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Congregationalist Wiccan Association of BC 5-10282 132nd Street Surrey, British Columbia V3T 3T7 www.cwabc.org

#41 January 2010 c.e.

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Vancouver-Burnaby Yule altar

Vancouver-Burnaby Temple: December 2009c.e. - January 2010.

Dear friends,This month is the end of a frustrating and difficultyear for our Temple. Key members and friends of theTemple – our former Priestess Sabrina, several regularattendees of our Open Circles, friends in thecommunity – suffered illness and dropped out of involvement. Others drifted away as the overstrainedremaining core people tried to juggle personal andorganizational lives and were unable to keep in touch.The Vancouver-Burnaby Temple was not alone inhaving difficulties, of course – to some extent theeconomic spasms of the last year effected all of ourchurch and all of our friends. But just as the largersociety seems to be slowly pulling itself out of thetrough, the Temple is again showing signs of renewal.Because we were not able to meet at our usuallocation, the Temple Yule was a small private circle in

Temple ReportsCWA Festival in Works!

Dear friends,This is the early warning that theCongregationalist Wiccan Association will beorganizing a weekend campout and festival for thissummer in the Okanagan.We will have rituals, workshops, discussion,drumming and dancing around the fire, network building. Although the festival will be organized by usand will have quite a lot of our ideas and issues, itwill be open to members of the general public aswell.Although details need to be worked out andsuggestions are very much welcomed - send them tosable@thethreadsthatbindus.net - members of theCWABC will get a cheaper rate on the fees andpriority in scheduling of workshops and rituals. If youare a member now, we welcome your involvement.If your membership has lapsed, this is a good time torenew it. And if you are not a member and you areinterested, please talk to the Secretary of your localTemple or to samwagar@shaw.ca about qualifying.Members will also get discounts on speakers andworkshops that are offered through the year.Watch this space for more information!

2the Priest’s home with seven people in attendance.Good conversation, shared food, a little wine, and aritual celebrating the rebirth of the sun. The ritual wasbased on the descent of the Goddess Inanna to theunderworld from Sumerian mythology, andparticipants gave up all of the important parts of theirlives and then took them up again renewed andrenamed as we descended and then rose again withHer. The only child in attendance, Brigit behavedremarkably well for a not-quite two year old, withSam carrying her around as her parents went to theUnderworld!Our Priestess Cameron and I were honoured toperform a handfasting on December 29

. I loveperforming marriages and this couple were charming,the location, in Stanley Park, was really pretty and itwas a beautiful day - everything came together to bea magickal and uplifting experience. When theGoddess gives the chance to do something nice for acouple of people in love like that, we are blessed.That feeling is a good one to start a new year with.This gives us new energy for rejuvenating theTemple. We are switching from meeting on Sabbatsto meeting near the Full Moons, so our first OpenCircle of the new decade was on January 9th at theCommunity Meeting Room in Metrotown /MetropolisMall, above the Sears store, and the next one will beon the 29th, same location, 7 pm to about 8:30.The January 9th meeting honoured the GoddessAthena and had eight people in attendance. Cameronwrote the first version of the ritual and thencollaborated with Sam in expanding it from a privatedevotion to a community ritual. We enjoyed havingIsabella and her parents as well as a visit from Justin,formerly of Penticon Temple, and several coremembers from the Yule ritual.Organizing the Temple lending library so thatpeople can begin to borrow books, DVDs and CDsfrom it is an ongoing process. A few new books havebeen added and another CD.The Pagan Singles Meetup group will be meetingfor the first time in mid-January. People areencouraged to joinwww.meetup.comand then thegroup for updates. We are likely to bounce around fora while before finding a regular meeting place thatworks for us.Sam Wagar (Priest) samwagar@shaw.ca

Nanaimo Temple of the Green Cauldron

The end of 2009 was a busy one for the membersof Nanaimo’s Temple and we are presently enjoying abit of inactivity while we plan out this next yearsevents. There are a lot of new ideas we would like totry and we received many suggestions from themembers themselves.Jon and Ivannia were the Priestess and Priest atthe Yule ritual celebrating the return of light. Peopleenjoyed the annual “water of life” toast given by Sally- this being a blessing and sip of single malt scotch!There were a variety of seasonal ornaments availablefor sale and they raised over $75 for the Temple.The Blue Moon Esbat on December 31

