Needs

This section comprises factors without which the “village” cannot survive. While many of us would like the self-sufficiency of providing these entirely from within our communities, that is not always possible. Sourcing these needs from municipal governments or unaffiliated businesses is a valid solution. Needs are considered “checked off” (satisfied) if they are reliably accessed by all of the village’s residents. Bullet points in bold are critical, make-or-break needs. Those in normal text are important sub-needs. Entries in italics are notes for discussion rather than needs in and of themselves.

• Shelter
  • Land sufficient for the housing
  • Appropriate permits, etc.
  • Skill – Free carpentry / joinery
  • Skill – Free masonry
  • Tools
  • Equipment
  • Materials and supplies
  • Roof to keep off precipitation and sun
    • Skill – Roofing
    • Equipment – Tools, ladders, etc.
    • Roofing materials and supplies
  • Warmth in winter
    • Skill – HVAC
    • Skill – Fireplace / chimney masonry
      • Skill – Fireplace / woodstove operation
    • Equipment – Heater, woodstove, etc.
    • Tools
    • Heating materials and supplies
    • Energy source
      • How do members of your community power their heating?
        • Biomass – Wood, etc.
        • Fossil fuels – Gas, oil, coal, etc.
        • Alternative energy
  • Cooling in summer
    • Skill – HVAC
    • Skill – Electrician
    • Equipment – Fans, air conditioners, etc.
    • Tools
    • Heating materials and supplies
    • Energy source
      • How do members of your community power their cooling?
        • Biomass – Wood, etc.
        • Fossil fuels – Gas, oil, coal, etc.
        • Alternative energy
  • Security from violence, predators, pests, and theft
  • Sleeping facilities
• Water
  • Potable, clean drinking water
  • Irrigation water for crops, etc.
  • Skill – Plumbing
  • Equipment – Tools, pumps, filters, etc.
  • Pipes and fittings
  • Appropriate storage facilities
• Sanitation
  • Toilet facilities
  • Grooming facilities
  • Bathing facilities
  • Wastewater treatment
    • Sewage quarantining and processing
      • What is your solution?
        • Central sewage processing
          • Skill – Responsible toilet use
        • Septic systems (on-site)
          • Skill – Responsible septic system use
        • Alternative toilets (on-site)
          • Skill – Proper use
    • Greywater processing
      • Are you using greywater for irrigation? If so, how are you educating people about their responsibilities to this system?
  • Pest control
  • Waste disposal
    • Organic waste quarantining and processing
      • Are you composting organic waste? If so, how are you educating people about their responsibilities to this system?
    • Recyclables separation and processing
      • Are you recycling? If so, how are you educating people about their responsibilities to this system?
    • Other waste separation and landfilling
      • Are you doing anything to minimize landfilling? If so, how are you educating people about their responsibilities to this system?
• Food
  • Cooking facilities
    • Equipment
    • Skill – Cooking / Baking
    • Skill – Food safety
  • Food storage facilities
    • See below for variants
    • Skill – Food storage (See below for variants)
    • Skill – Food safety
  • Proteins
    • How do members of your community access complete proteins?
      • Animal meat
        • How are you sourcing it? 
          • Agriculture
            • Skill – Animal husbandry
            • Ranchland sufficient for sustainably grazing herds
            • Equipment
            • Disease control
            • Pest control
            • Winter fodder for herds
            • Water for herds
          • Hunting
            • Skill – Hunting / Trapping
            • Equipment
            • Rangeland sufficient for sustainably supporting wildlife
        • Slaughtering
          • Appropriate facility
          • Equipment
          • Skill – Carcass dressing
        • Butchering
          • Sanitary facility
          • Equipment
          • Skill – Butchering
          • Storage
            • Cold storage
            • Drying/salting/smoking and dry storage
              • Skill – Meat curing / charcuterie
            • Canning and dry storage
              • Skill – Canning
      • Plant sources
        • Farmland sufficient to sustainably grow appropriate crops
        • Seed supplier
        • Skill – Farming / Gardening
        • Irrigation water
        • Planting equipment
        • Weed control
        • Pest control
        • Harvesting equipment
        • Processing equipment
        • Processing facilities
        • Appropriate storage
        • Skill – Plant protein processing
  • Fats
    • How do members of your community access needed fatty acids?
