East Anglia Equinox Gathering
Over the weekend of the spring equinox (March 21 and 22), 24 Friends across East Anglia gathered together for 24 hours in Bury St Edmunds to discuss the twin Earth crises of climate breakdown and world-wide loss of biodiversity. We thought it might be useful to share what we did and what we learnt.
Over the last two years, we have held two day-long regional events. These have worked well, but just meeting for a Saturday only allows so much. With some trepidation, we planned an overnight gathering from 6pm on Friday, March 21 to 5pm on Saturday, March 22. This meant we could have an initial session on Friday in which everyone spoke to some object or theme related to the equinox. On Saturday, we began with singing (facilitated by a skilled natural voice teacher), followed by sessions on support circles for Earth care, witness and nonviolent direct action, and changes we might make as individuals and meetings.
All this went well, so what did we learn that might be useful if you are thinking of organising something similar?
Having the Friday evening made a big difference. It helped us settle and get to know each other. The focus on the equinox helped sharing around equality of light and dark as well as spring. Most Friends travelled home, but six of us slept in the meeting house or were put up by Friends in Bury meeting.
We kept catering to a minimum by buying in vegan food for Friday evening and Saturday lunch from a local cafe. At £12.50 per person per meal this worked well and meant we had no real catering to do.
Keeping the size to 24 people was important. Whilst the meeting house could have accommodated more, the group would have been too big and would have increased the stress on the small organising group of three. However this limit did mean we had to turn some people away.
Finally, we were able to keep the cost low - £25 per person for the whole event, almost all of which was for the external catering. In retrospect, we should have charged a little more to cover extras not provided by the caterers.
Overall, it was a great event and very well supported by the meeting itself. If you are wondering how to support Friends around these difficult and pressing issues, then this kind of simple regional event is one pretty stress-free way of doing it.
Paul Hodgkin