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Unpopular Gathering Opinions from 2024
We often assume that to gather well everything has to be perfect. But perfection keeps us from connecting with one another when we need it most. Let go of perfection, and embrace the giddy abandon of throwing a gathering you would want to attend.
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Gathering at Work After So Much Time Away
Back to school is fraught. Read more on how one community decided to honor their faculty and staff as they brought their hybrid team back to in-person learning after 16 months apart.
Infusing Joy into Your Community Event
Sometimes, the deepest need, particularly in a difficult period, is laughter and humor and joy. Read how one church, in realizing their gathering's purpose, infused fun and spectacle for their people in a challenging season.
Reimagining Together: How Do We Gather Now?
The way we gather has been changed forever. How do we re-engage? Read more on some principles that help a group navigate transitions.
Meeting the In-Laws: Designing an Out-of-the-Box Virtual Evening
Fostering new connections in a pandemic is a tricky dance. Read more on how one couple intentionally designed for new connection in a virtual meeting of the in-laws ahead of their wedding day.
Long-Distance Connections: How to Host a Remote Adventure During the Holidays
The topic of 2020 holiday parties has been both overwhelming and underwhelming. Read more on how to turn a cancelled party into a collective adventure this holiday season.
The Year of an Improv Thanksgiving
Abandon your Thanksigivng script. Read more on how to embrace the chance to build a different kind of holiday.
Collectively Remembering Those We've Lost
Who has not been touched by death and loss this year, both personal and collective? Read more on where within our own traditions might we rediscover and be inspired by ways to collectively remember the dead.
Burner Curious: 7 Reasons I’m Intrigued by Burning Man This Year...and You May Be, Too
Why do I study parties? They are contexts where we have less hangups of what something has to look like and how we are supposed to behave, and therefore are wonderful learning sites to create temporary alternative worlds. (Also, they’re fun.) Read more on why the digital playa has me so intrigued.
10 Reasons the Virtual DNC Worked (and what we can learn from it)
Instead of trying to replicate a traditional IRL convention on TV, the Democratic National Convention re-imagined it. And we are all the better for it. Read more on why the 2020 DNC was a weird yet moving prime-time virtual convention we can all learn from.
We’re Using the Mute Button All Wrong: Part 2 — Intimacy
The blanket norm of mute-unless-you’re-speaking is crippling our virtual group interactions. Read more on how to de-sterilize your virtual gatherings and create intimacy.
We’re Using the Mute Button All Wrong: Part 1 — Power
We need to talk about the Mute button. Too much of the time, it's sucking the life out of our virtual gatherings. Read more on how to use the power of the mute button for good rather than a fear of chaos.
How to Work with Power Dynamics for the Good of Your Gathering
Power exists in every gathering. (And that’s not a bad thing.) As gatherers, we need to understand how the various decisions we make in a gathering practically shifts and shares power within the group. Read more on how one memorial was structured to shift power dynamics within a family across generations.
Centering Blackness: A World Re-imagined
In this episode of Together Apart, we're honoring the incredible work of a friend, activist, artist and fellow facilitator, Alicia Walters. Read more about her powerful invitation to witness, honor and protect Black thought.
A Case for Ditching the Zoom Background (When It's Appropriate)
In this episode of Together Apart, we host a Digital Speed Dating Experiment to see if virtual dating could be meaningful, fun, and even a little disarming. Read more on why we make the case that you should stop trying to block out the world behind that screen in most virtual social gatherings.
The Power of Storytelling for Group Connection
The moments of highest connection in a group center around the stories we share. Read more on three helpful structures for story-telling in groups.
How Covid Changes the Way Institutions Gather
Because we now have to navigate every gathering virtually, not just the sidebars, institutions of power are being forced to open up areas to guests they had previously overlooked. Read more to explore some of the fundamental questions on how institutions gather now and who they convene in a post-Covid world.
Gatherings Are Reflections of Our Values and Beliefs
In this episode of Together Apart, we are reimagining baby showers. Read more on why this inherited ritual is in desperate need of interruption.
Special Occasions as Lifelines in Hard Times
Is it OK to celebrate birthdays and mark other joyful life events during Corona or in other scary seasons? Read more on why I believe it's not only okay but they are necessary light in the darkness. Particularly when the gathering is focused on creating meaningful connections.
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