Meeting Minutes – January 2018

Pagan Collective of Victoria

 

Meeting Minutes 14/01/2018

 

Present: Josie, Ryan, Elkie, Alex, Mark, Sarah, Elkie, Shaz, Ang, Fran, Seumas

 

Apologies: Nickole, Dean, Dorian

 

Meeting Location: Earthly Pleasures, Belgrave

Meeting Open: 11.07 AM

 

 

1. President’s Report –

It was a really great year. The PCV ran 57 events last year which is unbelievably good, especially considering we have come from a small hard to locate community to a well networked community where it is very easy for people to find other like minded pagans, whether it is at a PCV event or one of the other events run by other individuals and groups who advertise on our community calendar.

 

2. Secretary’s Report –

The memberships have been slow recently, not surprising given the time of year it is, however the social media has continued to have a lot of interaction and messages which means that people are still engaging with us. The database overhaul is a slow process due to lack of time but will continue to be worked on in 2018.

 

3. Presentation of Accounts (Treasurer) –

We’ve not spent or earned any money in the time since we last met, largely this is because we don’t charge for events and we try to keep the overheads low. We’ll be linking the Patreon to our bank account soon so will have more to report from now on.

 

4. Meet-up Reports
   Hills

The Hills are amazing and vibrant, the meetup for today had 54 people RSVP’d and the events are frequently larger than can be contained by the venue. The event will evolve to suit this as we progress. The Hills weeknight dinners will resume again soon too, they’ve been popular in their own way and a great event. The writers are still meeting too ostensibly under the Hills banner and seem to be having a good time, how this event will evolve we don’t know but it will continue on into 2018.

CBD
The CBD meet-ups continue to be one of our larger regular meet-ups and are going to continue on into 2018 under the custodianship of Ryan. The first one for 2018 will be Sat 20^th of Jan.
Ballarat
The Central Vic meet-ups have continued to have fresh faces turn up (two to three new people most meets), they’ve been small and enjoyable. Ballarat meet-ups will continue on in 2018, possibly under a new direction.

Frankston
Unfortunately Dorian isn’t here to discuss the Frankston meet-ups but from what people have heard they seem to be doing well.

Swinburne

Swinburne now have a Pagan group thanks to the efforts of Alex and are having their first meet-ups this year.

 

Druid Coffee

Druid coffee is looking to improve its attendance this year and are getting some advice on running social media to help to this end. We will continue to advertise for them of course and help in any other way that we can.

 

On the topic of meet-ups this year can we please make sure that the name of every PCV run event has PCV in the name and preferably the month too. This will do two important things, first it will help people tell the difference between the events we run and those we advertise for people. Second it will make it a lot easier for the event wrap-up writer to find all the events each month and make sure that they are covered in the wrap-up.

5. Morris Report
Oak, Smash & Thorn are continuing into 2018 as a side and are planning to travel to South Australia again, in May this time. They’ve been learning to do dark Morris and are going to be learning new dances and sticking this year too.

6. Patreon

Patreon will be launching in a few weeks, the campaign having been previously outlined before. It will be linked to the PCV bank account and the campaign clearly outlines what the money can/will be used for. We are currently looking at how to effectively capture audio of workshops for Patreon.

7. Workshops
The PCV is going to be running six workshops in 2018, they will cost little ($5 – $10) for the public and will be free to patreon backers. To stop there being pagan burnout for organizers they will be tacked onto meet-up days, running before the meet-up and so that people can leave when it is over or stay for a meal and socialize with others as they choose.

 

The dates for the workshops will be worked out in the committee group.

 

The volunteers to run a workshop are      – The Hills (topic to be decided)

– Silver Birch Grove (Ogham)

– Linda (Charms)

– Ryan (Divination/Incense)

– Josie (topic to be decided)

It was thought Dorian was interested in running a workshop but we will need to confirm with him before proceeding down that line any further.

