Community Resources

Twelve Wild Swans: Suggested Study Group Creation and Outline

1. Pick a date, find a meeting place for the first meeting. Suggest a "gathering time" of at least a half-hour earlier than the "start" time, as this allows some wiggle room for traffic problems, socializing, etc.
2. Put up announcements, flyers, etc. If your group is local to the mid-Atlantic region, you can submit an announcement of your new group to the Spiralheart announcement list by sending an email to sph_announce@yahoogroups.com. You can also have it listed on the website as well; send an email asking for such to sph_announce-owner@yahoogroups.com.
3. Once everyone has arrived and settled at the first meeting, do a round-robin "check-in". Some things you might want them to do is state their name, their exposure to Reclaiming, the length of time they've been a witch/pagan, what they hope to get out of the group, etc.
4. Then discuss the following items:
   1. How often does the group want to meet? Most groups will gather to discuss a single chapter at a meeting... with eight chapters, the group can last for eight weeks if meeting weekly; 16 weeks if bi-weekly, 8 months if meeting monthly, etc. What day to meet? The first Thursday of the month? Alternating Tuesdays & Wednesdays? etc.
   2. Where will the group meet? Will it be at one person's house, or rotate between people, etc?
   3. What time is best? Be sure to pad-in a little socializing time at the beginning of the meeting.
   4. The book has exercises... do folks want to do the work on their own, and just report back to the group, or does the group want to do one or two of the exercises together at the meeting? If the group wants to do the work together, here are a few more issues to consider:
      • how to choose two people to "co-swan" (lead) the exercise. Having two people lead is in keeping with the Reclaiming tradition of power-sharing.
      • decide if the group lets the co-swans choose the exercise, or of the group determines the exercise.
      • decide if the group wants to work with a single track of exercises (i.e. Inner Track only), or feel okay with "hopping around" the various exercises in the book.
   5. Will this group be open to new people throughout it's existence, or will it be closed after the first chapter?
   6. Anything else that comes to mind that may be of importance to your specific group (i.e. childcare during the meetings, etc).
5. Be sure to get everyone's name, email, and/or phone#, and make copies to pass around at the next meeting (so folks can contact each other if they can't make the meeting). If everyone has email, you might want to consider creating an email list at http://groups.yahoo.com (and it's free!), in order to send directions, let folks know if they need to bring certain items to the next meeting, etc.

Here's an example of one group's decision on structure:

Other items:

If this is to be a weeknight evening gathering, plan on having some food available at the first meeting, and then suggest that at subsequent meetings, folks bring munchies to share -- folks don't always have time to get supper before the meeting.

If there are people who are not familiar with Reclaiming and/or witchcraft (and who'd like to co-swan), you may want to pair them up with a more experienced member so they get a taste of cooperative planning in the Reclaiming style of things.

[Original outline by Julie Rabbit, and expanded/modified by Deborah. Please feel free to email Deborah if you have questions regarding this suggested outline.]

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