Nomenus is Rising! At the March 2012 Great Circle, 30-40 assembled Nomenus members consented to a shared vision for restructuring the organization and the relationships between our various communities. It was pretty amazing, actually. You can read the text of the agreement here: The Great Three-Way — in brief, we agreed to restructure as an open-ended network of chapters under a minimal common umbrella, open to all genders, and to hold space for the development of a self-governing local community at Wolf Creek Sanctuary which will eventually be independent of the rest of the network.
The intent of this page is to provide further information on the transition now underway, which has become known as “Nomenus Rising.” Please feel free to add links to relevant documents, discussions, resources and the like.
Logistics: How to Plug in?
The Call for the Nomenus Rising Circle
As part of our great revisioning for how we work/play/create/spirit together, we have created twice monthly “Church” meetings; more time-spacious opportunities for us to socialize, envision, commune and congregate together. The Call for the first two is linked below, get in touch with a Convener if you have any questions, interests, or even reservations about attending.
Right now, Great Circle is the main forum for us to do this work in a focused way. We have consented to holding Great Circles four times a year, for two days at a time, for a total of eight days of work. The goal is to make the meetings easier to attend and to increase our opportunities to come together as a community and discover new consensus. We welcome participation at Great Circle from members and non-members who believe in the direction we are going and can agree to participate fully in a consensus-seeking, non-violent, maybe even loving way.
January 2013
San Francisco January 11-13, 2013 with satellite access via Skype from Wolf Creek, Portland, OR and elsewhere
The last Great Circle is at Wolf Creek June 2-3, with satellite access via Skype from San Francisco, Portland and elsewhere. There are many ways to ATTEND, and many VISIONS to have together, and many ACTIONS to transpire. Gather together, ye Agents of Radical Transformation!
Stella Maris has offered to host monthly heart salons devoted to the topic of Nomenus Rising. The first was in Portland and the second at Wolf Creek Beltane. The third will (I think? /oliver) be in Portland and Wolf Creek the night of June 1.
or go to Facebook and in the search bar, type: Nomenus Rising .
This Facebook group is open but moderated to avoid spam. By joining or using the Facebook group you agree to abide by the Nomenus Rising Interaction Agreements http://nomenus.wikispaces.com/Interaction+Agreements
However, either group requires a seperate joining process.
Further opportunities to plug into this process are in the works as well!
The Work: What Do We Need to Do?
The Great Three-Way consists of several parts. We have identified these as chapters, membership, and Wolf Creek. Here I have added “legal” here to give a starting-place for the work that has to be done “on paper”; more info is also on the New Bylaws page.
Chapters / Circles
To split up Nomenus’ activities into various legally and fiscally independent chapters, we have to have a basic idea of what a chapter is and what the relationship will be between the chapters and the umbrella organization / its various spokescouncil(s). The goals are to share the organization’s tax-exempt status as a church as widely as possible, protect collectively-held property, and collaborate when helpful without unduly restricting faeries from organizing autonomously in their own circles. Various models have been proposed for this … please see the New Structure
page for further details under discussion for the structure of the new Nomenus.
Membership
Gender: We have agreed that membership in the umbrella chapter shall be open to radical faeries regardless of gender and that the chapters shall be free to set their own membership policies. In practice, we are already including voices from many genders in our meetings and welcome further participation.
Consensus: Right now, all members can participate fully in all decisions. While consensus seems to be fundamental for Nomenus, the Great Three-Way mentions “sensible membership tiers and a spokescouncil model designed to preserve and honor the bright threads of our traditions.” There seems to be a widespread desire to incorporate a “supporter” level of membership that indicates a broad affiliation without presuming participation in consensus. And there seems to be a desire to make sure new participants in the consensus process move slowly at first and that there be attendance requirements, a training period or some degree of review of new participants by the people presently involved. How exactly should that look?! How do we steer between being too open and not being able to hold consensus / structure / agreements, on the one hand, and being too closed and getting conservative or hierarchical on the other hand? This will be an important area to explore further.
Wolf Creek
From the Great Three-Way: “We support, bless and consent to the development of a healthy, sustainable, self-governing intentional community at Wolf Creek as one of [Nomenus’] circles, with the intention of holding sanctuary within a regional community of support, provided that current gatherings continue to take place for as long as their organizers wish, that time be set aside each year for faggot space, and that the circle operates legally and sustainably to the best of its ability.” What will this community look like? Who is stepping up to work on it? How will its own bylaws, meetings, membership and other issues be addressed?
In the short term, once the Wolf Creek Sanctuary Circle is independently incorporated, it is likely to receive a lease from the umbrella organization (with little or no money involved as “rent”) based on the terms above. We should have some discussion about how to make these terms easy to meet!
Legal
As a practical matter, the legal restructuring consists of informing the IRS that Nomenus is an umbrella religious organization with a number of chapters / circles, and requesting the IRS send us a “group letter.” The group letter allows Nomenus to grant its religious tax-exempt status to new chapters without IRS review — basically, it allows us to create new churches that are legally and fiscally independent of the umbrella as simply as starting any other kind of incorporation (although the umbrella does have to do some annual review as a condition of granting church status).
This means that if you are involved in a circle of faeries — in San Francisco, Portland or beyond — who would like to be a tax-exempt chapter in the restructured Nomenus, we would like to help you do this! In practice, all the chapters / circles will need to incorporate eventually anyway, so your group may wish to pursue incorporation with the understanding that you can become a chapter of Nomenus later instead of filing for regular non-profit status, which is an expensive and lengthy process.