 

8. Social Media/Blog
   Moving forward into 2018 we are adding the following people to our FB admin team: Alex. We are also adding the following to our Blog/Webpage admin team: Alex and Sarah.

For the monthly meet-up wrap-ups we are looking at moving to a photo based wrap-up with minimal text for ease of publication.

Committee reads may be going to a bi-monthly format with a change to being committee reviews and using themes. Sarah is going to let us know what direction she wants to go when she has had a chance to look at it.

 

We are adding a new piece to the blog probably titled ‘Walking the Walk.’ which will be focusing on what people are doing to connect more with nature, their path, etc. Mark and Josie will be contributing their Gold Fields Walks to this and when the Hills get their 2018 sorted will be contributing some articles too.

9. WWC
We are still waiting on some WWC checks for some people. We will be discussing some other WWC stuff when we get to community safety.

10. Samhain

Need to check in with Seline to see if she is still happy to run Samhain 2018 or whether her other contributions are going to make this too hard.

 

11. Social Media/Blog
    The blog is continuing to be a great asset to the PCV along with the calendar and as mentioned the duties have been divvied up so that it can continue to run smoothly and not over-whelm anyone.12. Midsumma
    We will be looking at whether or not we can/will run a stall at 2019 Midsumma with the Queer Pagan Men Australia group and what will be needed etc. for that.
12. WoZ Movie Night
    It was decided that with everything already on the table that this might not be something we continue to pursue at this point.
13. Spiral Dance
    
    Coming again in 2018 sponsored by the PCV, no dates have been set in stone yet but it will probably be April-ish at this stage. It won’t be run the same day as Pagan Pride Day this year because it was deemed overall too much for people.
14. Redbubble
    Still planning to get this running in 2018 now that the crazy December January period is coming to an end and the annual PCV hiatus for the committee is over.16. OBOD Summer Solstice 2018
    The Melbourne Grove are excited and nervous to run this ritual, it is going to be a first for them. The date for it will be Sunday the 23^rd of December and they will let us know if they need any kind of assistance from us.

 

The Sunday Druid Coffee clashes with this date so Silver Birch are going to cancel so that there is no conflict with them.

 

17. Pagan Pride Day 2018

The date previously discussed was not working out well clashing with other events. The date therefore is being moved to April the 7^th. Due to how far from the equinox that puts it we won’t be hosting an equinox ritual as part of the day but instead will be hosting a welcoming ritual designed to appeal to people of all paths.

 

18. Pagan Census/Survey

It has been a few years since we last did a survey to try and get a clear picture of the Victorian community and their needs so we will be conducting another one in 2018, with people’s identities being anonymous again, so we can hopefully get an honest response. Once again we will publish final results for people to view. We ended up with some great data last time. This will also provide people a chance to provide feedback.

 

The questions will be vetted in the committee group before it goes up. Josie, Ryan and Mark will be conducting this.

 

19. Mental Health Support Group Advertisement

We’ve been contacted by a person wanting to advertise a pagan mental health support group that they have set up. We are going to discuss what questions we have in the private committee group and send them to them as soon as possible. They will cover topics like ‘emergency response plans’, format etc.

 

If we are happy to go ahead and advertise this we are going to need a well written disclaimer since they are a third party that we don’t have representation on there to make sure it is all running ok.

 

Fran is also going to get us the details for a legally/professionally sanctioned peer support group to let people know about as well.

 

While we are on the topic of this it is probably worth considering putting together some resources in a easy to digest format such as lifeline etc, for people to access if they are in distress.

 

It is also worth considering having a list of pagan friendly professionals available too, lawyers, psychologists, etc.

 

Community Safety

In 2018 we will be requiring all events we advertise that claim a family friendly status to prove that they have Working with Children checks (current) for all people running the event, workshop, etc. If they refuse to provide this proof or can’t then their events will not be shared by the PCV and will be deleted from any groups we moderate because there is no way to make sure that they are ok otherwise.

