Pagan Pride Day 2018

We are now back into things again after the Christmas break. The committee dinner was a great opportunity to get to know each other better and we will try and do these a few times a year to help strengthen our bond as a team. Patreon is up and posting more to come later in the meeting.

Secretary’s Report –

There isn’t a lot of new news on this front at present, we are overhauling the membership sign-up process and database to make things more efficient.

Treasurer’s Report –

We currently have about $17 in the account, the first of the Patreon payments won’t come through until the start of the next month.

Meet-up Reports
Hills

The Hills ritual went really well and they are hoping to be able to do something like this again in the future. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

CBD
The numbers continue to go well for the city meetup, with a good regular attendance, there is going to be a slight change to the discussion format as it moves forward this year. They are contemplating doing a Facebook live at a future event.
Ballarat
Ballarat meet-ups are still in discussion with the possibility of running four a year on the table at present.
Frankston
These meet-ups are still continuing on and are going well with some regular faces as well as new faces turning up each meeting.

Swinburn

The first Swinburn pagan event will be coming up soon, it is very exciting.

5. Morris Report
The side is still continuing on in 2018, working on getting the skills up ready to be performance ready. They are attending English Ale in May. They have begun learning a second dance (Dilwyn) and are practicing processionals.

Patreon

Patreon is now live and posting. Thank-you to everyone that has supported, contributed to and worked on getting it live. Also a big thank-you to everyone that has become a backer, or been helping share it around.

7. Website
The overhaul is well underway and now blog posts immediately post to the Facebook as well. The site is getting anywhere from 50 – 200 hits a day. That is frankly amazing.

Facebook
The stats are up really well, so please continue to share and interact with it to help keep this up.
Membership
We are updating the form so that when a member signs up it sends it straight to our database (which is being overhauled) We will be contacting members to confirm their details and to ensure they know their membership number.
Community Safety Month

Have a lot of articles lined up ready to go throughout March so that our social media will be posting something every day designed to provide the community with access to information that will educate and inform in a variety of aspects of safe community.

Spiral Dance
Yes they are still coming to Melbourne, no we don’t have the date yet but will be posting more about it when we do. This will be branded as a PCV presents event.

12. Pagan Pride Day
The date has been selected as April 7^th.
Sarah will be drawing up a list of speakers and presenters for the various traditions and paths in Victoria as well as the various groups currently running events open to the public.

It has been proposed that we have a Druids v Witches Kubb game on the day, it will be a light-hearted thing, designed to be entertaining.

13. Seasonal Celebrations
Yule – this was to be organised by Dean? We will need to clarify

Autumn Equinox – we currently don’t have someone running the equinox now that Pagan Pride Day is in April.

Instagram
We now have an Instagram that is being run by Dorian at present. It can be found by looking for pagancollectivevic.
Workshops
It would be great if we can start announcing some of the dates for workshops, so could the committee members who have volunteered to run workshops please start trying to work out the dates for their workshop. These will probably be 1 – 2 hours in length and $10 – $15 for non-Patreon backers.

16. Chat Bots
Ryan is investigating chat bots with involves direct engagement content with users. He is currently learning about how to use them and will run it when this gets off the ground.

Inclusive Language

It was raised that we should consider changing some of the language on our website and social media to make it more inclusive. It can sometimes come across as slightly Wicca or eclectic witchcraft centric and it would be a shame if that made people from other paths feel left out.

Meeting End: 1.50 PM

Onward!

Posted on January 24, 2018 by Josephine Winter

2017 is well and truly over, and as we recover from the silly season and bask in the long, hot summer days, we can’t help but start looking forward to what we have planned for the coming year.

Meetups: Last year we hosted more than 50 meetups across the state, giving Pagans of a wide variety of locations, traditions and walks of life the opportunity to come together and socialise over a cuppa (or beer!). This year, our meetups will continue apace, with Melbourne Pagans in the Pub in the CBD, the Monthly Hills Pagan Coffee Meets in Belgrave, the Frankston Pagan Meets and the Central Vic Pagan Meets in Creswick and Castlemaine. This year, in conjunction with Druids of Victoria, we will be co-hosting Wandering Druid Coffee Meets in many different locations around the state. If you are a Druid or interested in Druidic practice, take a look.

As always, all our Meets are held according to the Standards laid out in our Mission Statement. Our community is diverse, supportive, and nurturing, and we love it that way.

At present, all our Meets are adults-only. Please do not bring children. If you are a parent wanting to run family-friendly Pagan events, get in touch with us and we’ll help you get started.