      • Animal meat
        • How are you sourcing it? 
          • Agriculture
            • Skill – Animal husbandry
            • Ranchland sufficient for sustainably grazing herds
            • Equipment
            • Disease control
            • Pest control
            • Winter fodder for herds
            • Water for herds
          • Hunting (Many wild animals are not good sources of fat.)
            • Skill – Hunting / Trapping
            • Equipment
            • Rangeland sufficient for sustainably supporting wildlife
        • Slaughtering
          • Appropriate facility
          • Equipment
          • Skill – Carcass dressing
        • Butchering
          • Sanitary facility
          • Equipment
          • Skill – Fat rendering
          • Cold storage or canning and dry storage
      • Animal dairy
        • Skill – Animal husbandry
        • Ranchland sufficient for sustainably grazing herds
        • Equipment
        • Disease control
        • Pest control
        • Winter fodder for herds
        • Water for herds
        • Sanitary dairy facility
        • Equipment
        • Skill – Milking
        • Skill – Butter making
        • Skill – Cheesemaking
        • Cold storage or canning and dry storage
      • Plant sources
        • Farmland sufficient to sustainably grow appropriate crops
        • Seed supplier
        • Skill – Farming / Gardening
        • Irrigation water
        • Planting equipment
        • Weed control
        • Pest control
        • Harvesting equipment
        • Processing equipment
        • Processing facilities
        • Appropriate oil storage
        • Skill – Oil extraction
  • Carbohydrates
    • How do members of your community access the majority of their caloric needs?
      • Gathering
        • Skill – Foraging
          • Rangeland sufficient for sustainably supporting plant diversity
        • Equipment
      • Agriculture
        • Farmland sufficient to sustainably grow appropriate crops
        • Seed supplier
        • Skill – Farming / Gardening
        • Irrigation water
        • Planting equipment
        • Weed control
        • Pest control
        • Harvesting equipment
    • Processing equipment
    • Processing facilities
    • Appropriate storage
      • Skill – Staple food storage
  • Micronutrients
    • How do members of your community access needed micronutrients, such as from fruits and vegetables?
      • Gathering
        • Skill – Foraging
          • Rangeland sufficient for sustainably supporting plant diversity
      • Agriculture
        • Farmland sufficient to sustainably grow appropriate crops
        • Seed supplier
        • Skill – Farming / Gardening
        • Irrigation water
        • Planting equipment
        • Weed control
        • Pest control
        • Harvesting equipment
    • Processing equipment
    • Processing facilities
    • Appropriate storage
      • Skill – Plant drying
      • Skill – Canning
• Clothing
  • How do your residents clothe themselves?
  • Appropriate equipment
  • Appropriate sourcing
  • Skill – Plant fiber processing
  • Skill – Wool carding and spinning
  • Skill – Weaving
  • Skill – Knitting / crochet
  • Skill – Women’s clothing construction
  • Skill – Men’s clothing construction
  • Skill – Straw plaiting
  • Skill – Feltmaking
  • Skill – Hattery
  • Skill – Leather tanning
  • Skill – Leatherworking
  • Skill – Shoemaking
• Medicine
  • How do your residents access healing?
  • Skill – Allopathic (modern Western) medicine
  • Skill – Traditional Chinese medicine
  • Skill – Ayurvedic medicine
  • Skill – Herbal medicine, Western
• Transportation
  • Transport infrastructure
  • Transport methods
  • Is your village walkable? How can you improve/protect that?
• Power
  • How do residents access the energy needed to do their work, run their housing, etc.?
  • How do they see at night or in the absence of natural light?
• Communications
  • How do residents communicate with each other?
  • How do residents communicate with people outside the village?
  • Is telecommuting important to the jobs of your residents?
  • How vital is Internet access and at what speeds?
• New Members
  • How does your community replace residents who leave, die, etc?
    • Recruitment
    • Children
• Finance
  • What role does money play in your village’s internal economy?
  • How does your village raise enough money to pay for things that it cannot provide for within the village?
  • How does your village pay for taxes on community assets?
  • How do your residents raise enough money to buy things they cannot provide for themselves or barter for within the village?
  • How do your residents pay their taxes?
  • Skill – Accounting
• Security
  • How will your village protect itself from criminals, etc.?