 

We are going to start sharing and reminding people of our community safety policies (and others) since it is a new year, we will be doing this a little at a time so people aren’t getting overwhelmed.

 

In March we are planning to share a resource a day around community safety and be gearing our discussion topics to focus on this as well.

 

We would like to have a chance for the community to have their say too as part of this initiative and will be working on that in the near future.

 

Changes to Committee

As we move forward into 2018 we are saying goodbye to one of our committee members Carrie. We would like to thank her for her time and effort on the committee and hope to continue to see her at pagan events.

 

Committee Intro/Bios

It has been suggested that currently the PCV could be perceived as being a shadowy organisation due to our emphasis on community and events and not highlighting who the committee are and where they are from (so to speak).

 

We will be updating the webpage with bio’s, something short is fine, just so that people have an idea of who we are.

 

It was suggested everyone check out the Tasmanian Pagan Alliance website for their committee bios and personal bios for inspiration because they are apparently well done.

 

Other Business

Young People – Safe Spaces

It was raised that we really need to find better ways to communicate with younger pagans to ensure that they are finding their ways into safe places in the community and aren’t being groomed by shady or dodgy people.

 

Ballarat Meet-ups

Ryan is going to be running four Ballarat meet-ups in 2018, dates to be discussed in the private committee group.

 

Pagan Alliance of South Australia

By now everyone has probably seen the announcements by the Pagan Alliance of South Australia.

What can we do to help? Financially if everyone signed up for their newsletter (It is $10 a year) that would help and we can encourage other Victorians to do so too.

Contact has also been made asking them if anything else can be done by PCV to help them, so far nothing has been suggested in this regard but we will help them however we can because it would be a shame to see our South Australian friends lose such an important resource.

 

Meeting End: 12.07 PM

 

May 2015 Update

We hope you had a lovely Samhain!

The nights are long and dark and the chill has hit the air. Victoria’s Pagan scene seems to be getting bigger and brighter every month, with new coffee meets, public rituals, pub moots, workshops and more springing up all over the state. Long-standing regular events have reported record numbers, too! As always, you can find a comprehensive list of Pagan events, rituals, workshops and social meetups organised by many different groups and individuals across the state over on our Calendar.

The PCV is no exception to this recent flurry of activity. We have been as busy as ever, with preparations for our Yule dinner underway, and the new Ballarat Pagans in the Pub launching this month. We also have our AGM coming up in July.

Ballarat Pagans in the Pub
Pagans in the Pub is back in Ballarat this weekend! Witches and Pagans from Ballarat and beyond, come and join us at Irish Murphy’s from 12:30pm for a drink and a chat with Pagan folk from a variety of paths in a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. Irish Murphy’s is centrally located, and has meals until 2pm. Pagans in the Pub in Ballarat is hosted by the Pagan Collective of Victoria, and will be running quarterly throughout 2015.

Yule Dinner 2015
Our Pagan Community Yule Dinner is taking place on the 13th of June, and is open to all witches, Pagans and interested folk across Victoria. This dinner will be the first of its kind for a while, as it is an open invitation to members of all groups (as well as solitaries!) to join together for a meal. It will be a night of music and merrymaking not to be missed! Click here to see the Facebook event for the Dinner. Tickets are on sale until the end of May (there will be no tickets to purchase at the door, so please book now to avoid disappointment). See you there!

Monthly Hills Coffee Meetups
Our Dandenong Ranges coffee moots are still going strong. Many thanks to those lovely people who braved the chilly Mothers’ Day weather for this month’s meet. The June meet will be taking place on the 14th of June – the day after the Yule Dinner. Come and join us for a healing cuppa and a recovery chat!

Members’ Survey
The PCV is always looking for ways to improve our services to the pagan community and our members. To better help us do this we have created the PCV Members Survey and Census 2015. The survey is completely anonymous and you will be helping us to better understand our community and provide us with feedback on what you would like from being a member of the community. We would really appreciate it if you take 5 – 10 minutes to complete the survey.
Click here to complete the survey.