The intent of this page is to provide further information on the transition now underway, which has become known as “Nomenus Rising.” Please feel free to add links to relevant documents, discussions, resources and the like.
Logistics: How to Plug in?
The Call for the Nomenus Rising Circle
As part of our great revisioning for how we work/play/create/spirit together, we have created twice monthly “Church” meetings; more time-spacious opportunities for us to socialize, envision, commune and congregate together. The Call for the first two is linked below, get in touch with a Convener if you have any questions, interests, or even reservations about attending.
The Nomenus Rising Circle
Great Circle
Right now, Great Circle is the main forum for us to do this work in a focused way. We have consented to holding Great Circles four times a year, for two days at a time, for a total of eight days of work. The goal is to make the meetings easier to attend and to increase our opportunities to come together as a community and discover new consensus. We welcome participation at Great Circle from members and non-members who believe in the direction we are going and can agree to participate fully in a consensus-seeking, non-violent, maybe even loving way.
January 2013
San Francisco January 11-13, 2013 with satellite access via Skype from Wolf Creek, Portland, OR and elsewhere
http://www.facebook.com/events/523679084318511
for the call and registration
September 2012
Look here for the Call!
June 2012
The last Great Circle is at Wolf Creek June 2-3, with satellite access via Skype from San Francisco, Portland and elsewhere. There are many ways to ATTEND, and many VISIONS to have together, and many ACTIONS to transpire. Gather together, ye Agents of Radical Transformation!
The Great Circle Call: http://bit.ly/Jl1Gy4
And a link to the Registration: http://bit.ly/Jl2AL0
Monthly Heart Salons
Stella Maris has offered to host monthly heart salons devoted to the topic of Nomenus Rising. The first was in Portland and the second at Wolf Creek Beltane. The third will (I think? /oliver) be in Portland and Wolf Creek the night of June 1.
Facebook
Nomenus Rising Facebook page/group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/395887530453010
or go to Facebook and in the search bar, type: Nomenus Rising .
This Facebook group is open but moderated to avoid spam. By joining or using the Facebook group you agree to abide by the Nomenus Rising Interaction Agreements
http://nomenus.wikispaces.com/Interaction+Agreements
Yahoo Group
A parallel group to the Nomenus Rising Facebook group/page is the yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nomenus-rising
However, either group requires a seperate joining process.
Further opportunities to plug into this process are in the works as well!
The Work: What Do We Need to Do?
The Great Three-Way consists of several parts. We have identified these as chapters, membership, and Wolf Creek. Here I have added “legal” here to give a starting-place for the work that has to be done “on paper”; more info is also on the New Bylaws page.
Chapters / Circles
To split up Nomenus’ activities into various legally and fiscally independent chapters, we have to have a basic idea of what a chapter is and what the relationship will be between the chapters and the umbrella organization / its various spokescouncil(s). The goals are to share the organization’s tax-exempt status as a church as widely as possible, protect collectively-held property, and collaborate when helpful without unduly restricting faeries from organizing autonomously in their own circles. Various models have been proposed for this … please see the New Structure
page for further details under discussion for the structure of the new Nomenus.
Membership
Gender: We have agreed that membership in the umbrella chapter shall be open to radical faeries regardless of gender and that the chapters shall be free to set their own membership policies. In practice, we are already including voices from many genders in our meetings and welcome further participation.
Consensus: Right now, all members can participate fully in all decisions. While consensus seems to be fundamental for Nomenus, the Great Three-Way mentions “sensible membership tiers and a spokescouncil model designed to preserve and honor the bright threads of our traditions.” There seems to be a widespread desire to incorporate a “supporter” level of membership that indicates a broad affiliation without presuming participation in consensus. And there seems to be a desire to make sure new participants in the consensus process move slowly at first and that there be attendance requirements, a training period or some degree of review of new participants by the people presently involved. How exactly should that look?! How do we steer between being too open and not being able to hold consensus / structure / agreements, on the one hand, and being too closed and getting conservative or hierarchical on the other hand? This will be an important area to explore further.
Wolf Creek
From the Great Three-Way: “We support, bless and consent to the development of a healthy, sustainable, self-governing intentional community at Wolf Creek as one of [Nomenus’] circles, with the intention of holding sanctuary within a regional community of support, provided that current gatherings continue to take place for as long as their organizers wish, that time be set aside each year for faggot space, and that the circle operates legally and sustainably to the best of its ability.” What will this community look like? Who is stepping up to work on it? How will its own bylaws, meetings, membership and other issues be addressed?
In the short term, once the Wolf Creek Sanctuary Circle is independently incorporated, it is likely to receive a lease from the umbrella organization (with little or no money involved as “rent”) based on the terms above. We should have some discussion about how to make these terms easy to meet!
Legal
As a practical matter, the legal restructuring consists of informing the IRS that Nomenus is an umbrella religious organization with a number of chapters / circles, and requesting the IRS send us a “group letter.” The group letter allows Nomenus to grant its religious tax-exempt status to new chapters without IRS review — basically, it allows us to create new churches that are legally and fiscally independent of the umbrella as simply as starting any other kind of incorporation (although the umbrella does have to do some annual review as a condition of granting church status).
This means that if you are involved in a circle of faeries — in San Francisco, Portland or beyond — who would like to be a tax-exempt chapter in the restructured Nomenus, we would like to help you do this! In practice, all the chapters / circles will need to incorporate eventually anyway, so your group may wish to pursue incorporation with the understanding that you can become a chapter of Nomenus later instead of filing for regular non-profit status, which is an expensive and lengthy process.
Edited by lmeissne on Dec 29, 2012 4:26 pm