Wants

This section comprises factors that improve the quality of life in the village. While many of us would like the self-sufficiency of providing these entirely from within our communities, that is not always possible. Sourcing these needs from unaffiliated groups is a valid solution. Wants are considered “checked off” (satisfied) if they can be reasonably accessed by the village’s residents. “Reasonable” access will of course vary based on the specifics. Bullet points in bold are categories. Those in normal text are sub-wants. Entries in italics are notes for discussion rather than wants in and of themselves.

• Home furnishings
  • Furniture
    • Skill – Finish carpentry / cabinetmaking
    • Skill – Upholstery
  • Pottery
    • Skill – Pottery
  • Cutlery
    • Skill – Knifemaking
    • Skill – Finesmithing
  • Glassware
    • Skill – Glassmaking
    • Skill – Glassblowing
• Health and beauty aids
  • Soaps / cleaning supplies
    • Skill – Soapmaking
    • Skill – Broom making
    • Skill – Brush making
  • Beauty supplies
    • Skill – Cosmetics making
    • Skill – Perfumery
• Paper goods
  • Skill – Papermaking
• Books
  • Skill – Librarian
  • Skill – Bookbinding
• Metal goods
  • Skill – Smelting / metal recycling
  • Skill – Blacksmithing
  • Skill – Redsmithing
  • Skill – Tinsmithing
  • Skill – Metal fabrication (modern Western)

The post AVOCADO Village Checklist appeared first on Hearthingstone.

For a conference, especially one that aims to run year after year, it’s vital to actually collect and manage a certain amount of data. Each attendee’s badge pick-up information at the very least- their name if nothing else. Ideally, email addresses and/or mailing addresses would accompany that so that we can notify them of changes and reach out when the following year’s registration is available.

Between the personal data and the payment processing, there are security concerns that naturally arise. An annual conference probably shouldn’t try to get into merchant services accounts and card processing and all that. Well, maybe 10,000-person conferences should, but not a small one like us. That means finding a registration service provider- someone like Eventbrite.

Similarly, there are good reasons to use an email communications provider like Mailchimp– to minimize your risk of getting thrown in the spam bucket if nothing else!

All of these services cost money, of course.

Eventbrite charges a fee for each ticket sold. We’d have the option of wrapping the fee into the cost or passing it to the attendee on top of the registration cost. For example, if the registration costs $50, the processing fee might be $5. This would make the actual cost to the attendee $55 if passed on, or make the actual income from the registration $45. Either way, it’s a balancing act. From what I’ve seen, the other providers are pretty similar.

It’s worth saying that WordPress plugins can do some of the same things, but that means dedicating a lot more time to site administration.

On the other hand, Eventbrite’s default is to hold payouts until after the event, which will simply not work in this case. They have a system for rolling payouts ahead of the event, but you have to apply for that- so it’s not a sure thing.

I also considered crowdfunding services like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Sadly, they don’t have any sort of CRM systems from what I’ve seen. Also, their track record for funding conferences is abysmal.

In an ideal world, we’d also be able to register attendees for individual events- for instance Session A or B at 3pm. Obviously, this requires having the schedule nailed down, but it makes it easier to plan which sessions need the bigger rooms! Eventbrite doesn’t appear to have such a system, nor did the other services I saw. So whatever solution we go with might still require a bunch of manual data entry.

Do you know of a better (and cheap) solution or service provider?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Registration Systems appeared first on Hearthingstone.

It is located within walking distance (1/2 mile or less) of a number of restaurants, two movie theatres (including an artsy one), and is directly next to an old shopping mall that is being redeveloped into a mixed-use center including a community college, apartments, shops, and the like. It is one of four hotels in the vicinity that I’ve been interested in, and is the most walkable of the four.

