Planning Meeting

Paganistan Reclaiming Bio-Regional Dandelion Gathering

Saturday, March 1, 2014 from 3-5pm
Casa Eugene (Alex Mike & Mel’s house), Minneapolis

Facilitator: Song
Note-taker: Max
Time-keeper: Alex

Present: Song, Alex, Johannah, Bird, Max, Teri, Janet, Katie

Dates for our event have been set by community at prior meeting: the Dandelion Gathering will be Thurs-Sun, Sept 18-21, 2014

Today’s Meeting Agenda and Notes:

1. Venues

We have Hidden Falls covered Picnic Pavilion for Saturday, Sept 20, 2014 from 7:30am to 9:30pm (Thank you Teri!!) — this costs $120 and Teri reserved it for us. A few of us shared the cost, fronted some money towards this (tracked in Finances tab of shared Google doc).

This will include the Fall Equinox full Paganistan Reclaiming ritual at 3pm on that Saturday.

Restrooms — we discussed making signs and changing the available restrooms at Hidden Falls so they are all “All Genders”

Walker Church — Alex has emailed with Jennifer from Walker, and she said she needs to talk with the Trustees first. (Slight update from Alex on March 4th: Alex heard back from Jennifer at Walker, and she is not sure of the final reply yet but hopes to know this week or next week. So far it looks promising but she is waiting for final confirmation from Trustees.)

We are going to wait one week, until March 8, 2014, to hear back from the Walker Church (Alex will email us to report — based on the March 4 note above, we could probably extend this deadline out to March 15).

Walker Church is our first choice for Thurs evening through Sunday afternoon, except Sat all day (Hidden Falls).

If Walker doesn’t work out, here are some other options:

Powderhorn Park building — Alex will contact them as a back-up if Walker Church doesn’t come through

Minnehaha Free Space — perhaps an option, we don’t all love the space, it’s not a super pleasant space. It’s also been hard to get booked in some people’s experience — Janet can contact if needed.

4200 Cedar Building — Bird knows the person to talk with about this space if we decide we want to try using it.

Building right next to MayDay Cafe — Johannah will email someone about this space, just out of curiosity / for reference.

2. Communication

Team: We had established a Communication Team back on Jan 4, 2014 meeting: Glimmer, Teri and Song (Johannah will also be a low-level support person to proofread text, etc.). March 2 update: Glimmer has had to withdraw from the Communications Team. They will set up a communications meeting by April 15, in order to discuss everything under this item (maybe on a Wed). If you want to get involved with the Communications Team, contact Teri to join up. They could use more volunteers who are interested in helping!

Website: By March 15, Song will put up a new “splash” page on the Paganistan Reclaiming website for our Dandelion Gathering. Alex has given Song and Max administrator access to the Paganistan website. Song will use Donald’s artwork and will list the main details/info about Dandelion and our planning, and a way to contact us. It will also include a call out for volunteers (sketching out work groups and a general call). Housing and rides will be part of registration and not up in first round. At some point the website will include an area for updates from any working group. Eventually it will include a way for people to connect in order to request housing / rides. When it’s time, Johannah wants to help put up the bus routes to all the venues. For contact info, we will use the Paganistan Reclaiming email address through Google. Communications team (Song, Teri, Glimmer) will be responsible for checking this email address and respond.

Publicity: We already have beautiful flyers (Thanks Donald and Teri and the rest who helped)! We need to make a Facebook event (Alex will make one right now as we’re meeting today). Consider: Who are we reaching out to? Teri will email it out to the Spider Reclaiming email list, and continue to put it out on the Twin Cities Reclaiming list, the Winter Witch Camp list, the Midwest Reclaiming list, and will send it to someone for the Trillium list. Also the local Twin Cities “Paganistan” list which is a wider pagan email list. Alex will bring some paper flyers to the upcoming March 22 Spring Equinox ritual, and Johannah will write it up on the announcements board at that ritual. We need to do publicity at Paganicon in March and Pagan Pride! Teri is presenting at Paganicon, so she will bring flyers to that event. Also, we all need to continue to tell people about our Dandelion word of mouth! Also, in all publicity and word-of-mouth discussion, continue to encourage people to come and help us plan the event!