Annual General Meeting
The AGM for the Pagan Collective of Victoria will be taking place on the 18th of July 2015, 1pm at Stuzzi Restaurant and Bar in Northcote.
Nominations are now open for President, Secretary, Treasurer and Vice President (a new role). We are also seeking nominations for general committee members. To nominate yourself or someone else for any of these roles, please email your nomination to: pagancollectivevic@gmail.com. Before you send it, make sure your nominee is aware that they are nominated, and that they agree to it! 🙂

**NOMINATIONS CLOSE AT MIDNIGHT ON FRIDAY, JULY 3rd 2015**

All PCV members are eligible to nominate and be nominated before the meeting and are invited to attend the meeting to vote. Not a member yet? Memberships to the PCV are free until the end of 2015. Visit www.pagancollective.org/join for more information.
The first committee meeting with the new committee will take place straight after the AGM. It is requested that the current President, Treasurer and Secretary attend this meeting

Meeting Minutes – May 2015

Pagan Collective of Victoria

Meeting Minutes 9/5/2015

 

Present: Ryan, Josie, Mei, Mark, Ben, Lucas, Seline

Apologies: Cosette, Hawthorn, Nickole, Sarah, Seumas

Absent: Rosanne, Allison, River, Bret, Brett

Meeting Location: Portland Hotel, Melbourne CBD

Meeting Open: 1.15PM

1. President’s Report – The coffee meetups have continued to go strong and is still experiencing new members turning up.
   The first Ballarat meetup/Pagans in the Pub is scheduled to happen and there has been some interest which is exciting.
   The Collective now has a bank account with the Bendigo Bank, more in the Treasurer’s report.
   The Yule Dinner is approaching and the ticket sales are now live.

2. Secretary’s Report – Currently we are approaching businesses to ask about being PCV friendly and those that are for website friendly graphics so that we can get them up on the website.

3. Treasurer’s Report – The new Bendigo Bank account has been set up with Josie and Mark being the current signatories. Bendigo is happy to add more signatories as needed with appropriate minuting provided by us. They also offer the use of the community EFTPOS machine for events.
   Tickets for the Yule Dinner are now selling, to avoid too many transaction fees the money will stay in PayPal for now.

4. Memberships – 15 new memberships approved this meeting, this decrease is probably due to the fact that we are pushing events both for the Collective and other groups more than memberships at the moment.

5. Newsletter – Samhain Newsletter is late due to articles being slow to be submitted. Will be out soon.
   It is possibly worth looking at either getting a newsletter person in the future or more people sharing the job.
   It is proposed that we consider doing a series of intro articles, introducing readers to different pagan paths.

6. Coffee Meet Ups – The Upwey meetup is still getting bigger and seeing a lot of new faces.
   The CBD meetup still needs a venue for the meetup to take place but the potential first date will be June 3^rd, to be confirmed once a venue is found.
   Ballarat is having its first meetup up at Irish Murphey’s in Ballarat, which is the location meetups used to happen in Ballarat. Hopefully using the same location will make it easier. There has been some interested parties in the meetup, which will be held quarterly. The meetup will be on the 23^rd at 12.30.

7. Yule Dinner 2015 – The ticket sales shut off will be the 1^st June, we are self-imposing a minimum of 30 ticket sales to make it worthwhile for the venue. If we don’t get the numbers by the 1^st we will have to consider calling off the event.
   To help make sure we do well on ticket sales we need to share the event as much as possible not just on the PCV page but on other pages as well as our personal walls. All help to share it will be appreciated. Mei kindly made a flyer for the event, with the digital file being available on the Committee page, feel free to share it around.
   Prizes are being sorted for the awards as well as the raffle. It should hopefully make for a good addition to the night.

8. Members Survey – The questions are all ready and Mark will e-mail them to Mei so that the Survey Monkey can be set up with the Members Survey. Hopefully this will produce some interesting results for the Collective and its members.