That said, this part of town is fairly far from the airport and I don’t think this hotel offers a free airport shuttle. I need to remember to ask next time we talk. At least one hotel nearby does. The route from the airport isn’t complicated, but for those who don’t or don’t want to drive it could be an issue.

On the other hand, it’s the closest hotel to the Greyhound bus terminal, being a little more than a block away. As far as mass transit, there is a red line train (to downtown) stop about a 7/10 mile walk away. The route 350 bus stops a bit closer, but it’s still a hike. Given Austin (and Texas) mass transit in general, this isn’t bad, but it’s probably further than folks used to good transit systems expect to carry bags- especially if it’s a warmer time of year!

Speaking of times of year, I got a list of possible dates for this hotel. We cut off March of 2019 and earlier to leave enough time for planning and getting enough attendees. March and October are also the two craziest months for hotel space in Austin, apparently.

Here are the dates that the hotel is costing out for us:

• April 5 – 7 (Would have to start late on Friday)
• April 19 – 21 (Also being considered by someone else- Easter)
• April 26 – 28 (Would be using less than my preferred rooms)
• May 30 – June 2
• June 14 – 16
• July 12 – 14
• July 26 – 28
• November 1 – 3
• November 8 – 10 (Veterans’ Day weekend)

August, interestingly, was booked solid. According to the hotel, it’s usually dead, but in 2019 it’s filled up. That might be for the best, given our summertime temperatures.

As far as other events, it looks like there are three possible conflicts amongst the events I’ve found. Spring Mysteries runs April 18-21. Mystic South is in-between the two July dates. Spiritfire hasn’t released their 2019 dates, but it’s usually in mid-July as well.

Of course, for those engaged in Celtic reconstructionism, the first weekend in November might easily create a scheduling conflict. So too for those practicing Mexican traditions. While Austin does have a large Dia de los Muertos celebration, attending it isn’t the reason for the conference.

The following weekend could be tight for folks whose work includes services timed around Veterans’ Day.

That’s my report for today.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Venue Candidate #1 appeared first on Hearthingstone.

If I’m collecting 5¢ cans, it might take me awhile to find 120,000 of them!

Let’s start with an obvious “gotcha”- Wedding Season! In talking with one of the 2014 organizers, she noted that in her area October, May, and June are the big months. September is also popular, according to some articles I found. Here in Austin, it might be a bit earlier, in the spring, but I’m having trouble confirming one way or the other. Then again, being sunny most of the year probably spreads the weddings out a bit more.

That said, we’re not just trying to avoid conflicts with weddings locally, but to minimize the odds of a possible presenter (or attendee, for that matter) having a scheduling conflict.

Another time of year with MASSIVE scheduling conflicts is the November-December holiday season. Aside from significant holy days in a number of traditions, many folks have practical considerations- kids out of school, families to visit, and the like.

I’ve considered January, since many academic folks have a slight reprieve then and people from northern climes might appreciate weather that ranges from just below freezing into what would be considered full-spring temperatures elsewhere. However, January is also “Cedar Season“, when the Mountain Junipers make love with each other and war upon the sinuses of many a human.

So out of 12 months, we’ve already raised serious concerns about 7 of them!

February doesn’t seem to have any major problems (except for the possibility of lingering “cedar fever”), but it doesn’t have any significant plusses either. Most academics are back to class, people are still paying off credit cards from the holidays, and so forth. In my line of work, we call this “The Doldrums” because business tends to be slow. Then again, maybe that’s a recommendation?

March in Austin is dominated by South-by-Southwest (SXSW), an enormous multidisciplinary conference that eats just about every venue in town. There’s also a massive rodeo and another large film festival during the month. The traffic can get bad enough downtown that some folks take a vacation to be away from the area! I’d love to do March, because it’s typically a beautiful time of year, full of wildflowers and such. But it’s likely to be trouble.

April is also nice, though typically a bit more rainy (go figure, right?). It’s also a heavy allergy season.

