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A History of
TERRA:
TERRA
started out
as an open discussion group at Borders Books' coffee bar, originally
meant to go on only long enough for a covener to meet her teaching
requirement for elevation. It became obvious that something like this
was needed, we moved to the quieter atmosphere of Shakabra Java, and
the "Witches' Brews" discussion group became an ongoing thing at
Samhain of 1997.
The founders were Mike & Diane Hathaway, Darrell
Anderson and myself, Dana Corby. Our first member, so soon that she may
as well have been a founder, was Sadie. The purpose of the organization
was to give Tacoma/Pierce County Pagans & Wiccans someplace to meet
and get to know others of like mind, and come to know that they were
not alone here despite the then-popular idea around the region that
there were no Pagans in Tacoma.
I (Dana Corby) created an e-list
where events could be announced and
members could 'meet' each other, but TERRA was never meant to be an
online community -- rather,
it was and still is intended to be a live group functioning in the real
world, with email to support communications.
At first all we did was the monthly Witches' Brews discussion group.
But the following spring, we attended a Beltain festival in Point
Defiance Park; this event had been presented annually under the
sponsorship of Fran of Magical Gardens for a number of years. Fran
announced that she was going to be 'retiring' from sponsorship, and
discussion ensued to the effect that the event was by now a Tacoma
tradition and that someone needed to take over the sponsorship. We
volunteered. Witches Brews continued, with attendance growing every
month, and the next Sabbat we presented was Lammas -- 140 people
attended!
We formally adopted the name of the Tacoma Earth Religions Revival
Association that winter, and at the January Witches' Brews we held a
community meeting to get feedback about what people would like us to
do: the number one request was more Sabbats. That coming year we
presented all the Cross-Quarters, and the year after that presented all
the Eight, which TERRA has done every year since. For the first couple
of years I functioned as Director, with the able and copious assistance
of the rest of the core group. As directorship
became more and more burdensome I did it less and less well, and a
Board was formed to spread the workload.
We founders had always intended to step down when TERRA became
self-sustaining. We
handed the chairmanship of the Board over to Amy &
Larry, though we founders stayed on the Board for the first little
while.
For the next couple of years both Mike & Dian remained on the
Board, with
Mike finally dropping out only a year or so ago. At ten years, TERRA is
a relatively long-lived Pagan community.
I ascribe its success to really dedicated, hardworking and
creative
folks, and hope to be here to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, too!
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