witch etc.
River has offered to help promote the event.
A sub committee consisting of Ryan, Josie, Mei and Mark was formed to meet a few times before the dinner and continue working on the event. The first sub committee meeting was scheduled for March 14th.
- Members Survey – The survey for the collective was discussed with Mark presenting the brainstorming for questions ideas that occurred between meetings. People were happy with the proposed questions and added a few more to the list.
It was proposed that a breakdown of the survey information be published (all members details to be kept confidential of course) because there would likely be interest in how our community looks as a demographic.
The membership survey was approved and Mark and Mei will to set it up, a link to it will be sent out once it is up.
- Changes to committee – Charlie T’s official resignation was given to the committee and accepted.
- AGM – The collective needs to hold an AGM mid year, the date the committee decided was the 18th of July at 1PM and the proposed venue (TBC) was Stuzzi. Nickole offered to book the venue.
The offices up for vote will be President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary. Again general committee positions will be available.
- Proposed Membership Fees for 2016 – So far the collective has run as a free organisation, however running the organisation has costs and these have been getting covered by Josie and Ryan. A comparison of other groups fee structure and services was looked at and the breakdown of predictable costs for the organisation were discussed. The categories of membership were proposed as singles, joint/family, Interstate and International. The exact costings will be decided after more research into the issue and cost of insurance.
- Insurance – Josie needs to talk to a few more people about the possibilities and costs for insurance and present the findings to the committee.
- Dates – Dates for the remainder of the 2015 meetings were discussed with the following outcome:
- Sat 9th May 1PM (city, venue TBC)
- AGM Sat 13th June 1PM (Stuzzi TBC)
- Sat 12th September 1PM (rural, venue TBC)
- Sat 12th December 1PM (Cafe Magpie, Upwey TBC)
- Imbolc Ritual 2015 – The date for Imbolc is tentatively the 1st with the venue proposed as the Darebin Parklands.
- Annual Ball – Sarah proposed the idea of an annual ball, with the proposed first one being in 2016. The idea of it being at Samhain with a suitable theme was suggested as the tentative date.
The ball will be an adult oriented event with music, dressing up and drinks (licensed venue).
Sarah will check with Philippe and Selene to make sure they do not have an issue with a ball running at that time and to ensure no clashing with events they host.
- Meeting Locations – The proposal that there be more CBD meetings was raised by River. Sarah volunteered to look for a suitable city venue for the next meeting, everyone agreed to let her know if they heard of anywhere suitable in the meantime.
- Skill Sharing Across the Pagan Community – Nickole discussed the idea of skill sharing across the community and the possibility of workshops being organised (and better promoted). Possible workshop topics would be skills, ritual, spell and traditions. With the idea of making it more accessible for people to gain cross tradition knowledge and skills.
It was decided to wait until the survey results are in to see what sort of traditions members follow and if there were people willing to run workshops and share skills before more action is taken.
- PCV Crafts – Mark proposed the idea that the PCV start to assemble bunting to have at events it was at, to give more exposure but also as a community exercise. It was decided that bunting will be made up, blank and taken to meetings, coffee meet ups and other events where members can grab one to decorate in a fashion that reflects them or their path, with the final product being returned to us and being attached to the community efforts. Hopefully this will be a nice reflection of the positive community that is in Victoria and will look fantastic at events such as Mount Franklin.
Misc. –
- It was proposed and accepted that the PCV logo should be made up into a digital pack that is available for use in a variety of formats -jpeg, gif, black and white/grayscale etc. This will make it easier for other people that want to promote the PCV.
- Earthsong will send a details pack to the PCV so they can receive advertising through the collective.
- To ensure the community (PCV is fine but if you feel ok with it sharing other groups too it would be fantastic) is getting decent exposure please make sure to like, comment and share events and posts that are advertising events and announcements.
- The idea that once paid memberships become a thing in 2016 that the PCV have membership giveaways on Facebook was proposed, to be looked at once its applicable.
Meeting End: 3.38PM
The Pagan Collective of Victoria 