All spiritual traditions have a place for worship, meditation, remembrance, or simple contemplation.
Sometimes they can be as simple as a few favourite things place together and other times they can be an area full of magical items placed carefully and according to ritual.
Here are a few inspirations for making your first. Or, if you've already fell into making altars, some new ideas and inspiration.
Silverwitch
A lovely blog post on the placing of a spiral altar which can be made inside or outdoors.
Mind Body Green
Simple steps to creating a simple altar.
Elephant Journal
Creating sacred space with a simple altar.
Happy Black Woman
Using an altar as a "spiritual centre".
Pagans Path
An altar for magik.
Feng Shui
Creating a feng shui sacred space.
Mexico Retold
How to make a Day of the Dead altar.
Custom Pet Urns
From an urn business (sorry!) but the idea of a pet altar or shrine is nothing new but this site has nice, creative ideas.
Spirit Voyage
Creating an altar specifically for meditation.
Spirit Makeover
Angel altars.
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
Friday, 8 August 2014
Weekend Reads
Here's a few interesting looking sites to have a look at this weekend!
Whatever you are doing have a lovely time ;)
Spirituality Health
The site for the magazine Spirituality and Health. Lots of great articles from spirituality to self care. A great site to read through.
Simply H
Simply H is the website for kinesiologist Hilary Cooper. As well as information about her work, she has a lively and interesting blog.
High Existence
This one is a bit more "out there" it's a lot of articles, quotes and discussions about all manner of things. A lot of spirituality, world issues and inspirational quotes but a bit of warning - there are some drug references on there as well.
Witchy Words
Interesting Wiccan blog. This girl is interesting in herself but has also managed to compile a great list of resources.
Whatever you are doing have a lovely time ;)
Spirituality Health
The site for the magazine Spirituality and Health. Lots of great articles from spirituality to self care. A great site to read through.
Simply H
Simply H is the website for kinesiologist Hilary Cooper. As well as information about her work, she has a lively and interesting blog.
High Existence
This one is a bit more "out there" it's a lot of articles, quotes and discussions about all manner of things. A lot of spirituality, world issues and inspirational quotes but a bit of warning - there are some drug references on there as well.
Witchy Words
Interesting Wiccan blog. This girl is interesting in herself but has also managed to compile a great list of resources.
Wednesday, 6 August 2014
Interview ~ Matt Hall from Paracon UK
As you may know we are really excited about the upcoming Paracon UK event in Derby later this year. So today we're bringing you a great interview with Matt Hall from Paracon UK, to tell us a bit more about the event. See you there!
To start with can you tell us a little bit about the people behind Paracon?
Well, our team consist of volunteers from all walks in the paranormal community. My core team consist of US service members along with local British professionals whom for "Serious Paranormal Investigations". Then we have some wonderful people that stepped in with different skills to help carry the load.
How did the idea for this event come about?
Being American, I am am a fan of the Paracon circuit. I wanted my team to have that experience as well. However, I found that the UK has yet to have an actual Paracon event! In amazement we decided to put one on ourselves. Bring the UK it's 1st annual Paracon UK to be!
This will be the first event of it's kind in the UK, do you think interest in the Paranormal is growing or has it always been big but we've been slow to embrace it?
There is a large following in the UK for the paranormal. The new shows that are coming from America are adding to the reality once again. There has been the saying that the UK rolls up about 10 years behind the States, but I want to disprove that! Paracon UK will be sure to have all the US celebrities and paranormal elite clawing to be a part of the UK's community!
Is this going to be an annual event and if so will it travel around or stay in Derby?
Yes, this will be an annual event and only grow from year to year. Paracon UK is set to be the largest international paranormal event in the UK. All of our wonderful guests are already asking to take part in net year's event as well. We are not against giving Paracon UK a home. However, we need to be able to facilitate everyone comfortably and try to remain central so that all have an equal opportunity to experience this event.
Can you tell us a bit more about the charity you're supporting?
The two charities we are supporting are "Wounded Warrior Project" and "Troop AID". Both charities are set up to offer assistance to wounded heroes and their families. The efforts have been certainly as we are coming out of two horrific wars and have so many that gave their all for us. With SPI having a majority make of of military members, we knew it was our duty to give back as we can.
