Pagan Pride Day

I have loved the concept of PPD since I was first introduced to it.  In 2007 (my last PPD in Oklahoma) I was not only the headlining guest (and did not know this until I arrived and read it on the front of the program book) but, more importantly, I was the volunteer coordinator.  The local group who took charge of PPD had decided it was too difficult to get the help needed at the event and were going to shorten it to just a couple of hours in a local park with essentially no events and just a smattering of vendors.

I went to the committee and presented a proposal to provide them with a large volunteer staff if we would maintain PPD as the large (2 day) event it had become.  I was told it was impossible and the effort failed when tried in the past - volunteers simply never materialized.  However, in the end they agreed when I promised that I would bring in my extended family if I couldn't find enough Pagan volunteers!  And I would have too!!

Instead, I applied methods widely used in other communities to get the word out that we needed volunteers, coordinated schedules, called people, recruited at local gatherings, and generally made myself into a pain, but guess what?  We had a huge cadre of volunteers from the first phase of setup until the building was cleaned and we left.  I screen printed identifying shirts for everyone and PPD was awash in those green volunteer shirts that year.

What's the point of all this?  Just a reminder that we still have a lot of growing to do as a community and a lot to learn from other communities.  Pagans didn't create the concept of a Pride Day or volunteer coordinators.  These are good ideas we have seen bring success in other communities.  Had we not brought in experience from other types of conventions and gatherings, Tulsa's PPD would have been shrunk to nothing and would problably have blown away by now (like the misguided organization that tried to tell me that nobody would ever volunteer, LOL!). 

Don't be afraid to look in other communities for solutions that would benefit the Pagan community.  While some Pagans spend too much time bashing other spiritual communities, many others have seen the wisdom of learning from those on spiritual paths that are far different from our own.  Every community has things it can share with others.  Don't let a label (like Christian, conservative, or atheist) stop you from finding the ideas and solutions that can help build the Pagan community into a viable, sustainable community that will last for many generations.