was ahuge success with 39 people in circle. This was aformal Farrar style ritual presented by Sally and Kam.Nearly everyone present took advantage of the openaltar for their working. We received an overwhelmingnumber of requests to do this again. We have notoffered Esbats for some time now but may reconsiderand do something along this line every now and then.We have had the pleasure of two Ordinations.Both Roxanne Allen and Kam Abbott met the CWArequirements, completed their training, and becameclergy within the organization. The difference in theworkload with two more clergy members is bothnoticeable and welcome! Congratulations to bothRoxanne and Kam!We are delighted to announce that Ivannia Hallshas just received the approval for Ordination as well!The ceremony will take place in March. Details arestill being worked out but will be posted on ourwebsite. Congratulations Ivannia!As a point of interest, five years ago when the initial training wasbeing done in Nanaimo, it was always part of the planfor Meredith, Roxanne, and Ivannia to follow andbecome clergy. I am delighted that this has beenaccomplished. Gaining Kam was a bonus and weexpect Jon to finish training soon. Jon and Ivannia willbe moving from our area for a rural setting andhomesteading in the near future. They will take theirtraining with them and hopefully establish a newTemple once they are settled.We will be offering the Introduction to Wiccaclasses again and hope to start in February. Detailswill be posted on our website.Our coffee nights will be switching between theHarewood Activity Centre, Tim Horton’s, and ourlocal parks depending on weather and if we arepresenting an activity as well as coffee. We realizedthat occasionally we should return to Tim H to attractnew people in a casual atmosphere.

3December 15th 20097:16 call to order. All members presentOpening prayer to Thoth and Athena delivered bySableAdopt minutes of previous meeting Erin / BrendaadoptedReports of Officers:1.Chair – nothing to report2.Vice – nothing to report, beginning toorganize the Carrot and Stick Committee3.Secretary-Treasurer – some contactsfrom the North East, referred them to theEdmonton Temple of our sister organization,the CWA of Alberta. Page of Pentacle out.No Treasurer activity because still not on thebank account4.Communications – things are mostly ontrack but it’ll be a couple of weeks until thechanges to the webpage can be up and active5.Membership – nothing to reportTemple reports:1.North Okanagan – a very successfulSamhain ritual, gearing up for the Yule ritualon Saturday, New Witches FAQ meeting isgoing well2.Nanaimo – 2 Ordinations, Samhain had42 in the Circle, Vision TV filmed part of aritual re-enactment to be broadcast lateSpring or early Summer about death indifferent religions, a [pledge of $50 a month,which was paying the rent, has been lost. ABlue Moon Esbat will be held on the 31st andthe coffee cauldrons are ongoing.3.Van-Burnaby – we’re switching toEsbats in the New Year, starting a PaganSingles coffee meeting, and we enjoyedparticipating in a Yule Craft Fair.Moved to adopt reports Erin / Sable, adoptedMatters Coming From reports:1.Carrot and Stick Committee will includeTemple representatives and will meet onlineMonday the 11th 7 pm sharp.2.Charitable Status – all of the materialsthat had been sent to charities branch willhave to be gathered and sent to the lawyer tobegin the possible religious discriminationfight3.Proposed by Rowean that events whichare hosted by members of Temple Board butauthorized by clergy should be classified asofficial CWA events. Workshops anddiscussion groups for examples. Approvedalthough Policies and Procedures wordingneeds to be worked out and submitted toSecretary.4.Pages of Pentacles archive will need tobe sent to him to be added to the website.5.There was a discussion of the need forexpansion. We need, it was generally agreed,to establish relationships with groups that arealready active in the other parts of theprovince, rather than try to start fromscratch.

Board of Directors Reports

We have recently been gifted with a number of beautiful tarot sets for Temple sales or Silent Auction.Thank you very much Ali for the donation!Congratulations to Dane and Mel on theirhandfasting! Unfortunately though, we have had tosay farewell to this couple, as they have moved back east. We wish them well in their new home and work place.We are also going to be losing long time coremember Tanya and her partner Gray who havedecided to follow Dane and Mel back east. We wishthem all the best and hope it is all they hope it to be.As always, we are looking for people to makemonthly pledges. There are many things the memberswould like to see the Temple do but unless the rentand expenses are met we are unable to go forwardwith new ideas. Our website is being overhauled andthere will be an opportunity for people to makedonations directly to the Temple via PayPal. The newwebsite should be up and running shortly - check itout, it is great. Thanks Mel and Kam for all your hardwork and for making the site easy to use!!Also keep an eye out for the initial meeting forNanaimo Pagan Pride for 2010. We will befundraising for the Nanaimo Hospital again and arelooking forward to another great event in August.We hope everyone survived the holidays and sendyou all greetings from the Green Cauldron!Sally KimberNanaimo Temple, CWA