Introduction

Queer Spirit Camp is all about celebrating and bringing our wonderful community into deeper connection. Coming together on the land of Bridwell Park is a precious opportunity to reflect on our experiences of the festival and community, and to share in shaping its future.

Talking Circles on a host of important topics are scheduled throughout the weekend. These are shown in the printed and online programme with a short introduction for each. They are open to all, and we would love as many as feel called to participate. There will be facilitators to hold space, time-keep, and ensure equality of voices and focus. There will be a recorder taking summary written notes of topics, concerns and suggested actions. They will not record people’s names nor try to capture everything said.

The Talking Circles are the beginning of a community-wide dialogue and we hope many informal conversations will bubble up after the circles. As soon as possible, the summary notes will be available in the Village Hall for anyone to read there and add further comments. All this material will be shared on the community section of the website so that all who wish to can contribute and carry ideas forward following the camp.

Our 10 talking circles

Care, Welfare and Healing

From mutual aid networks to chosen families, the queer community has a long history of creating systems of caring and support. We’ve carried each other through grief, discrimination, joy and recovery. We know that healing is not only personal, it’s also political, collective, and ongoing. Among other topics this talking circle looks at what caring and healing look like, how we build structures that hold and protect us all, and how we can reimagine healing both as a goal and as a shared and sustaining practice.

Children and Young People

Calling parents, parents-to-be, and anyone who believes that Queer Spirit has more to offer for children and young people. We need help to make QS an inclusive, exciting and safer place for kids, teenagers and guardians. Help us to envision projects like a self-guided play area, with volunteers on hand, and a tent for all-ages workshops and activities. As we don’t have the resources to meet all possible legal requirements we need to think about how we replace traditional childcare, but we know we can thrive on input from our community about how to make this space very special. Come and join us!

Community Building

Queer Spirit has always been more than a festival – it’s a community, a movement celebrating, resourcing and manifesting queer spirituality. The festival is what it is because of the kinship of volunteers who create it and those who come to it. This circle asks what other elements of community are important to us, and how we enable them alongside the festival? These elements include developmental group activities, networking, skills-sharing, creative collaborations, support, activism, online resources, and relationships with allied organisations and festivals.

Global Majority

Black, Indigenous and People of Colour are an integral part of the fabric of each of our communities and that of Queer Spirit. Historically overlooked, misunderstood and under-represented, this talking circle is an opportunity to centre the perspectives, wisdom and future visions of the global majority. We will be building on foundations for a queer spirit that can hold people's diverse cultures, heritages, histories, experiences, ancestry and identities.

History, Aims and Ethos

Queer Spirit was created to be a space for celebrating the diversity, creativity, intersectionality and spirituality of all LGBTQIA+ people, and respect is at the core of our QS ethos. The first QS Festival in 2016 grew from roots connecting back to decades of ecological, political and spiritual activism. In this circle the
founders of QS will tell the story of the birth of the festival, its nine-year journey, and the aims and the ethos that guides the team producing it. Then we invite your comments and questions, suggestions and observations. How will the aims and ethos of the festival evolve in its second decade?

Inclusion and Access

Inclusion is a vital part of the Queer Spirit ethos, which at its most basic means including everybody. But including everybody can be harder than we might think. It can mean we need to look at our unconscious biases, and challenge the ways we have been taught things should work. It means listening to people when they tell us what they need, and inviting them to be part of finding flexible solutions when it seems that needs may conflict with each other. This circle will look at what have we done well in the past, and what needs improving in the future.

Performance

Over the last ten years performance at Queer Spirit Festival has blossomed and bloomed into the huge and diverse programme we now host, which spans multiple spaces and genres. This circle is an open invitation to all to help shape how we can sustainably hold, encourage and support the creativity of our performers in the future. What do audiences want to see on our stages? How can we continue to encourage new expression and creative experimentation in a safe and supportive environment? What can we do to expand beyond the festival and encourage connection with queerness and spirituality through the arts and performance?

QS Future Visions

From four hundred attendees at Thoulstone Park in 2016, Queer Spirit had almost doubled in size by the fifth festival at Bridwell Park in 2024, an amazing site where there's room for the festival to continue to grow. How will that look in future years? What does the future hold? How do you see the festival developing? Is there something you would like to contribute? As we set out together to co-create the second decade of QS, here is your chance to share dreams and visions, and to acknowledge concerns and fears.

Risk and Safety

We come to Queer Spirit for sharing and exploration, finding out about ourselves, who we are and what we might be. Throwing ourselves into the experience can be freeing, but also scary, so it’s important to know where our boundaries are, what we dare to risk and what doesn’t feel safe. This circle explores how we can encourage the exploration of risk-taking and the provision of appropriate safety measures at Queer Spirit. It looks at issues around boundaries, consent, vulnerability and support, so that each of us can get as much as possible of what we need and desire from future gatherings.

Temple

This circle is an opportunity to bring feedback and ideas for the future of the Sacred Sexuality Temple at Queer Spirit. We invite those who have facilitated or held space, have stewarded or acted as PriestX, and have participated, prayed, played and connected in the space, to help co-create a collaboratively-imagined evolution of sacred sexuality as it is held and delivered at QS. We are interested in input from those who have experienced temple spaces at other events focused on sacred sexuality, particularly the experience of AFAB people, minoritised genders and the global majority. Bring your offerings of imagination and positive growth to this sacred community sharing.  After the camp, notes & comments from TCs will be added as interactive content at https://queerspirit.net/forum/index

The heart sharing circle will be open from 9am each morning for you to share whatever is alive for you, whether that be with your words or just with your presence.

Speaking isn’t a requirement.

Exploring world rhythms, building technique, confidence, group playing and improvisation skill daily practice sessions.

Facilitator: Andy Fowler

Serpent Blessings - a shamanic community healing ceremony with Eva Weaver & Claire Lecarpentier

Drawing on the ancient tradition of the ‘spirit boat’ , practiced by many Native tribes of the Northeast Coast of America, the Amazon, Australia and Indonesia, we propose a variation- a shamanic group journey where we collectively create a large Serpent formed with participants. A group of shamanic practitioners will drum on the outside, collecting power from the spirit world and channelling it into the Serpent where people hold a powerful intention for collective healing.

Facilitator: Claire and Eva

• DJ's
• Gong baths
• Ice Breaker Games
• Networking Space for Performers
• Open mic
• Play space
• Qi Gong
• Yoga flow