9. AGM – The AGM is going to be held at Stuzzi in Northcote with nominations for it closing two weeks before the AGM both for named positions and the General Committee positions.

10. 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.
    The proposed fees that the Collective move to will be:

– $15 Student/Concession

– $25 General

– $40 Family (3 – 4 adults all residing at the same address is a family for the purposes of membership fees.)

11. Insurance – So after some hunting around the estimates for Insurance for the PCV is looking to be somewhere between $1,200 – $1,500. Josie is going to hunt around a little more and see if there is a better policy/deal to be had.

12. Imbolc Ritual 2015 – We cannot really discuss the Imbolc Ritual without the organisers present, more details will be shared as it becomes available.

13. Annual Ball – We cannot really discuss the Annual Ball without the organisers present, more details will be shared as it becomes available.

14. Skill Sharing Across the Pagan Community – Nothing new to discuss yet for this.

15. PCV Crafts – The pennants/bunting idea is still being considered and the materials to start making the blanks for members to decorate will be acquired soon.

16. The PCV at Mount Franklin – We should consider doing a $5 off membership drive at Mount Franklin to help kick off the paid memberships for the first year.

Misc. – The next meetings that have been set are:

– The AGM on the 18^th of July to be held at Stuzzi in Northcote followed by a normal meeting at the same location

– 12^th of September and is marked down as a rural meet-up to be held at a rural location that will be advised closer to the date

– 12^th of December and is set to be a Upwey event at the Magpie Café

The website needs a change to fix a broken link, the Consumer Affairs have changed the model rules and as a result the link to them on our website is not working at present.

It is probably worth considering that committee members have or acquire a Working with Children Check for the purposes of ensuring that we are not open to problems at public events that we run/help out with.

As a matter of courtesy to everyone it would be really appreciated if you cannot make it to a meeting that you try to give 48 hours notice. Some of the members travel a long way and it would be terrible for them to do that and we do not have the numbers for quorum. It is also a kindness to the other members who could change their plans if the meeting is cancelled.

Pagan Expo
Seline pitched the idea of running a two day expo that has an evening maskerade ball that we could invite Spiral Dance to attend. The proposed time would be October 2016 to allow all the necessary preparation time. Seline would need a dedicated sub-committee to help her make this a success, they would be needed especially in the intense three month period prior to the event. If the PCV has insurance that can cover it by then we will lend that to the expo as well as any help that we can. Seline has a venue in mind, that will be included in a later information update.

 

Meeting End: 2.51 PM

Meeting Minutes, February 2015

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

 

1. 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.

 

2. 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.

 

3. 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.

 

4. Memberships – 47 new members have been approved for the Collective

 

5. Newsletter – As always we are looking for people to write new content for the newsletter, submissions will be the 14^th of March and hopeful send out will be the 21^st. Mark volunteered to look into writing an article.

 

6. 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.

 

7. 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.).
8. 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 13^th 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 14^th.

 

9. 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.

 

10. Changes to committee – Charlie T’s official resignation was given to the committee and accepted.

 

11. AGM – The collective needs to hold an AGM mid year, the date the committee decided was the 18^th 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.

 

12. 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.

 

13. Insurance – Josie needs to talk to a few more people about the possibilities and costs for insurance and present the findings to the committee.
14. Dates – Dates for the remainder of the 2015 meetings were discussed with the following outcome:

• Sat 9^th May 1PM (city, venue TBC)
• AGM Sat 13^th June 1PM (Stuzzi TBC)
• Sat 12^th September 1PM (rural, venue TBC)
• Sat 12^th December 1PM (Cafe Magpie, Upwey TBC)

 

15. Imbolc Ritual 2015 – The date for Imbolc is tentatively the 1^st with the venue proposed as the Darebin Parklands.
16. 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.

 

17. 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.

 

18. 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.

 

19. 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