What kind of work does the "Serious Paranormal Investigations" do?
SPI is a dedicated research team and we are seeking the causes as well as the stories behind the paranormal phenomena people experience. We utilize are talents and military disciplines to create a professional approach to solving the mystery. SPI also offers a bootcamp to train investigators from the amateur to the seasoned, and endorse an array of techniques that should be used. The goal is to get better informed investigators out there and helping in our goal.
You have a really impressive line-up for this event, who are you personally most excited about?
I am sure that everyone on the team is excited to see their individual favourites. I personally have a special want to see all of them. There is a reason that our guest list was put together this way and honestly we still have several celebrities from America wanting to come, but without sponsors I can afford the airfare..lol We will have to wait until next year!
To start with can you tell us a little bit about the people behind Paracon?
Well, our team consist of volunteers from all walks in the paranormal community. My core team consist of US service members along with local British professionals whom for "Serious Paranormal Investigations". Then we have some wonderful people that stepped in with different skills to help carry the load.
How did the idea for this event come about?
Being American, I am am a fan of the Paracon circuit. I wanted my team to have that experience as well. However, I found that the UK has yet to have an actual Paracon event! In amazement we decided to put one on ourselves. Bring the UK it's 1st annual Paracon UK to be!
This will be the first event of it's kind in the UK, do you think interest in the Paranormal is growing or has it always been big but we've been slow to embrace it?
There is a large following in the UK for the paranormal. The new shows that are coming from America are adding to the reality once again. There has been the saying that the UK rolls up about 10 years behind the States, but I want to disprove that! Paracon UK will be sure to have all the US celebrities and paranormal elite clawing to be a part of the UK's community!
Is this going to be an annual event and if so will it travel around or stay in Derby?
Yes, this will be an annual event and only grow from year to year. Paracon UK is set to be the largest international paranormal event in the UK. All of our wonderful guests are already asking to take part in net year's event as well. We are not against giving Paracon UK a home. However, we need to be able to facilitate everyone comfortably and try to remain central so that all have an equal opportunity to experience this event.
Can you tell us a bit more about the charity you're supporting?
The two charities we are supporting are "Wounded Warrior Project" and "Troop AID". Both charities are set up to offer assistance to wounded heroes and their families. The efforts have been certainly as we are coming out of two horrific wars and have so many that gave their all for us. With SPI having a majority make of of military members, we knew it was our duty to give back as we can.
What kind of work does the "Serious Paranormal Investigations" do?
SPI is a dedicated research team and we are seeking the causes as well as the stories behind the paranormal phenomena people experience. We utilize are talents and military disciplines to create a professional approach to solving the mystery. SPI also offers a bootcamp to train investigators from the amateur to the seasoned, and endorse an array of techniques that should be used. The goal is to get better informed investigators out there and helping in our goal.
You have a really impressive line-up for this event, who are you personally most excited about?
I am sure that everyone on the team is excited to see their individual favourites. I personally have a special want to see all of them. There is a reason that our guest list was put together this way and honestly we still have several celebrities from America wanting to come, but without sponsors I can afford the airfare..lol We will have to wait until next year!
Monday, 4 August 2014
The Life and Times of an Event Promoter - On Finding a Venue
Morning :)
Today we have the first of a series called The Life and Times of an Event Promoter. A fantastic inside look into the world that Angie inhabits!
People often ask me just what it is a promoter does. I think they see me twiddling my thumbs in a show and think it is a push over of a job. By the time I get to the middle of a show, my work is more or less done, apart from trouble shooting during the weekend and the pack down at the end. The hard work goes in before we ever get to the weekend of the show.
Over the years, people have often said I should do articles about what goes into a show, so I have decided to do a series for our blog of ‘The Life & Times of an Event Promoter – a Promoter’s Musings’, giving some insight into how those wonderful stands miraculously appear in a hall and visitors miraculously walk through the doors :)
The best place to start is always at the very beginning, and the first task before any show can begin is to find a place to hold it, so here is my first article in the ‘Event Promoter’s Musings’, on finding a venue!
I always say that one of the hardest parts of my job is finding an actual venue that works for a show. People often say to me, ‘why don’t you do a show in X or Y?’ The simple answer is, I can’t find anywhere suitable and affordable to hold one!
