Pagansoc

Ruadan

umm, this seems about the best place to find this information, i'm flirting with the idea of setting up a university society for next year, heres our societies website

http://www.socs.nuigalway.ie/index.php

It'd be along the lines of a real world version of this forum, a place for people (pagans, druids, wiccians[sp], polytheistsetc) to discuss their own ideas and hear the ideas of others, everyone would be welcome, whatever their religion to discuss the ideas, listen to speakers etc. i'm not sure if i'll get permission as it could be said that the functionn is met in other societies like philosophy.

So basically i'm looking for advice, mabie someone knows of simelar societies or groups on or off campus elsewhere? i've heard that UCD and UL had simelar societies, but have been unable to find any information.

Thanks in advance

Ru.

Nevyn

http://www.csn.ul.ie/~pagansoc/index.html
http://www.netsoc.ucd.ie/~pagansoc/comittee.htm

are the two websites:)

I'd suggest getting intouch with the groups and asking for advice on setting up.
You may to need enquire if relgious based soc will be permistted on campus to begin with. You may also nned a member or facultiy or staff to sponsour the
soc, which may get a bit tricky as a lot of people are not 'out' in thier professional lives about thier beliefs.

I'd also suggest trying to network with some older members of the pagan community living over there and having them do workshops and offer advice.

Good luck wth your endevours.

Ruadan

You legend!

The religious thing shouldn't be a problem, keeping my family in the dark probably will be. I'm gonnah be speakiong to our societies chair about this soon, and get some help from like minded/ bored/ open minded/ high friennds of mine

Hopefully next semester we'll be all active and stuf.

Talliesin

Ruadan wrote:

keeping my family in the dark probably will be

Okay, part of me thinks "this guy should really wait until he's cool with his family knowing about that part of his life before he starts running a society".

But then another part of me thinks "Shut up Jon, you hypocrite. You weren't out to your mum when you got roped into running your college LGB society".

Eh, the first voice probably is the wiser even if I haven't followed the same wisdom myself

NeilJ

I wasn't out of the broom closet when I co-founded the UCD Pagan Soceity. I personally think it all comes down to the situation and the people involved. I will say however that you'd better be prepared to ascept the consequences of your actions. In other words if you're gonna do something like setup a society be realistic and consider the possibility that there's a reasonable chance that you're parents will find out and that you should be prepared to deal with the situation if it arrises.

Neil

Suaimhneach

I'd love to start a soc in DCU, but I have no idea how to get in touch with like minded individuals here. Its a terrible shame.

Good luck with your plans tho.

Nevyn

D.C.U. does have a wonderful inter faith centre you could start by putting up a notice there and maybe have a meeting. There also used to be a book of toughts in the prayer/mediation room there. If it is still there why not write a note about your beliefs and you never know who will answer.

Also there is redbrick
A simple search for wicca brought up 6 hits in under 2 seconds

and why not post something up on the D.C.U. forum here.

Ruadan

Talliesin wrote:

Okay, part of me thinks "this guy should really wait until he's cool with his family knowing about that part of his life before he starts running a society".

But then another part of me thinks "Shut up Jon, you hypocrite. You weren't out to your mum when you got roped into running your college LGB society".

Eh, the first voice probably is the wiser even if I haven't followed the same wisdom myself

simelar voices floating about in my head, one says why are you doing this, its risky and you could just as easily audit Philsoc next year, the other sayingh, man you want to do this and it'd be a good oppertunity to sit them down and go " mam, dad i have something to say" (they'll think i'm gay, i think they still think i am [i'm not btw] stupid rumours)........anyway its hard to ignore either.

But when you live a double life for 6 years you get used to it, I've never gone out of my way to hide the distain i hold for the closed ritualistic inaccerssable catholic church, but they all seem happy to view me as a liberal cynical catholic.

Stops me being kicked out of the house and stuff which would leave me with an unfinished education.....

NeilJ

Good places to find Pagans: Gaming Societies, Reinactment Societies, Folklore Societies. Don't know what DCU's like for these kind of groups but when I was recruiting people to make up my committe last year I went straight to the UCD Game Soc. It's terrible sterotype but unfortunately also a true one. But seriously if you're planning on setting up a Pagan Society all you need is a couple of friends who're willing to help you with the work. Once you start doing stuff you quickly get members.

Neil

Ruadan

At the moment it looks like i'm gonnah be manning one of the "new soicieties" stalls in september, like with many societies we'll put an EGM on the week after societies day and elect a comittie(sp).