Public Rituals: Once again we will be co-hosting free public sabbat rituals with a range of groups and individuals from across our diverse Pagan community. Coming up next weekend is our public Lughnasadh ritual, which will be co-hosted by the Hills Pagans in Belgrave.

Future public rituals include an Imbolc ritual co-hosted by Silver Birch Grove ADF, an Ostara ritual co-hosted by the Sovereigns of the Golden Path and a Midsummer ritual co-hosted by the Melbourne Grove of OBOD.

Patreon: In the very near future we will be launching a Patreon page, where anybody interested can support the PCV with a small monthly donation.

Membership the PCV is free, and we want to keep it that way. We don’t believe access to one’s local community and the potential support network and friends should be put behind a paywall and limited to those who can afford it.

With that said, as the Collective has grown in popularity so too have our costs. When we first started out, costs were covered by a small group of founding members. Now that we have grown much larger, we’re hoping that our community can help us out with some of these costs via a small monthly contribution, and maybe help to fund some exciting future projects, too.

Our Patreon backers will receive exclusive backer-only updates, free entry to our workshops, and discounts for a range of our other initiatives.

Redbubble: Also coming soonish is our Redbubble store, where our friends and supporters can buy groovy PCV merch. We’re currently working on organising a discount for our Patreon backers – watch this space.

Community Safety Month: March will once again be Community Safety Month for the PCV. We will be sharing valuable resources across our online and social media platforms, and discussion topics at our March meetups will be geared towards keeping the Pagan community safe, inclusive and nurturing for all.

Pagan Pride Day: After the huge success of last year’s inaugural Pagan Pride Day, we will be doing it all again in April this year. Pack a picnic and come along for an afternoon of connecting, sharing and celebrating with your community. We will have guest speakers from Victoria’s active Pagan traditions, a ritual and more. There are even rumours of a witches vs druids kubb game being planned.

Community Calendar: We are putting the finishing touches on our 2018 Community Calendar. This calendar contains information about all Pagan events in Victoria and is a valuable resource.

This year, we have made important changes to our calendar policy: “In accordance with Victorian law, groups and individuals running ‘family friendly’ events will need to supply copies of Working With Children Cards for all organisers and volunteers in order to see their event included on the Community Calendar”.

Workshops: We have a number of workshops planned which will be offered free to our Patreon backers. Watch our Facebook Page for updates.

Phew! 2018 is already looking jam-packed with fantastic offerings for the Victorian Pagan community. And with such a wide variety of events and locations, there is sure to be something to suit everyone.

See you there! ❤

Meeting Minutes – January 2018

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Josephine Winter

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.

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.

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.

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

Meeting Minutes: April 8th, 2017

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Josephine Winter

Pagan Collective of Victoria

Meeting Minutes – 08/04/2017

Location: Irish Murphy’s, Ballarat Start Time: 12.25

Attending: Ryan, Sarah, Josie, Alex and Mark

Apologies: Dean, Dorian, Luca, Ange, Shaz, Nikole

Presidents Report

March was such an amazing crazily fun month, full of great events. The roll out of Pagan Pride Day, Community Safety Month and the great concert by Spiral Dance and KC Guy, were all great initiatives that couldn’t have happened without a lot of hard work from a lot of people.

Treasurer

We recently had the Spiral Dance and KC Guy concert with ran really well, there was a good turnout and the feedback was positive. It did however run at a small loss. The breakdown is as follows:

Expenses:
Eventbrite fees: $76.88
Spiral Dance costs: $1436.62
Kc Guy costs: $240.52
Sound Engineer: $150.00
Total Expenses: $1904.02
Income:
Eventbrite tickets: $870.00
Ticket sales on door: $630.00
Donation tins: $67.20
Total Income: $1567.20
Total Loss: $336.82

The loss has been covered by donation from Ryan McLeod

Secretary

We’ve had 18 new memberships since the last meeting, which have all been approved and over 30 new FB likes. So the memberships continue to grow steadily.

Meetups

Hills

The meetups continue to be a massive success with an average of 14 people every month, consisting of a group of regulars as well as new faces appearing too. The possibility of having a weekday meet to discuss personal practice and other topics has been raised. The community here are quite fantastic and have built something really positive.

CBD

These meets are now on average getting 20 people every month. The meet-up had a quest speaker recently, a move which was well received and had a lot of positive feedback. People responded to having Dr David Waldron come and talk, and to have a chance to engage in discussion with him.

Central

The central meet-ups are changing venue to the Farmers Arms, still located in Creswick, just down the road from the old venue, it is still a friendly atmosphere suitable for all types.

