Because the Rainbow Gathering has no leaders, no board of directors, no staff and no one in charge of anything, we depend on people working together to do all the preparation for the gathering in 2015. So over the years a process has come together to make sure that planning is open to everyone who wants to be involved.
The year starts off with Thanksgiving Council or T-Council over the four day weekend of the same name. This is a time for people interested in plugging in, talking about visions for the gathering, discussing scouting, strategies about legal issues, etc. to get together.
T-Council generally takes place in the state or region where we will be gathering. It's usually a camp, cook, council, share heart songs kinda of thing. Often but not always, the people at T-Council pick the dates for the Scout Rendezvous and Spring Council. Often times a PO box is established for snail mail and a banking council is formed to deal with any donations.
As with all things Rainbow, no experience is necessary, just a willingness to participate. Keep in mind this is not a gathering, it's a working council and the way this council unfolds sets the tone for the gathering.
Generally folks in the area take the lead on finding a place to hold T-Council. As we prepared for the gathering in 2014, we struggled to find people in the consented to states to focalize T-Council. We ended up with weekly conference calls by interested people before finally determining where to go. Given the number of areas included in the consensus for 2015, seem to me that folks in all these states should start holding weekly conference calls to come to some common understanding sooner rather than later.
I'm hoping that there will be a real mix of generations at T-Council. We need older people, we need younger people, we need more experienced gatherers and we need less experienced gatherers to come together to create a vision for a peaceful, healing and fun gathering in 2015. Be the change you want to see in this world.
For the location of this year's Thanksgiving Council, click here.
problem with this years consensus is that it includes such a large area I believe it will be difficult to find consensus amongst the players on where to hold TGC or Sp...so far there appears to be 3 camp's ...each intransigent each insisting the gathering be in their respective areas ...this attitude cannot lead to anything other that disagreement on TGC locations...which of course would lead to further strife
ReplyDeleteLast year at this time we were having similar issues. Based on the advice of some long time gatherers, we started having the weekly conference calls and that helped alot. I'm hoping that some in or near these areas start doing this as well. I would gladly spread the word if someone closer in geography would focalize this effort. If anyone reading this is willing to focalize the calls, feel free to reach out to me for advice.
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ReplyDeleteHey there all! North Western Indiana Rainbows are gung ho to scout the UP along with Turtle Soupers. Northern Michigan has beautiful sites. The local amoeboid of Rainbows is the South Bend Kidz Kitchen. There are scouts ready to head north, but being the broke a$$ hippies we are there are always more people willing to go than there vehicles and gas cash to get there. Our fall gathering in Manistee (which is not at all big enough to host nationals) produced a lot of conversation about the Upper Peninsula. We have participants who have hiked and scouted the area in past years, what I need is a good stick to lever them up out of their warm homes and up into the cold north. Feedback from the older heads tells us not to scout land when the land is frozen (that's how you end up accidentally camped on a swamp) so we're looking at another few weeks of viable scouting before the rest has to happen after the melt. We have maps, we have Google Earth, we have continued and beloved assistance from the Turtle Soup Kitchen. Open to advice on how to get the word out.
ReplyDeleteHi Cassandra,
DeleteSounds wonderful. Email me at k z i r k at e a r t h l i n k dot n e t and I'll put you in touch with other people working on this effort.
There will be an open invite conference call next week, Sunday October 26th at 8PM (Eastern) for anyone who has potential sites they want to present. Specific details to follow.
ReplyDeleteI meant for TGC, sorry Im in the zone right now :) LOL
ReplyDeleteAny update on what happened at t-council?
ReplyDeleteThe notes I have received are posted at http://midwestornewenglandgathering2015.blogspot.com/2015/01/thanksgiving-council-notes.html
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