May and June are prime wedding months and May has tons of graduations. Here in Austin, late May is sometimes Monsoon Season (and sometimes not). While lots of folks are out of school by mid-June, June is also Pride Month for many of our possible attendees. As an aside, Austin celebrates PRIDE in mid-August.

July and August are hot. If you are not used to the Southwest or Deep South, this is not a good time to be out and about- air conditioning is your friend. While we don’t have random stuff melting all over town like Tucson did awhile back, we did have a giant cowboy boot burst into flames. Okay, it was probably a wiring fault, but still. Some tortilla chips totally did spontaneously combust TWICE within the last two weeks, though.

September is wedding season again, and can still be quite hot. Fantastic Fest happens in September, which suggests it might be a reasonable enough time to hold indoor events.

October is back into prime wedding season, and though the weather is usually nice here- Austin City Limits Music Festival dominates the downtown for the first two weekends. The United States Grand Prix and Austin Film Festival eat up a lot of hotels during the latter part of the month. That said, we have a pretty decent Dia de los Muertos event.

And, with that we’re back around to November and December. These also tend to be pretty nice, weather wise. Early November might be less hectic for people, though academics will still generally be in class. By late December we are back into Cedar Season again.

What am I forgetting?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Date Considerations appeared first on Hearthingstone.

Obviously, programming is a huge concern. I touched on this in another post, but just knowing how many of what kinds of sessions you want to provide is just the beginning. Here are some example questions that need answering:

• How will we locate good people to run those sessions?
• How will we fill sessions for which we are having trouble locating people?
• Will speakers, facilitators, etc. receive free or discounted admission, and if so, by how much and for how many sessions?
• Will we pay travel expenses for some of those people? Who and why?
• How do we determine what sessions go into what event spaces?

Obviously, there are a lot more questions, but those are some of the highlights.

Another issue to consider is vendors. It is not unusual for conferences to have vendors, who may or may not pay for the space they occupy. While Hearthingstone is primarily a conference about religious issues, many traditions do not separate commercial activities from the sacred. Furthermore, a large number of polytheist leaders support themselves or substantially supplement meager incomes through vending.

However, offering a dedicated vendor space with rented tables presents liability concerns, such as the provision of security and the need to carry additional insurance. I know of some conventions that fell down in this regard, and it was not pretty.

Speaking of meager incomes, it is not unusual for conventions to have a hospitality suite that provides light refreshments to any attendee free of charge. Based on past experience, we should expect that at least a few attendees will be in need of more substantial food. While Austin has ample supermarkets and restaurants, some of them operating 24 hours a day, not every attendee will have the means to make use of them. Hearthingstone will probably need to find a way to supplement these folks’ food supply.

In addition to food, many of our traditions involve the offering of alcohol, tobacco, and the like. Because Texas is a “blue law” state, we will need to make sure that attendees are made aware of the location and closing times of nearby sources, as well as legal limitations such as areas where smoking is prohibited.

One of the important ways of communicating this, and other important information is the convention program book. There are a great many questions to answer around this publication.

For instance- what paper size do we print it on? Smaller books are more portable and easier to lose, while larger books are easier to read but less easy to carry around and are generally more expensive.  Just a quick glance at Office Depot’s website tells me that even a spartan 12-page book will cost between $1.60 and $2.30 per copy for a black-and-white book.

Since Hearthingstone is partly about networking, it might make sense to print a small contact blurb for each pre-registered attendee (unless they opt out). Even at a minimal size, that’s potentially 5 or so extra pages for 100 people, more if we include space for a small picture. We could put these online instead, but building a way to show it only to registered attendees could be tricky. Do we put the book online?

Speaking of opting out, while many Hearthingstone attendees are public representatives of their traditions and/or communities, we can’t forget that some may still have very good reasons to keep their names and faces separate from their faith. We will need a way of balancing the educational benefits of recording sessions and sharing them afterward with the need to allow some folks to opt out of appearing in public. The same applies to any press releases or other media attention we eventually decide is appropriate for the conference- how do we raise the profile of polytheisms generally while protecting attendees whose identities need to remain private?

Lots to think about…

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Some Practical Considerations appeared first on Hearthingstone.