Pagan Pride Day

This event was the culmination of a lot of hard-work by a number of people as well as the amazing support and response from the community, not to mention the guest speakers from traditions and groups. There is a need to decide on a date for another one so that planning can commence. The possibility of having some panel discussions by guest talkers was suggested as a possibility for next year. The theme of community safety was a great message going in and should be considered in the preparations for the next one.

Spiral Dance/KC Guy

An amazingly good evening was had by those that attended, there was an amazingly positive response to the concert. This would not have been possible without Spiral Dance and KC Guy’s co-operation, support and willingness. It would also not have been possible without the hard work put in by people, particularly Ryan. This would be something fantastic to have happen again, provided of course that the musical talents are willing.

Community Safety Month

Community safety month seems to have been received well and should definitely be an annual thing, as there are always new people finding their way to the community and existing members that may not be aware of what resources and help is available.

There has been a lot of positive discussion coming out of this month, and some positive outcomes too. A new values statement was written after several discussions that occurred in March as part of Community Safety Month.

WWC Cards

The PCV is putting its foot down on this issue, the policy to make it a mandatory requirement to hold a Working With Children Check passed unanimously in a previous meeting and this will be enforced at the AGM. You need to have one to run for committee, an aspect that will be made clear when the calls for committee involvement start so that no potential new committee members are caught unawares.

Samhain

The public PCV Samhain ritual is being hosted by Seline and the event is now live, Ryan is going to check in with Seline to make sure she is getting what help and support she needs and to make sure we are doing whatever we can to help

Redbubble Account

The Hills would love to have mugs and shirts and to that end think it would be great if there was a Redbubble account. However it would be ace if the PCV itself had the Redbubble account and that way there could be PCV merch too.
Ryan needs to send Sarah all the master copy files of the logo etc. so that she can toy around with designs for approval for merch.

Morris

The Morris team is going amazing, they recently had a fabulous and highly productive workshop with Adrienne and Paul who gave very generously of their time to help the side with the dance they are working on as well as providing heaps of helpful information.

The side is on track with their goal of dancing at Mount Franklin this year.

The team is in the process of being insured by the Morris Ring but it hasn’t gone through yet.

Yule Dinner

We have access to the same venue that we used for the previous Yule Dinner and the same space.

Currently have menu options and pricing being prepared for our consideration, which is meant to include a Gluten Free/Vegan option.

The event should not conflict with Monselvat.

The ticket sales will be on Eventbrite, it worked will previously.

Josie is going to tart up the event on Facebook to give more information and appeal to the community.
Ryan is going to see if KC can perform again since he was a real hit at the last one.
PCV at Mount Franklin

Alex has kindly offered to help run the kids maypole at Mount Franklin.

Josie is going to print up more of the PPD flyers to have at the mountain for us to hand out because it has all the groups information and contact details on.

Social Media

It is proposed we trial having a rotating roster of people running the social media (weekly round-ups, blog article announcements, etc.).

Blog

We need to add more topics for the blog, one possibility is changing from recipe of week instead having other topics that can fit in that slot such as book or music of the week.

AGM

The AGM is going to be on the 20^th of August at the Last Jar in Melbourne. More announcements and round-ups for nominations etc to come later.

Other Business

Ryan has proposed that we have a BBQ/picnic day at Fairy Park, the potential date for this being 25^th Nov, more details to be confirmed later.

Witches of Oz Movie Night 2017 – coming out of a discussion on Witches of Oz a movie night in conjunction with the PCV is proposed. Details to be worked out.

Alex presented an idea for a PCV student pagans run uni group, to provide a social and networking opportunity for uni students and potentially a support network. More details to be presented at a later date.

Meeting End: 1.32

Throughout and About: The PCV in March 2017

Posted on April 4, 2017 by pagancollectivevic

The PCV in March 2017

By Josie, Sarah, Dorian and Ryan

We said at the beginning of the year that this March would be Mad March, and we weren’t wrong: Community Safety Month, Pagan Pride Day, the Spiral Dance Concert, Guest Speakers and more on top of our usual meetups made for a very busy month with the very best company.

