Preliminary Schedule

The preliminary schedule is up. You can access it here, or from the right menu bar of this blog.

We've tried to group similar topics together into 'streams' and tried to work the schedule so all topics in the same stream are in different time slots. This worked well, except for the diversity stream. Here's what we've got:

Taking Care of Each Other:
Recognizing and Preventing Burnout
Mental Illness and Pagan Communities
Our Aging Pagans
Pagan Parenting
Finding a Mentor or Teacher

Diversity:
Paganism and Indigenous North American Traditions
Pagans, Polyamory and Kink
Paganism and Activism
Uniformed Pagans
Ethnicity and Paganism
Our Ethical Codes Across Traditions
Initiation
Coming Out to Family and Friends

Organizing and Leadership:
Organizing Festivals
Pagan Pride Days: Importance and Logistics
Media Skills
Setting Up Churches and Non-Profits
(Recognizing and Preventing Burnout - also in Taking Care of Each Other)

We also have the music stream, scholarship/academic stream, two guest speakers and a history panel.

There's a lot of content packed in there right now and there's not much breathing room. We're considering thinning out some of the options, but before we do so, we'd like to hear from you about the schedule itself and which sessions you think you're most likely to attend, or not attend. Maybe after abit of discussion we'll find that there are a few obvious cuts, or perhaps we'll find that we have a good mix and folks are okay having a full schedule. You can join the discussion on our YahooGroup, or leave a comment here.

We are still looking for moderators and panelists, especially for those topics where you don't see a name beside the title. Interested? Let us know. Know someone you think would be a great fit for a panel, let us both know!!!

Introducing Our Second Guest Speaker

We recently realized that we never really officially annouced our second speaker for Gaia Gathering this year. So without further delay:

Andrew Burton is the founder and Artistic Director of Street Spritis Theatre Company, a youth-driven social action theatre based in Prince George, B.C. An experienced as actor, director and playwright as well as a professional therapist and counselor, he has been involved with theatre and social action for many years. His directing credits include “Mama Mafia”, “The Rez Sisters”, “Misty Lake” “Bootlegger Blues”and “The Cripple of Inishmann” among others .

Mr. Burton will be speaking at the Canadian National Pagan Conference, CNPC, Gaia Gathering, on Sunday May 17th.

Help Us Spread The Word!

With two months to go until the conference, we're working hard to spread the word about the Gaia Gathering, CNPC, in Vancouver over the May long weekend.

We have two guest speakers lined up, most of our panel discussions and round tables have been slotted in, and all but two spots have been taken for vendors. We're finalising the banquet menu with the caterers, making sure that we have enough coffee in the morning, and putting the final touches on the weekend's entertainment.

It's going to be a great conference!

Help us spread the word by downloading one of our posters from the right side menu and putting them up at venues around your town. We currently have a 1/2 page flyer suitable for printing in black and white, as well as a selection of postcard jpgs. Use them to print your own colour flyers or postcards. The jpgs ahve also been designed to respect the print requirements of commercial printshops or on-line copy shops (like staples.ca).

CNPC09 Poster (2 per page)
Postcard #1
Postcard #2
Postcard #3
Postcard #4
Postcard #5

Of course, there is also the registration brochure, that no only contains the registration form but also gives a bit of detail about the conference this year.

Registration Brochure

Stay tuned for our preliminary programme with a draft schedule, descriptions of streams and panels, travel information, and more. It should be up around April 5th.

Programme Advertising Contract

The english version of the programme advertising contract has been uploaded. You can access it here.

Rates this year are as follows:
1/8 page (business card) $35
¼ page banner $50
½ page $95
Full page $185
Inside front or back cover $220
Back cover $250
Programme insert or custom size (contact us $TBD)

Deadline is April 21st. Electronic submissions are preferred, but we can take hard copies. There will be an additional fee if design work is needed.

Payment is required before we process your ad. It can be made by cash, cheque, money order, or PayPal (info@gaiagathering.ca). We can also issue an e-invoice if you want to pay online using a credit card.