This last week we had a crisis on the WI Pagan email list. Due to complaints one of the subscribers was removed from the list. This caused an incredible number of posts mostly upset about not having a say in what happened. Suddenly people discovered that there was a list owner with the authority to kick someone off and they were mightily offended. Someone was already calling for a new list and complaining that there had been no reply from the list owner to the uproar when it had only been 5-6 hours since the discussion began. The list owner was at work and unable to do list email until he returned home in the evening. He had not even seen the messages yet. This seemed to me to be a good example of our society's emphasis on immediate gratification. And email has exasperated that. We expect a nearly immediate response and often get it. There is a heightened sense of immediacy that this gives to situations which may not require it at all.
Friday evening we had our Madison area Pagan Tea & Talk and discussed trying some changes to make it a little more welcoming to newcomers. One suggestion was to have rotating volunteers to keep an eye out for newbies. The greeters would talk to them and introduce them around. Another thing we are going to try is to have some focused discussions on a topic in a back room so that we can have structure for those who want it and non-structured chitchat in the front room for those who prefer that. The discussion will have a different facilitator each time, volunteers from the participants. Hopefully this will breathe new life into the event. I also found out that the neighborhood center is getting new management. The new management seems to be shaking things up so that the people that we have been dealing with have resigned. At the same time a man who has been acting as the liason for us has had a schedule change and I will be dealing with it now. I don't know whether the changes will be a problem for us or not. Previously we were on a donation basis so that we were able to collect donations and pay whatever we collected. Now we are expected to pay an hourly fee whether we manage to collect it or not. We will have to decrease the number of hours from 3 to 2 in order to be sure that we can cover the cost. Finding a new place to meet is difficult in the area.
Copyright © 2001 Kyril Oakwind