Pagan Community Notes is a companion to my usual Pagan News of Note, a series more focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. I want to reinforce the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So lets get started!

Counting Pagans in the UK: In one month, the 2011 British census will begin. As in 2001 citizens of England and Wales will be able to mark what their religious affiliation is, a change in procedure that saw minority religions gain significant attention. For the first time, Britain was counting its Pagan citizens, and around 40,000 individuals labeled themselves as Pagans, Wiccans, or Druids (making them the 7th largest faith grouping in the UK). However, many Pagans, and the scholars who study them, believe that number is far higher (Ronald Hutton, for example, thinks there are around 250,000 Pagans, circa 2001, equivalent to the Hindu population). So this year a consortium of Pagan organizations are pushing the PaganDASH (Facebook) campaign to encourage all British Pagans to fill out the census, and to do so in a uniform manner.

“The ONS wants to count us. They have a ‘mandate of inclusion’ which means they are looking for ways to include us in their figures. Looking at the raw data that was provided last time to us gave us some startling insights. However, as mentioned, by just writing Pagan on your form, we lose the data for various paths, and our diversity — but there is a simple solution — one that’s worked elsewhere. In Australia in 2001 there were 10,000 Pagans in the census. Just 5 years later, with this initiative, their numbers are being counted as nearer 70,000. So if we can do the same here, and get more accurate numbers it will go a long way to getting the recognition we have fought for, and deserve.”

So a Wiccan would write in “Pagan – Wiccan”, a Druid “Pagan – Druid”, and so forth. This initiative is already gaining some press, and as The Druid Network points out, could result in better representation in government. This is an excellent opportunity to chart the growth of modern Paganism in the UK (one we don’t have in the United States), and I hope British Pagans of all stripes support this initiative.

Child Care at Pagan Conventions: The Pagan Newswire Collective’s Bay Area bureau has published the first installment of a multi-part series on child care and Pagan families at conventions. Focusing on the recently completed PantheaCon, Lily Shahar Kunning, looks at the options, and lack of options, families with small children have at such events.

“In fact, the ‘Con is not fully aware of how many children attend, as they are not formally registered if they are under 12. But parents attending PantheaCon agree- there are tens of dozens of children in attendance, and more come every year. Yet there is no formal “track” for children to attend, no formal childcare arrangements, and most events in the schedule are not kid-friendly.”

As our movement grows, and becomes increasingly multi-generational, issues of how we treat our youngest, and oldest, members will become increasingly pressing. We are at a point now where organizers are straining under the weight of continual growth and popularity, yet we often lack the infrastructure and capital to expand as much as we need to. How we deal with issues like child care, and the inclusion of younger Pagans, can have far-reaching ramifications in our future. Stay tuned to PNC-Bay Area for the next installment of this series where they’ll discuss family-oriented programming at PantheaCon.

Pagan Leadership Panel: One of the panels I participated in at this year’s PantheaCon, led by Modern Witch Podcast host Devin Hunter, was on Pagan leadership in the 21st century. On the panel was Hyperion of The Unnamed Path, Ms. Rabbit Matthews of CAYA, and myself. Devin has uploaded the video he took to Youtube, and is up now in seven parts.

You can find the other six parts, here. I think some very important topics were touched on, and I’m thankful that Devin was able to record his panel and share it with the world.

Cherry Hill Seminary Graduation Ceremony: Yesterday at the Sacred Space Conference in Maryland, Cherry Hill Seminary held their first graduation ceremony under their new program. Certificates were presented to six students, and PNC-Washington DC (aka Capital Witch) was there to report on the event. Below you can see some video taken during the ceremony.

PNC-Washington DC/Capital Witch will be posting photos later with exclusive interview footage of the CHS faculty and student graduates. So please stay tuned to that site for further updates, and congratulations to the six Cherry Hill Seminary graduates! To find out more about CHS’s educational offerings, please check out the web site.

A Trip to Lucky Mojo: On their way home from PantheaCon the PNC-Minnesota bureau were lucky enough to stop at the famous Lucky Mojo Curio Company, took pictures, and interviewed proprietor Cat Yronwode.

“People of a mixed back ground often find Hoodoo resonates with them because it calls to part of their cultural back ground.  It is a very vital, very American form of magic.  I love it, I was born Jewish, and then joined the Baptist church and now am a spiritualist.  I have always felt at home in Hoodoo. I would say that since the dawn of the internet age, there is more white people practicing it, but there always were. It has never been something that was exclusively Black, although black cultural nationalists have claimed so.”

For anyone who has shopped at a hoodoo store, and loved it, this article and interview should bring back many pleasant memories.

Addressing Dianic Exclusion of Transgendered Women: In a final note, I wanted to quickly point to this run-down of issues regarding the exclusion of transgendered women at Dianic events at PantheaCon.

“The debate continued. No one won, as-such, but winning wasn’t the point. Though I’m not unbiased in this matter, I doubt anyone would disagree that, at the end, the Dianic elders present were affected by the experience. I believe them when they said that they had no wish to harm transsexual and transgendered women, but they remained firm. Wendy Griffin, toward the end, got quite upset, stating that the issue is effectively one of religious freedom, and that what was being proposed effectively would prevent her from engaging in her religion. Ruth Barrett, who I must admit showed astonishing strength in retaining composure throughout the event — for her, the issue was that she wanted to continue to run events at Pantheacon, but that a non-discrimination policy would effectively mean that she could not continue to do so.”

This is a very large issue, and this link will just be the beginning of my own exploration. In the weeks to come the Bay Area PNC bureau will be posting a report, and I will be following up with my own here at The Wild Hunt. I’m hoping to include interviews with individuals on both sides of this discussion, and hopefully spark a wider discussion regarding gender identity within modern Paganism.

That’s all I have time for, have a great day!