HOW MANY FAERIES DOES IT TAKE TO RUN A GATHERING?

Studies have shown that faeries who are well fed and cared for are more secure, open-hearted and available for any sort of magic. These logistical tasks accomplished provide that basic "nurtured feeling" for campers coming to Destiny. These are "guidelines" developed through observation and participation to plan a smooth, nurturing gathering. These are not rules. There are other roles not mentioned here having to do with fearie culture and spirituality but those we entrust to the faeries who gather. Faeries who volunteer for these roles early prevent breakdowns and burn-outs among the over-committed, helping to make sanctuary safer for all including "the organizers."

And just because you take on a task doesn't mean you're shackled to it but you are responsible to see it gets done. Ask new people to help. Asking is friendly and invites more people into the sphere of "provider" thus enhancing the whole gathering.

Gathering is not a few faeries throwing a party. Gathering is a time for us to experiment with living in community. Many hands make for very light work. So consider how you can help with these chores and make more room for magick and sanctuary together.

"Staffing" for a gathering.

Gathering Coordinator/Contact Person
Gathering Caller
Travel Coordinator
Welcome Wagoneers
Parking Dom
Money Faerie
Water Faerie
La Composta
Fire Faerie
Lighting Designer
Hand Washing Stations Attendant
Kitchen Kween
Prep Slaves
Dishwashers
Clean up Diva
Gathering Listkeeper

Some roles are small, so feel free to take on two. Some tasks may need to be shared. Multitasking is encouraged, but every faerie is encouraged to share enough of the work to keep everyone comfortable and safe.

Gathering Coordinator/Contact Faerie

The Gathering Coordinator and/or Contact faerie provide the internal management for the gathering. The Contact Faerie primarily takes calls from virgin faeries considering coming to their first gathering. This faerie needs to be on task early, prior to the gathering. With circle input, the Coordinator drafts a budget and timeline, solicits participation from other faeries to help with gathering tasks and ensures that the basics are being done throughout the gathering. This faerie ensures there is a Money Faerie to collect income and receipts and requests for reimbursements, and organizes receipts for the Money Plan-it. This faerie is also responsible for ensuring that all receipts, including cash, checks and in-kind donation receipts are turned over to the Money Plan-it for accounting. This faerie also often introduces dinner circles and coordinates announcements and activities.

This faerie's name is listed in the gathering call with phone and e-mail contacts.
See: "Person Per Day Budgeting Tool"
"Gathering Planning Worksheet Timeline and Budget"
"Gathering Tasks Voluneteer Worksheet"

Gathering Caller

This faerie is responsible for the design, production and distribution (by mail and email) of the Gathering Call. See gathering call guidelines below. Postcard calls may be the new option to a "typical" call to save money.

Travel Coordinator

This faerie assists faeries with getting to the land. This faerie should be familiar with local transportation. This faerie is not a bus or taxi driver, but is responsible for coordinating pick-ups at train and bus stations and for ensuring that faeries have the directions they need to reach the sanctuary.
See: "Emergency Contacts and Resource Information"

Welcome Wagoneers

We all meet and greet and are especially keen to newcomers, but these Welcome Wagoneers are appointed to welcome new faces and offer information to virgin faeries. "Yes, this is the place, there is a nice camping area, make yourself at home and in an hour or so we'll be gathering in a circle to say hello before dinner". The Parking Dom can also be a Welcome Wagoneer. These faeries also assure signage for directions, maps for guidance, and posting of events on the chalkboard/bulletin board.
See: "Map of Destiny"

Parking Dom

The Parking Dom greets carloads during peak arrival time and makes sure parking is tight and orderly. It is a fun task for someone who wants to discipline faeries.

Money Faerie

Collects money, checks and receipts and gives them to Gathering Coordinator. Dispenses and accounts for "cash expenses" during the gathering and announces at each circle the request for "$20 a day; more if you can, less if you can't." See: "Person Per Day Budgeting Tool"

Water Faerie

Because Destiny has no well or plumbing, each faerie is asked to bring water for their own consumption with them to gatherings. The Water Faerie makes sure the water flows and supplies are adequate. Water jugs are available to fill at local vendors with outside water sources. There is a 50 gallon drum of spring water at the Kitchen for drinking, too. See: "Numbers and Resources"

La Composta

Bridget the Fire Faerie

Shares flame management with lighting designer. Bridget fills, refills propane tanks, assesses the cut wood inventory to keep the home fires burning and recruits other Fire signs to gather the wood and prepare the fires. See: "Emergency Contacts and Resource Information"

Lighting Designer

Flame manager where lighting is concerned. This faerie checks and refills torch fuel, candles and lanterns before the gathering, lights kitchen area and paths at dusk during gatherings, especially when there's no moon light and keeps the lights along the far path to ritual circles and labyrinth as for events. Luminarios are delightful for lighting paths and ritual spaces at night.