All i have to do is find 15 students to sighn a petition saying the society is a good idea, and people are used to seing me with petitions now, 2 SU nominations and about 3 environmental cammpaighns this year, should be simple to get em. *crosses fingers*

Nevyn

NeilJ wrote:

Good places to find Pagans: Gaming Societies, Reinactment Societies, Folklore Societies. Don't know what DCU's like for these kind of groups but when I was recruiting people to make up my committe last year I went straight to the UCD Game Soc. It's terrible sterotype but unfortunately also a true one.

Yes, for there you will find people with imagination
(They dare to see how things maybe different)
Who have pretty good visualisation skills,
(You need them to see the imagined world to play in)
Who have pretty good communications skills,
(To debate and discuss matters from the best way to kill the ogre to more complex issues)
Who can work together with the people they are with to wards a goal,
(The party pulls together and co operates or their characters die)
Who are used to the concept of many gods or god in many forms and religious tolerance,
And have a sense of humor, and are used to figuring out the moral issues and consequences behind their action both in their life and while playing games.

But then again I may be prejudiced for I am both a gamer and a pagan and sometimes
even a pagan gamer. I was in DCU over the weekend at their SOCS silicon convention and it was a lot of fun.

Rozie

UL's pagansoc sort of went down the pan. I was involved in running it, and frankly, I didn't get appreciated at all and just got bitched at and blamed for it failing.

Maybe it'll start up again next year. All the cool people left/graduated though.

NeilJ

If you don't mind me asking what exactly went wrong? Also what kind of events were you guys running down there?

Neil

Nevyn

guys please it this dicussion is going to get bitchy or naming names I would suggest you takit to PMs ok ?

Thanks

NeilJ

Of course. Don't mean to start a bitch-fest, just curious as to what happened. If problems occur in any of the other newly formed uni Pagansocs I'd like to know to give a heads up to the new auditor of UCD pagansoc. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Neil

Rozie

NeilJ wrote:

Of course. Don't mean to start a bitch-fest, just curious as to what happened. If problems occur in any of the other newly formed uni Pagansocs I'd like to know to give a heads up to the new auditor of UCD pagansoc. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Neil

Basically, it was set up by mainly 4th years last year, and they all graduated. Never got a lot of new people in. It's very difficult. There was a lot of internal squabbles among UL Pagans too.

It should work better in a bigger college, really. And try not to get any people who have strong personal grudges into high positions. Pagans can be bitchy like that.

Nevyn

College soc really do need a cross sections form different years to keep them going, harder to do with a Pagansoc when it can be hard to welcome new people in to talk and share and talk about you beliefs too.

NeilJ

Yeah I have to agree. We've been really lucky with UCD in that we have a committee made up of people in many different years and we've been able to get some 1st years onto the committee this year who will hopefully stay involved as they continue their studies. I think our biggest problem has been the high level of newbies in our membership and the lack of experienced pagans showing interest. It was really frustrating during Freshers Week when when blatantly experienced pagans where coming up to our stand asking what we were planning for the year and then walking off without joining!!! But hopefully now that we've had a successful first year this will begin to change. What kind of events did UL PaganSoc manage to run?

Neil

Nevyn

NeilJ wrote:

It was really frustrating during Freshers Week when when blatantly experienced pagans where coming up to our stand asking what we were planning for the year and then walking off without joining!!!

I guess they don't want to be teaching others or feel that they would want to
do more the talk. Why not set an agenda for the year with set dates for set
topical dicussions, ie base it arround the wheel of the year. So that it can be seeen that there is a timetable and try get some speakers in as well. That way you have a listing of events instead of seemingly just just a talk shop

NeilJ

I guess that a timetable of topics might help, I don't really know. The way we done it was that if we started brushing off a different topic in a moot, that became the topic for the next one. But we also had workshops and talks during the year with guest invited to lead the event. The only problem is trying to run events that would suit different types of pagans. Also if you don't have feedback from members then you don't know what events they'd like to be run which makes things more difficult again. Now that we have a functioning website I'm hoping we'll start getting more feedback from members.

Neil

Ruadan

In 2 years of arsing about with societies i've found that often the best way to get feedback is post meetinng when the society retires to a pub, everyone gets everything out in the open, uninhibited like.

Nevyn

I'm not saying you fill up eavery meeting just even sort out and list on events for shamin, yule, and beltaine. People want to see that a soc is active and fun and has it'self organised.