Community Safety Month

March has become Community Safety Month for the PCV. Creating and maintaining safe and inclusive spaces to gather and worship was the key topic of all our meetups in March, and some excellent and insightful conversations sprang from this. The product of these conversations was our newly-formed Values, which have been added to our Mission Statement page after being collated by our most eloquent committee member, Sarah:

The PCV holds regular gatherings by area all over the state. These meets, moots, and gatherings are hosted by various members of the PCV but all are united in upholding the following standards:

We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional caretakers of the land we meet on. The gatherings we enjoy so much are held on land they lived on for thousands of years before white settlement. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present and emerging – and acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within the community.
We stand with the LGBTQI+ community; PCV meets are queer and trans-friendly spaces. We are intersectional, inclusive, and we will use whichever pronouns you prefer. Our community is diverse, supportive, and nurturing, and we love it that way.
We welcome people of all paths and levels of experience, people of all genders and sexualities, of all races, skin colours, cultural identities, and of all abilities.
Accessibility information will be provided for all venues. If you have any questions about venue accessibility or will need assistance, please contact the meet host. *PCV meets do not tolerate sexual, racial, religious, cultural, abled, or gendered discrimination, bigotry, harassment, bullying, or non-consensual sexual behaviour. We reserve the right to ask attendees to leave if they do not behave in a manner conducive to the wellbeing of the group or in contravention of any of the above standards.
We are committed to creating safe, welcoming spaces where pagans of all paths can meet and enjoy their community. If you have an issue at the meets, our hosts will listen to you and take your feedback seriously.

Other happenings during Community Safety Month include more undersigned joining our Statement to the Public about notorious paedophile Robin Fletcher (which as of April 2017 has more than eighty undersigned Pagan groups and individuals), and the snap community information meeting we held when he was released.

Pagan Pride Day

On Saturday, the 18th of March the Victorian Pagan community came together to celebrate our first annual Pagan Pride Day and Equinox ritual. The day was a huge success, with Pagans of all walks of life attending, and most of the state’s active traditions represented.
You can read more about Pagan Pride Day in Alex’s article.

LLuca discusses the Wildwood Tradition at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Dean gives a talk on Heathenry at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert

On the night of Pagan Pride Day, we were treated to an amazing, uplifting and highly danceable concert by Spiral Dance and KC Guy. This was a perfect way to round off an excellent day of Pagan goodness, and really brought everyone together.
More details and photos in Josie’s article.

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Frankston Meets

The Frankston/Cranbourne pagan meet convened at Groove Train once more, enjoying the gorgeous Autumn sun out on the promenade.
Looking forward to the next meet at the end of May.

— Dorian

Monthly Hills Coffee Meets

The Hills Meets continue apace. March saw me finally make good on a threat I’ve been holding over everyone’s heads for a few months now: Sparkles, the Disco Owl. A few people have mentioned, over the last couple of years, that our little mascot is subtle and hard to spot across a crowded room. Sparkles is neither of those things. Sparkles is nearly a foot high and covered liberally in white glitter, which he sheds over everything he touches, and came from a local $2 shop, and I’ve been promising to humiliate all of us by bringing him along to a meet for ages now. Sparkles is the Maxwell Demon of the owl world.

You can read more about the Hills Meets in this month’s feature article. For upcoming event details, see the Monthly Hills Pagan Coffee Meets Facebook page.

— Sarah

CBD Pagan Pub Moots

The March CBD Pagan Pub moot was joined by a special guest, Dr David Waldron, who was kind enough to be our first guest speaker. Dr Waldron captivated the room with his fascinating talk on Witches’ marks, concealed objects and magical folk practices in colonial Australia.

Dr David Waldron is a lecturer in History and Anthropology at Federation University Australia based in CRCAH (Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History) with a research focus on folklore and community identity. He is the author of “Sign of the Witch: Modernity and the Pagan Revival” (Carolina Academic Press 2008), “Shock! The Black Dog of Bungay – a Case Study in Local Folklore” (Hidden Press 2010) and “Snarls from the Tea-Tree: Victoria’s Big Cat Folklore” (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2013) and editor/contributor of “Goldfields and the Gothic: a Hidden Heritage and Folklore” (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2016).

— Ryan

Oak, Smash and Thorn Pagan Morris

Our little Morris side keeps chugging along, even with one less dancer due to Alex’s knee injury. Get well soon, Alex! This month we were treated to a Morris workshop with our friends Adrienne and Paul, of Spiral Dance and Hot for Joe Border Morris fame. This cracker of a workshop and Paul and Adrienne’s invaluable advice helped us polish our very first dance and get that little bit closer to being able to perform!
If this wasn’t memorable enough, the Edinburgh Gardens were the site of the Australian Naked Bike Ride that day, with around four hundred naked cyclists crashing our rehearsal. Our interstate guests took it all in their stride and promised they’d be back soon.