Hand Washing Stations Attendant

Hand-washing is very important to keep us healthy. This faerie tends gathering hand-washing by managing the stations at the toilets and kitchen and reminding faeries to use them.
We use 3 pans for wash stations
v soapey
v bleachey
v vinagery
See: "Hand Washing Stations"

Kitchen Kween

The Kitchen Kween orchestrates dinner menus, food purchasing, and food preparation. The Kitchen Queen is not responsible for all of the meal preparation but facilitates meals by encouraging willing faeries to prepare meals that are nourishing to the body and soul. The Kitchen Queen is identified in the Gathering Call is well-advised to solicit other faeries early to assist, plan meals, shop, chop and ensures clean-up gets done after meals and at the end of the gathering. See: "Kitchen Guide"

Prep Cooks

Harken to the beckon call of the Kitchen Kween or Cook for the day or evening. This task is usually filled at the gathering.

Dishwashers

It's pretty self-explanatory right? But setting up the dish-washing station for the gathering is an essential public health task. See: "Kitchen Guide" "Dish Washing" "Water Supply" "Kitchen Set-Up"

Clean-up

Everyone is asked to help with clean-up during and at the end of the gathering. Gathering Plan-it members are especially responsible. See: "Kitchen Guide" "Closing down the land"

Gathering Listkeeper

This faerie collects names and contact information throughout the gathering and coordinates with the Money Faerie. This faerie also ensures the Gathering List is distributed after the gathering in a timely fashion. Encourage faeries to write legibly, and to provide names to which the post office will deliver and to note new people and changes of address. The List is sent via e-mail and snail mail. Media Plan-it and Tribal Memory Plan-it should also get copies of the Gathering List for Destiny's data base and archives. 

A copy of the gathering list form.  

Person Per Day Budget Equation

The Person Per Day Budget Equation is a handy tool for estimating gathering expenses. People come and go, especially during longer gatherings, so the PPD Equation provides a more accurate cost estimate than calculating from the total number of attendees over the course of a gathering. It also helps ensure meal planning is adequate for busier meals.

To estimate expenses, multiply the total number of people per day by of $8 per person. Use previous year's attendance numbers to estimate attendance.

example:
Friday 30 attendees
Saturday 50 attendees
Sunday 50 attendees
Monday 30 attendees
equals 160 PPD X $8 = $1280 (expense estimate)

We ask for $20 a day for gatherings. The average is more like $10 a day. To estimate revenue, use the total PPD and multiply by this $10 figure. This gives you a buffer zone for your budget. When gatherings cost less than they bring in, they become fundraisers:
160 PPD X $10 = $1600 potential income less $1280 expenses equals $320 net profit!

After a gathering, you can determine the average amount paid per person if you know the actual number of people who attend each day.

$2000 total income divided by 175 PPD = $11.43 (average paid per person per day)

This all may seem very fussy but it really helps get a realistic number for budgeting for a gathering and planning over time.

GATHERING GUIDELINES:

a little bit of Faerie Camp Destiny's traditional knowledge

Following are a few guidelines Faerie Camp Destiny asks you to follow while on the land. We try to gather gently on the land. Please take out anything you bring in. "Don't let it hit the ground" is our borrowed mantra for keeping the Sanctuary clean. Please seek tenting spots that are designated or cause as little impact as possible. Clean your campsite before you depart.

Be mindful of our neighbors. We try to bring any musical volume down at 11ish and even further at midnight. Park only on our property. Don't use soaps in the stream. Instead, use soap on the soil away from the water. Nudity in Vermont is legal, but the law states that nude people not be visible to unsuspecting passersby.

A Gathering Call should go out by mail and email at least four weeks prior to the gathering. Six weeks notice is even better. It takes about a week to create, lick, stick and mail. Two months isn't too early to start greasing the gathering wheels. The Mailing List is held by the Media Plan-it. Calls are also posted on the website.

