Covenstead Suggestions?

[Ivy Artemisia]

Our group just lost our meeting place, as one of our members left our group to pursue another path. We used to meet at her house. All of our other members live in apartments, and none of us have the space to circle. For meetings, it works okay... but for circle- we just don't have the room. We are small, but not small enough to fit in a teeny apartment living room.

I'd love to buy or rent a house, but thats not in my budget ATM. I'm already checking out the UU churches near us.... and the parks aren't really that safe at night. We've had the police called on us (even though we were permitted), and thats really disruptive to circle.

Can anyone suggest anywhere else I should check out?

[Nitefalle]

How often do you meet for ritual? Is it just the Sabbats? Or do you meet for full moons as well?

[Ivy Artemisia]

We celebrate both Sabbats and Full Moons- though dedicants join us for Sabbats so its a bigger group. This Autumn, we are opening up to new students/dedicants, and we may grow to 8 or 10 people, max. We also have a monthly meeting/training, but than can usually be done at someones home or the park depending on the weather.

[PandoraHealer]

hmmm..... hon, i think you're stuck for a while...
Are you able to move furniture at all?

Maybe at your next meeting, you can talk about who would have the most room after some furniture is moved--- slide the couch back... move the recliner... end tables... etc...

hope you figure something out...

PH

[Nitefalle]

Well, maybe you could split it up? For the most frequent circles, you could just try and move some furniture. But for Sabbats, maybe there's a state park inside or just outside city limits where you could "rent" a campfire space for the day? Or just moderately hike in until you found a clearing to celebrate? A group of mine did the same thing for Beltane one year because I lived at home and they all lived in apartments and none were big enough for us.

[Darbla]

Is having 2 circles a possibility? Half of you at one apartment and half at another? Switch up who goes to which each month so everybody mingles with everybody?

[Ivy Artemisia]

Well, maybe you could split it up? For the most frequent circles, you could just try and move some furniture. But for Sabbats, maybe there's a state park inside or just outside city limits where you could "rent" a campfire space for the day? Or just moderately hike in until you found a clearing to celebrate? A group of mine did the same thing for Beltane one year because I lived at home and they all lived in apartments and none were big enough for us.

Thats a good idea... I'll look into it. The closest "state park" is the beach (we are lucky to live in So Cal). Some of the fire rings are super close together, but I saw this weekend that at Bolsa Chica beach, that isn't the case. Too bad we have to be there at 6AM to get a ring for the evening (no kidding!) But what a great idea for a "beach day". Nitefall, you gave me an awesome idea! Maybe once we open up for dedicants, we'll have a beach day and drum circle and ritual.

I wish we had the opportunity to 'hike in' but it takes at least an hour to get to the mountains, and I'm trying to make it be an hour or less to get to our circle site, as on esbats we meet on the evening of the moon, tho on sabbats we meet on a saturday. Thanks for the ideas!! We have some regional parks, and I'll heck out any cool possibilities. It will take literal legwork, but it will be worth it. :)

[Ivy Artemisia]

Is having 2 circles a possibility? Half of you at one apartment and half at another? Switch up who goes to which each month so everybody mingles with everybody?

This is a great idea! If we had a large group, this would totally work out (Im noting in case I ever land in charge of a big group), but since our group is small, this might not work... but it IS a good idea, and would be a good training exercise for the person who leads the other circle. Awesome idea. Thanks so much!

[patch]

Do local places hae function rooms for rent?

[Jenett]

Different options that might work:

1) Look at actual physical arrangements:

I live in a tiny little house (400 square feet) and my front room is about 8 x 10 feet (far smaller than most standard apartment living rooms.) We can still fit 6-7 people in here for circle *if* all my furniture other than the bookshelves can be moved to other parts of the house, the altar and quarter altars are as small as possible, and if we're thoughtful about how we design ritual.

All of these are possible, so we do them - we just need to do a little adjustment (people move slightly as circle is cast, to allow the person casting to walk the circle without hitting anyone, etc.)

2) Free meeting room space:
You may find that there are community centers or coffee shops or things like that which have free meeting space. The problem with these, however, is that they often have limited access (i.e. the place closes at some point) and depending on the set-up, you may have far less privacy.

The group I trained with did this for 4 years, until my HPS moved into space that allowed her to have a group temple space in her home. But we couldn't use candles or incense, and we couldn't turn out the lights (they were on the same circuit as other meeting rooms), and we couldn't bring in outside food and drink - honestly, these things caused limitations in the ritual far more frustrating to me than the space ones in my own home now. (your mileage may vary: this kind of thing depends on what you want to do.)

3) Rental spaces:
Besides UU churches (good option), check out and see if you have any Quaker meetings who rent space (note that the energy signature there may be very 'quiet': any ritual I've done in those spaces goes wonderfully if it's designed to be quiet and reflective, but doing extensive energy raising often flops.)

Another option is to look for community centers: sometimes their fees are reasonable and they have reasonable limits on what you can do.

4) IF you have trouble with the police being called outside, etc. try being proactive - talk to the park staff and the police for that area, and ask what you can do to avoid problems. Maybe it's as simple as explaining what you're doing, and them knowing what's up (so if they do get a call from someone, they'll show up quietly, go "oh, yeah, you lot, and you have a permit because you called us about it earlier this week" and go away again without bothering you. This depends a lot on your area, of course, but this is how our local park police handled it: they'd drive by, go "Oh, yeah. Them." and drive on.