Our Morris workshop was crashed by the Australian Naked Bikeride in March 2017! Photo by Sarah Morgan

Our Morris workshop was crashed by the Australian Naked Bikeride in March 2017! Photo by Alex Edwards

A million thankyous, beers and sweaty Morris hugs to Adrienne and Paul. 🙂

— Josie

PCV Diary Dates:

Saturday, 8th April: PCV Committee Meeting (Ballarat)
Saturday, 8th April: Central Victorian Pagans and Heathens in the Cafe (Ballarat)
Sunday, 9th April: CBD Pagan Pub Moot (Melbourne)
Sunday, 30th April: PCV Public Samhain Ritual (location TBC)

The Pagan-est Day Ever!

Posted on March 26, 2017 by pagancollectivevic

Pagan Pride Day and Spiral Dance Concert

By Alex and Josie

On the 18^th of March The PCV hosted our first Pagan Pride Day, in Edinburgh Gardens. It was an amazing day filled with amazing people and a great sense of community. The event started at 12pm. People started arriving and what was initially a small amount of people grew: we ended up with around 50 people attending.

At 2pm the talks about the various paths started. Our first speaker was Shaz. She spoke about ADF Druidry and Silver Birch Grove. Josephine talked about Alexandrian witchcraft, and we then had Dean who spoke about Asatru (Norse paganism), followed by KC guy who spoke about OBOD Druidry. Next, Fio Talked about the Reclaiming path, then Luca Talked about Wildwood, and Dorian Talked about Chaos magic.

After the talks on the different paths we moved on to our ritual for the autumn Equinox which was run by Josie and Ryan in a Alexandrian inspired style. The quarters were called by Fran (Air), Sarah (Fire), Alex (Water) and Mark (Earth). It was a beautiful ritual that included a meeting dance and lovely music.

After the ritual we moved on to our second session of talk which were about the different meetings and gatherings around Victoria we started off with Ryan talking about the CBD pub moots, then Sarah talking about the Monthly Hills Pagan Coffee Meets. Next was Mark who talked about the Central Vic meetups, and we then had Dean who talked about the Heathen meetups, which include a ritual. This was followed by Nickole talking about Earthsong Witchcamps. We then had Dorian who talked about the newly started Frankston/Cranbourne Meetups, and Shaz then talked about Druid Coffee. The Queer Pagan Men’s meetups where then talked about by Buck, Michel then talked about the Mount Franklin Pagan Gathering, and finally we finished off with Seline talking about Into Me I See.

It was an absolutely amazing day filled with friendship and community spirit. As a fairly new member of the Pagan community I found it to be a great way to learn more about what is available in Victoria and also to meet more like minded people. I would also love to thank the amazing PCV for running the day especially Sarah for being MC and making sure everything ran smoothly. I would also love to thank all the speakers and those who ran the ritual and finally thankyou to everyone who attended as without you it wouldn’t have happened.

— Alex

“I just saw a Reclaiming witch, a Druid and an Anarchist eating grapes together. And they were LAUGHING.”
– overheard at the Pagan Pride Day picnic

After a busy and marvelously social day at Pagan Pride Day, we headed on down to Bar 303 in Northcote to see Spiral Dance and KC Guy live in concert, presented by the PCV.

This concert was the perfect way to finish off a day of the Pagan community coming together. KC Guy’s voice is truly enchanting, and just what we needed to chill out and lose ourselves. Spiral Dance has a decades-long track record of bringing Pagans together with their beautiful and very danceable music, and dance we did!

The hot, sticky night didn’t stop any of us from busting out our best daggy Pagan dance moves to tunes like The Quickening, Faerie Tale and our favourite, Black Annis.

By the end of the night our throats were raw, our clothes were heavy with sweat and every last one of us were wearing enormous watermelon-slice grins as we exploded out into the cool night air of High Street.

A million, squillion thankyous to KC Guy and Spiral Dance for travelling from South Australia to perform for us and provide the perfect ending to a perfect day. Thanks also to Bar 303 for having us, to everyone who helped out on the door, and to Mark Hayes for his beautiful photos of the night.

— Josie

You can download a copy of the Pagan Pride Day Flyer here: PPD 2017

Photo Reuse Policy: You are welcome to use these photos for *personal use* on social media, etc, but please credit/tag the Mark Hayes Photography Facebook Page when you do.

Kacey gives a presentation about OBOD at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Michel gives a presentation about the history of the Mount Franklin Pagan Gathering at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Ryan is inducted into the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Vegemite Scroll at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

LLuca discusses the Wildwood Tradition at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Seline gives a presentation at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Dean gives a talk on Heathenry at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Dorian discusses Chaos Magick at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Buck discusses Queer Pagan Men Australia at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Ryan talks about the CBD Pagan Pub Moots at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At the 2017 Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Nickole talks about Earthsong Witchcamps at our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

At our first Pagan Pride Day, in 2017. Photo: Mark Hayes Photography

Meeting Minutes, November 2016

Posted on November 27, 2016 by pagancollectivevic

Thankyou to our intrepid secretary Mark for putting these together!