Who:

Faerie Camp Destiny's gatherings are open to anyone who wants to participate in faerie culture. We come together in respect to nurture community. Women, men, boys and girls and all those in between of all shapes, sizes, hues, classes and genders are invited to attend. The Circle of Faerie Camp Destiny strives to be an ecumenical community and empowers individuals to partake of and shape gathering culture and faerie culture at large. The Heart Circle is the place to communicate your desires for that culture.

Only gatherings that are called with a specific intention, for example, "Wicca Wonderland" will operate outside these principles of inclusion. Specifically called gatherings or workshops may also require pre-registration and may limit attendance. When such a call goes out we ask for faerie indulgence to create a specific safe space. Faeries who desire to shape gatherings and workshops are encouraged to participate.

What:

The gathering call will communicate a gathering's specific focus, intention or theme. This might be specific ritual work, organizational work, holidays, special times of the year. The Call shares the "plans" for the gathering to help prepare drag as well as personal intention.

Gatherings are a collective process. Faeries are encouraged to participate in any level they are comfortable. Review the Gathering Tasks and think about how you can contribute. If chores are not your thing, offer a workshop about something you in which you are well-versed. Bring chocolates for Fire Circles. Water the drummers at Fire Circles. Those who attend really shape the feel of the gathering and how it is "pulled off."

When:

The Circle of Faerie Camp Destiny asks that faeries who plan to be on the land outside gathering times contact the Gathering Plan-it or Land-use Plan-it. The Gathering Plan-it calls 3-4 gatherings each season. Other gatherings and workshops may be called by individuals, Plan-its, or clusters of faeries.

Where:

For directions to Faerie Camp Destiny, e-mail the Coordinator of the gathering or any denizen of the Gathering Plan-it.

When driving to FCD, please be gentle on our steep gravel lane coming up to the parking lot. On the lower parcel, the road is typically muddy. Beware. Park only in the upper parking lot.p

Ride sharing is strongly encouraged as parking facilities are limited. Post on the Faerie Camp Destiny list-serve when you have space in a vehicle or need a lift.

Train connections can be made to Bellows Falls, VT on Amtrak. Bus service available to Brattleboro. When you opt to travel this method, contact Gathering Coordinators or any listed Travel Coordinators.

What to bring:

WATER for drinking, a gallon, per person, per day. Tent, sleeping bag, camping gear, love potions/notions, towels, warm clothes, rain gear, flashlights and extra batteries, drag, drums and instruments, earplugs for gentle sleepers, snacks if you are hypoglycemic or get cranky and yell if a meal is running late, checkbook or cash to pay your gathering fee, bug stuff (just in case).
Especially bring an open heart.

The Land:

Faerie Camp Destiny is 166 acres of re-growth forest with wood-heated yurt and temporary camping Kitchen. Guests are asked to bring tents for sleeping and residing on the land. If one stays in the Yurt, one is subject to the stampede of the gathering since the space is public and the only shelter during rain. Please prepare yourself and your belongings for this possibility.

The land has a number of trails and old logging roads. There is a trail to the very top of the mountain. There are 3 fire circles where we allow for fires-the Kitchen, the Crone Circle, and the Upper Fire Circle. If you build a fire at the sweat lodge, please notify the local Fire Marshall to prevent arrival of firetrucks.
See: "Emergency Contacts and Resource Information"

There are Port-o-Pots in the parking lot. In the event of an emergency, if you can't make it to them please, bury your poop in a six inch hole. Pee anywhere you like-well, almost anywhere.

Faerie Camp Destiny is bordered by a river at the bottom of the mountain. Please be especially aware of this fragile ecosystem. Soap up on the soil away from the stream. Rinse on the soil as well.

Heart Circles:

Gatherers are encouraged to instigate and participate in Heart Circles. These typically begin in the morning. This is the place to connect at the start of the day. Announcements are made regarding Gathering chores at the start of the circle followed by a couple of "go 'rounds." Topics are sometimes facilitated but may also evolve naturally.

Pet policy:

Please only bring pets who can behave well in community with faeries, and other animals, especially those who live there year round. Please pick up after you pet, and that means disposing of their feces in a trash container (as opposed to a recycling container). If you bring a pet be mindful of their impact on others' experience of Sanctury.

Smoking:

If you are a smoker, please, pick up after yourself. Since Destiny has no designated smoking section, consider smoking away from the eating areas or Heart Circles. No smoking in the kitchen or the yurt.

Faerie Camp Destiny discourages abuse of alcohol and drugs. Please consider those faeries who struggle with addiction and who are challenged by use at gatherings.