Welcome to the Pagan Federation Wessex website.
Founded in 1971 the PF seeks to support all Pagans to ensure they have the same rights as the followers of other beliefs and religions. It aims to promote a positive profile for Pagans and Paganism and to provide information on Pagan beliefs to the media, official bodies and the greater community.
The Wessex District includes Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and West Hampshire.
Well here we are and it is June with the longest day almost here, so that means one thing, the Summer 2013 edition of Standing Stone is now available for download by registered PF Members.
In this edition we have a Summer Solstice Rite by Jan, a writeup of this year's conference which was held in April in Stroud, and an article by Jaine Rose about her Wool Against Weapons campaign along with the usual details of moots and upcoming events.
Hope you all have a wonderful Solstice whether you are celebrating with the masses at Stonehenge or quietly with a group of friends in a place special to you.
If you look at the map on our moots page, you will see there is a rather large part of the map around southern Somerset where there aren't any moots. However this might be about to change.
We have been contacted by Kelly to help gauge people's interest in attending a moot in the area. If you are interested or know of any that already take place in the area then contact us and we will pass on your details to Kelly.
We have received the following request from Vivianne Crowley.
Dear West Country folk
There's something you might be able to help me with.
I've been invited by the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Religion group to give a paper next month on Pagan responses to the UK Census 2011.
There is a big difference of course between the survey numbers and those quote for number of Pagans in the UK and I'm trying to tease out some of the reasons. One might be that numbers have been inflated of course. The other might be that Pagans for various reasons were under-reported.
I wonder if you’d be kind enough, if you completed the Census, to answer the survey by clicking this link.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UK2011Census
All responses are anonymous.
I'd to get as many responses from different parts of the Pagan community as I can, so if there are any mailing lists that you're involved with, it would be great if you could post the link.
Love and BB
Vivianne
The survey only takes a couple of minutes to complete and the more people who complete the survey, the larger the dataset Vivianne has to work with for this interesting research.
A new moot has been started in Weston super Mare.
As it has only just started it is quite small so if you are in the area pop along and say hello.
Further details can be found on the moot page.
We've now got three vacant Regional Co-ordinator positions in the District, so if you think you would be interested in helping out and live in Dorset, Somerset or the Bristol area, please get in touch!
The position of Regional Co-ordinator involves a small amount of paperwork, keeping track of members in your Region; being a member of the District Committee, which means attending 2 meetings per year and keeping in touch by email in between times; helping out with the annual conference; getting to know members and pagans generally in your RE, and as much as you want to do in terms of organising and/or attending moots and other pagan events locally. Some RCs run training courses, craft groups, moots, open rituals, camps and more, but it's entirely up to you to do as much or as little as you want and are able.
If you want to become a Regional Co-ordinator, please get in touch and one of the existing committee will arrange to meet you at a convenient time and place to have a chat about what is involved. To contact us, please use the 'Contact us' link on the left, or click here to email Jan, our District Manager direct.
The Pagan Federation has produced a Code of Conduct/set of usage guidelines for Pagan Federation webistes or social networking spaces.
New users of the site will have to indicate that they have read and accept the guidelines when they first register, and existing users will also be asked to read and accept the guidelines when they next login.
The guidelines are basically common sense and boil down to the following:
And in the immortal words of Bill & Ted "Be excellent to each other".