PCV Committee Meeting 26^th November 2016

Meeting Start: 1.32

Attending: Ryan, Nickole, Josie, Seamus, Dean, Alex, Mark, Shaz, Ang, Lucas and Fran Apologies: River, Fi, Dorian
Absent:

President’s Report
The PCV has put on over 30 events this year, which is a lot, 25 – 26 of these were coffee and pub meetups. In addition to this we had some public rituals as well as pagans in the park. There is a heap of stuff cooking up for next year which is really exciting.

Secretary’s Report
Memberships keep rolling in, up to about 209 membership now as well as over 900 likes on Facebook.

Treasurer’s Report
Nothing new to report, money in the bank is the same as the last few meetings, the PCV has not been running events that make money.

Meet-Ups
CBD Moot
This moot is getting really busy, with 2-3 new people pretty much every time that have not been met before, it is exciting to see lots of new faces. The moot is changing venues to the Last Jar for next year to accommodate the fact that we need more seats for the events. Should be slightly more disability friendly with a bathroom on the same floor, however there are still the steps at the front and a narrow door. For 2017 the moots will be running monthly but taking a break for September.

Central Vic
The Central Victoria Pagans in the Café had four meets this year, with an average of 4 – 8 attendees at them. For 2017 the Pagans in the Café and the Central Vic Heathens will be combining the coffee meets and aiming for quarterly coffee meets.

Central Vic Heathens
The Central Vic Heathens in addition to combining with the Pagans in the Café are looking at trying to run some different events next year beyond coffee meets. More to be announced as they come.

Hills Meets
These meets are going from strength to strength, running in a lovely new venue (Earthly Pleasures), getting about 10+ attendees at each meet, people attending are happy with the format, these meets will be running monthly for 2017.
Two other meet ups in the works – Hamilton, which is trying to get up and running with some support from us and will hopefully start running next year. Also Frankston which Dorian has kindly volunteered to get going next year, at this stage it will probably be bi-monthly in the Frankston area. More will be confirmed as it is organised.
ACTION: Need to get a start date sorted with Dorian for 2017
ACTION: Need to make sure that the meets that are near each other don’t conflict with each other, PCV or otherwise so as to not make it too hard for attendees to choose what to go to.

Memberships
Seven new memberships have been received since last meeting, no objections to the members were raised, so all new people were approved.

Dates for 2017

Committee Meetings	CBD Meet-Ups	Hills Meet-Ups	Sabbats	Other
	15^th January	8^th January
26^th Feb (attach to Druid Coffee, Northcote)	19^th February	5^th February	5^th February Lughnassa (Silver Birch)
	19^th March	5^th March	25^th March Mabon (Wiccans)	Pagan Pride Day 18^th March Pagan Concert 18^th March
8^th April (Central Victoria)	16^th April (needs to be changed)	2^nd April
	21^st May	7^th May	Samhain (May date TBC)
4^th June (attach to Hills Meetup, Belgrave)	18^th June	4^th June	Yule Dinner 24^th June
	16^th July	2^nd July
20^th August AGM (attach to CBD meet-up)	20^th August	6^th Aug
	17^th September (needs to be changed)	3^rd Sept	24^th September Ostara (Silver Birch/Heathens)
14^th October (Central Victoria)	15^th October	1^st October
	19^th November	5^th November
3^rd December (attach to Hills Meet-Up, Belgrave)		3^rd December
PCV Hiatus 24^th Dec – 7^th Jan

Imbolc – *stare at Reclaiming and Lucas*

Pagans in the Park/Pagan Pride Day
18^th of March is the proposed date for the event. Some of the concepts discussed were – having stalls, a festival feel and less picnic feel, showcase for traditions (someone gets up and talks about each tradition and talks about what they do and who is good to talk to if you want to go further) Need to get the ideas, for location, format etc. then scale back.

ACTION: Shaz will talk to her contacts/arch-druid to get some ideas for running it and what resources are available, possibly Fitzroy/Treasury gardens for the location, if so we need to make sure to follow all the protocols with paperwork etc. for running in such a public location
ACTION: The working group need to have a meeting for this, a date will be set.

Yule Dinner
Going to run as the same format as the 2014 one, it was ritzy, nice and well catered, Ryan is hoping to get the prices down to about $35 – 40
ACTION: Ryan is going to look for a venue and nut out a menu in the next few weeks. Going to see about getting Casey over for it again to do the entertainment.