3. Volunteers

Clarify teams that we established on Jan 4:
Communications — Teri, Song (& Johannah, support)
Container/Structure/Programming — Paul, Teri, Song, Juli
Hospitality/Hearth — Diane L, Bird, Max, Paul (note: include Children in this? Glimmer?)
Venues — Max, Alex, Bird
Registration — Glimmer, Song, Janet

We will continue to call ourselves “Cheerleading Squad” and this includes Alex, Max, Bird, Teri, Song, Katie. (Johannah and Janet are supporting as well, less centrally). Each of us will attempt to recruit 2 or more new people to help us organize our Dandelion.

Teri will contact the people on the Container/Structure/Programming team to ask them to set up a meeting (after the Communications meeting).

Bird & Max will work on setting up a Hospitality/Hearth meeting and will announce it, inviting new people to join that team/committee.

Each group will set up their meeting and put the date out to others and try to generate interest, getting new people involved.

Registration team will plan to meet sometime in April. Bird will ask Glimmer to set up a registration meeting for sometime before April 15.

Katie has offered to be a “do-be” person from Duluth — she is happy to do things from afar, we can send her stuff.

Ask each sub-group/team/committee to create a list of tasks they will need to do at their first meeting, and put that out there as another way to get others interested in helping organize Dandelion – and just to begin planning.

Volunteer coordinator: Katie has stepped up! She will keep the list of people and tasks and committees and such, keep it organized, and keep us informed.

Also for future announcements: don’t want to join with the early planning, but want to help during the event itself? Contact Katie, and she will add you to the list.

4. Registration

Alex suggested that it would be helpful to know early on the approx number of possible attendees, perhaps get pre-registration up early (even as soon as April), so that by June or July we will know more about numbers for food, etc. We need this to be financially viable. After discussion, we decided to not rush registration since we need more info prior to asking people to register. But we also want to start registration as soon as we can.

Goal: registration will be up by May 1, 2014

We like the idea of “NOTAFLOF — No one turned away for lack of funds” — however, we also know we will have costs and we need people to help pay.

We will be transparent about costs and be clear that we need donations and perhaps will do some fundraising. May help to figure out approx. cost of the event per person.

Future meeting, brainstorm around fundraising, look at our options, what are we going to do about banking,

Money — we may need to have a Paganistan Reclaiming meeting about money and checking account and etc.

Budget — can we create a “real costs” budget ahead of time and share it transparently?

We are the first regional and urban Dandelion, so we’re breaking new ground here. Costs will be lower for us than for the big Dandelions.

Food? Unless we have a committee that is passionate about preparing food and have a commercial kitchen, perhaps we do potluck. Or we could sell food (box lunches, soups, etc.) during the event to help raise $$? Put a call out for hearth witches for this event?

We anticipate the attendance to be around 75-100 people.

Budget? perhaps look at other event budgets from past Dandelions, etc. Categories?

Alex, Katie and Max will work together on budgeting — create a draft budget, work on categories, numbers.

We may or may not need a consensus meeting with wider community, but for sure we need to be as transparent as possible about money and costs.

Is there a non-profit group that can take donations for us so they are tax deductible? Bird suggests ACT – Alliance for Community Trainers (Pagan Cluster folks) – Free Camp has gone through them in the past.

To be very transparent, we’re at a crossroads about food and we’ve identified several options: 1) food is not part of the cost, because people will provide for themselves through bringing their own food and/or potlucks (perhaps have a potluck coordinator). 2) we provide all the food everyone for the whole weekend and find a kitchen for that and include this cost in registration, or 3) some combination of the two. (Walker Church kitchen, Sisters Camelot, Food trucks, etc.) Or someone provides a whole meal, different people/groups take on one meal?

Other cost possibilities: add-on costs? Like, “Mask making workshop, need money for materials” — or something like “I want to create a Red Dragon dinner during Dandelion, and it will cost xxx per person.”

We’re looking for people who are passionate about food, hearth, sustenance, and what they might be willing to contribute to this event. Janet is volunteering to help with food, but not do the whole thing. (This would be Thurs eve through Sun afternoon.)

Johannah will do some brainstorming around food and also will draft a call for food/hearth magic & how to get the message out.

Meeting adjourned at 4:50pm!