Report on Activities of Reeves Hall
November 2001

If you want to run, first you have to put your feet on the ground.

Current Activities

DIY Ritual Kit

This is still growing slowly. It gets a lot of use, as far as I can tell, but I don't monitor hits. If someone would like to sign up as the new editor, let me know. I think it could use some new energy.

Pocket Guide

This is a new project which is sitting under the Reeves Hall umbrella for the time being. A pan-neo-pagan group (spawned out of the pagan-clergy mailing list) is fixin' to produce some kind of interfaith crisis guide for clergy and chaplains that includes neopagan faiths. (Exactly what that means is the current subject of discussion.) A non-heathen pastoral couselor is leading on the content; I am on board to keep an eye on things for FWA and to work on the Asatru entry. (I think that the Asatru entry will be a valuable addition to our web offerings even if the larger project fizzles.) If someone would like to take over representing FWA or editing the Asatru entry, let me know.

FW-CAP

The Clergy Accreditation Program is sitting under the Reeves Hall umbrella because I proposed it and the Trustees figured I ought to run it for a while to get the bugs out. It has been (IMO) a great success as an educational project (which was the seed of it, anyway).

I advise those who contact me about it to take the documentation we ask for directly to their local bureacrats. And I explain how they can find out their own local requirements to set up as "clergy". So far, I have successfully sent away almost everyone who has inquired. We have one person actually accredited (in NYC, the toughest jurisdiction) and one application in the works. We do have cool certificates ready to roll (demand printing--no investment).

The listing of local requirements has stalled out for the time being because of time crunch. It is a lower priority than other things and other groups have similar lists, anyway.

If anyone would like to take over as Honcho of this project, let me know. It is very low-impact now, but it has a lot of scope for activity if you want to run with it.

Asatru-U
Would you know more, or what?

Asa-U has several areas of activity and a solid base of participants (mostly non-members of FWA).

Intermediate Courses	What comes after the Beginner's Course. We are working on an outline for something-like-three courses. Then we will divide up the work and start writing. We are trying to build diverse heathen viewpoints into the structure of the course (instead of pasting them on later); we think that this is the level where we will have to explain the fundamental ongoing disagreements. And also how Wyrd is the basis of everything.
A Heathen Goes to the Movies	This will start as a list of movies (that are about heathens, that illustrate heathen ideas, or that are fun for heathens) with some comments. We hope it will grow into a more fully-featured study guide.
Bit of History	Rick Riedlinger has collected a giga-tonne of historical material that he is gradually shifting onto a land-based computer. Then "we" (I don't know who yet) will webify it. We expect it to be a valuable standalone resource and will use extracts from it for our various courses. It may be the basis of an advanced history course someday. If anyone would like to take this on, let me know.
Asa-U Press	We would like to publish (web and/or paper) OOP heathen classic essentials (desirable examples would be _Road to Hel_, Bauschatz, Gamlinginn's Word Hoard), existing monographs (e.g Bill Bainbridge's essays or Jenny Blain's booklet on Wyrd), and new material. Details are completely up in the air. We will need to get some resources and expertise to take this up aggressively. If anyone would like to take this on, let me know.
Fundraising	We have discussed several possiblities to raise some money to finance the Asa-u Press: t-shirts and mugs with the Asatru-U arms, grants, book click-throughs from our site, eventually publication sales (to cover costs). There is nothing definite and we need some resources and expertise to take this up aggressively. If anyone would like to take this on, let me know.

Other Potential Projects

There are several other ideas waiting for a chance to grow into projects. If you know of someone working on something like one of these or if you want to do one, let me know so we can get it under the RH banner. Or if you have any other ideas, let me know.

Kindred web site kit, with information, page templates, and a useful assortment of clip art to get them started.
Technical report on different kinds of "official" status in the USA: church, religion, incorporation, 501(c)3, clergy, etc.
PR for heathenry in general and the FWA in particular.
Notes on heathen-specific pastoral counseling and dispute resolution.

Opportunities to Volunteer

I need project leaders for the Pocket Guide (a small and easy start for someone), for the "Heathens and Business/Organizational Law" technical report & workshops, for the DIY Ritual Kit, for the Asatru-U Press. And I need three team leaders for each of the Asatru-U Intermediate courses; they will have to coordinate with each other, because the three will have to interlock. I would also like someone who can help develop networking activities and other investment-payoffs for Reeves Hall "members", whatever that comes to mean.

There must be something else, but that is what occurs to me. #1 priority is the Intermediate Courses; #2 would be the networking, I think. Advancing the DIY Kit and the Pocket Guide are lower priority, but provide the easiest entry point for someone who wants to get involved. The Law project is very important, but I think it would be a big one. Very rewarding once you get it going, though.

Holder of the Clipboard, Manny Olds (oldsma@pobox.com)
P.O. Box 75476, Washington, DC 20013-0476

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