PCV Businesses/Relationships
Is it possible to get us thinking about our kind of relationships with the businesses, loyalty programs, advertising, think of a way to have a financial exchange, perhaps have a charge for being listed on the website?, or the donation of raffle prizes for things like Yule dinner in exchange for a write-up for them in the newsletter, listings for actual health practitioners for pagan friendly businesses (mental health, physical health etc.), hire a pagan (pagan friendly employers) [Get Witch Quick]
ACTION: receipt book

Newsletter
Due to a number of issues the newsletter has become untenable; a lot of work, hard to get content in and on time from contributors and the amount of time needed to format all the content.
As part of the overhaul we would like to move to a more online format, have it set with schedule of posts hosted on a blog, still have articles and stuff that come on, keep it accessible, drive traffic up more, part of making our resources even more accessible and easy to find.
Action: Josie – make a schedule of posts etc. to try and get the format roughly laid out. Volunteers for articles and content will be organised by the committee.

Calendar
Josie has made a master document for the calendar, if you give Jo an e-mail to sign up, you can then go in and add your events and change them as need be to help with keeping our calendar as current and accurate as possible.

Julie Brett’s Book Tour
Action – Start a conversation on the PCV committee page for locations etc. for the book tour, Sooki Lounge – Hills, Norcote – Druid Coffee, Central Vic/Ballarat as well as seeing if people would be willing to play host to her while she is over to assist in making it a successful venture for her.

Samhain 2017
Seline has asked if she can run it again in 2017 – don’t have a date yet, hopefully not actual Samhain, more will be released as it is known.

PCV Concert
Spiral Dance and Kacey Guy concert at bar 303 on the evening of Pagan Pride day $25 normal entry or $20 concession. Ryan is setting up an Eventbrite, and we are thinking of running a tin around at events prior to get donations to help get this to happen (it will cover essentials for the performers such as fuel/flights, accommodation, etc.) Adrienne is making poster designs, the posters should hopefully be available for January

PCV Morris Side
We now have a Morris Side, who are planning to do their first thing at Mt Franklin, dancing the sun up at Mt Franklin on the Sunday. Any committee members wanting to join let Josie, Sarah or Mark know so they can be added to the planning group.
ACTION: Alex has now joined the Morris Side

New Committee Members
ACTION: Alex, Dean and Lucas are now committee members for the current period.

Working with Children Checks
Action – Can committee members please send copies of your WWC to us so we can make sure that we have a database of proof for legal reasons. They can be e-mailed to the official Collective Gmail account, all details will be kept confidential. Other Business Fundraising – sell the tickets prior to spiral dance and then do the draw and give out at the concert, advertise it well and it will help raise funds for the PCV, potential idea is a pagan hamper with items donated (shirt from Silver Birch and Mt Franklin) items made by committee members etc.

Grants – are there grants that we can get access to as the PCV? Fran is going to look into the grants situation as a friend of the PCV (non-committee member)

Meeting Closed: 3.02

Meeting Minutes – July 2016

Posted on August 24, 2016 by pagancollectivevic

Thankyou to our intrepid secretary Mark for preparing these minutes. 🙂

Pagan Collective of Victoria

Meeting Minutes 23/07/2016

Present: Sarah, Josie, Ryan, Nikole, Dorian, and Mark

Apologies: Shaz, River, Fiona, Ang, and Lucas

Absent: Belinda, Mei, Ben, Ceilidh, Luca, Buck, Cossette, Ceilidh

Meeting Location: The Wesley Anne, Northcote

Meeting Open: 12.31PM

Minutes of previous meeting read and accepted

Presidents Report – The meetups have run well on their own, people have come to rely on them and expect them to run like clockwork. The PCV is three years old and hopefully is now out of the honeymoon period. Its been great to see how popular the calendar has been, it is now the most visited page on the website.

Secretary’s Report – Memberships have continued to come in and be added to the database. We are now sitting over 200 registered members, it was pretty exciting to see.

Treasurer’s Report – We haven’t been raising new funds, our current balance is $310. Ryan needs to be added to the bank account at some point to bring us up to 3 signatories. Also needs to transfer the money from Paypal across to the account.

Meetups – The CBD meetups are going to move from every second month to monthly to accommodate the wishes of the attendees, the organizers are going to shop around for a possible new venue. The meetup organizers for the CBD are now Ryan, Sarah and Nikole to help with any issues of running the event monthly now.

Sarah motioned that as part of the inclusiveness we need to start finding out a lot more about accessibility of venues that host meetups and events so people know what to expect regarding things like wheel chair access, toilets etc. Seconded by Jo and passed unanimously this will start to be phased in as soon as possible.

Central Victorian meetups are continuing on a bi-monthly system, they have been growing slowly and we have seen some new faces as well as familiar ones at the meetups.

Ballarat PitP is still running along, although it is now being run by Evelyn who lets us know the dates for the calendar.

The Frankston area meetup is starting to get steam and will be keeping us up to date as things are worked out.

Central Vic Heathens, like the Central Vic meetups are slowly gaining traction and interest.

The Hills meetups have been running great at the new venue with a great turnout

Membership’s – All new memberships were approved unanimously.

2016 & 17 Dates –

Jo motioned for a change to the regularity of committee meetings, that committee meetings are now going to be every two months and that the additional meetings be tacked on to days that meetups are happening so the committee can gather early have a meeting and then enjoy the meetup. Mark seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

The remaining meetings for the committee in 2016 will be on the 26^th of November (Hills location) and 10^th of September (Country location, possibly Castlemaine)

The CBD meets for the start of next year will be (future meet dates for 2017 TBC):

15^th of January (First committee meeting of the year)

19^th of February

19^th of March

16^th of April

2^nd of May

Samhain 2016 – The ritual was an amazing success, as always Seline hosted an easily accessible ritual that fostered a great atmosphere. It was nice to see new faces, some of which were people that had never attended any public ritual before. It looks like Seline wants to host next year’s Samhain too. Unanimously agreed that if Seline wants to host 2017 Samhain then it is hers to run with again.

Pagans in the Park/Pagan Pride Day – Continuing on from previous discussions the idea of Pagan Pride day was raised again. A small working group was assembled (Nikole, Sarah, Shaz and Dorian) to start getting the ball rolling for a possible February date.

Yule Dinner 2016 – Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control (including the sale of the planned venue) the Yule Dinner this year didn’t happen. However we are keen to have another one next year, new venues to be explored and the possibility of a lower price (whether that means only a 2 course meal this time or other options to be explored futher)

PCV Crafts – A new A4 or A5 handout is to be designed (by Mark) and bunting is to be attached so we can start pushing this project. It would be great to have the first section ready for Pagan Pride Day in 2017.

Workshops – There is still a call for workshops that are cheap/free and accessible. We need to approach workshop people and try and see if we can get some of them on board to help with this. We will need to explore what avenues are available for free venues. There could be themes like divination day. Sarah had offered to be co-ordinator for this.

Policy Finalisation – Policies were accepted unanimously as the date for proposed changes had been and gone.

Any Other Business – Dorian has offered to write regular pieces for the newsletter about a different local animal each month.

We are going to trial a What Are You Reading segment in the newsletter, get reviews of what is being read.

The suggested reading page needs an overhaul with some content to be cut and other areas to be expanded, this will happen gradually over the next few months.

Calendar – If a venue or date for an event changes Jo needs to know about it so that she can change it on the calendar so that it is correct. We also need to consider a ban list for people or groups that keep cancelling at the last moment and no longer advertise their events. The calendar gets a lot of hits and we don’t want people getting bad info.

Jo proposed an action that we review the policy for calendar by next meeting, we need to consider redefining what suits the calendar for paganism and have parameters or a policy to cover it. Some of the events being sent for the calendar don’t seem to fit under the pagan umbrella.

MFPG – It would be great if the PCV could supply a person again to run the kids maypole (or a few people)

Sabbats – it would be great if we could run more sabbats, if we could run an event on each of the big sabbats that would be great.

Moons – it was discussed whether we need to offer moon or dark moon rituals, the committee already runs a lot though. The conclusion was that we run a half page ad for the newsletter and see if there are groups interested in running an accessible moon/dark moon ritual preferably in a city location.

A proposed change of wording to PCV friendly businesses so that the policy now reads that when possible a donation would be appreciated.

Meeting End: 2.10PM

The Pagan Collective of Victoria

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Tag Archives: Pagan Pride Day

Onward!

Meeting Minutes: April 8th, 2017

Throughout and About: The PCV in March 2017

The PCV in March 2017

Community Safety Month

Pagan Pride Day

Spiral Dance and KC Guy Concert

Frankston Meets

Monthly Hills Coffee Meets

CBD Pagan Pub Moots

Oak, Smash and Thorn Pagan Morris

PCV Diary Dates:

The Pagan-est Day Ever!

Pagan Pride Day and Spiral Dance Concert

Meeting Minutes, November 2016

Meeting Minutes – July 2016