When we go on a venue hunt, I go armed with a list of twenty-two requirements. Some of them are essential, others are preferred, but can sometimes be worked around. They include things you might not even consider on first thought.
First and foremost of course is space. In the good old days before the recession hit, we always needed a minimum of 750 square metres, otherwise we would be turning away too many of our ‘regulars’! Now however, anything over 600 square meters is worth a look, as we are considering slightly smaller shows due to falling exhibitor numbers. Just as High Street shops have closed, so exhibitors have gone out of business too.
Next, having found the room, we need to look at practicalities such as:
Having managed to tick all these boxes, the crunch comes – can they do the dates we want and how much will it cost? You would think this would be the first question, but most venues won’t quote or look at dates until they have gone through all your requirements.
Dates are a problem with hotels, as most don’t want to book shows in the summer because of weddings. Some won’t take three-day bookings at any time of the year, preferring to get a wedding, party or formal dinner on the Friday and Saturday nights. We need three days of course – one to set up the show and two for the show itself.
If we do get over all of this, it is then ‘cross-fingers’ time, as we wait for the quote. Quotations of up to £12,000 per day are not usual with city centre venues that tick most of the boxes, and quotes of around £3,000 a day are common with the larger types of facilities. Some can be negotiated to a reasonable figure, others will not budge and so fall at the final hurdle. These days I try and push for a ‘ball park’ figure before going through everything, but venues are very reluctant to commit themselves until they have all your requirements.
When we really want to do a show in a particular area and cannot find something ideal, we do look at a compromise, as happened with our recent Nottingham show. Most of the city centre venues were in the £7,000 to £12,000 a day bracket, hotels were not interested and so we found ourselves at Nottingham Forest FC. It was an upstairs room, not our favourite, had two lifts one of which broke down and was a very difficult shape to work with, complete with fixed seating along one side and a ‘balcony’ type area which was overlooked by many visitors. Signage was restricted by the football club and catering was not what we usually look for, all of this came at a price of over £3,500 for the weekend but it did enable us to try out Nottingham. As it turned out, with the show falling far short of expectations despite heavy investment in advertising, I was pleased I had not paid more!
So here we have it – the life and times of an event promoter, or at least, a very small part of it. You can perhaps see why, when after all of this, exhibitors walk in and say ‘this is hard to find’, I don’t like the atmosphere, the lighting, the parking, the unloading, the position I am in or any one of a hundred other things, we sometimes sigh deeply to ourselves before summoning up the cheery smile and trying our best to make them feel comfortable and happy.
Next instalment – Things That Have Gone Wrong – a trip down the memory lane of my biggest nightmares and some of the things that have provided the steepest and sharpest learning curves! Fortunately my sense of humour and sense of the ridiculous usually enables me to look back at them with a grin, even though at the time I was probably on a search for the nearest rafter to hang myself from! :)
Today we have the first of a series called The Life and Times of an Event Promoter. A fantastic inside look into the world that Angie inhabits!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
People often ask me just what it is a promoter does. I think they see me twiddling my thumbs in a show and think it is a push over of a job. By the time I get to the middle of a show, my work is more or less done, apart from trouble shooting during the weekend and the pack down at the end. The hard work goes in before we ever get to the weekend of the show.
Over the years, people have often said I should do articles about what goes into a show, so I have decided to do a series for our blog of ‘The Life & Times of an Event Promoter – a Promoter’s Musings’, giving some insight into how those wonderful stands miraculously appear in a hall and visitors miraculously walk through the doors :)
The best place to start is always at the very beginning, and the first task before any show can begin is to find a place to hold it, so here is my first article in the ‘Event Promoter’s Musings’, on finding a venue!
I always say that one of the hardest parts of my job is finding an actual venue that works for a show. People often say to me, ‘why don’t you do a show in X or Y?’ The simple answer is, I can’t find anywhere suitable and affordable to hold one!
When we go on a venue hunt, I go armed with a list of twenty-two requirements. Some of them are essential, others are preferred, but can sometimes be worked around. They include things you might not even consider on first thought.
First and foremost of course is space. In the good old days before the recession hit, we always needed a minimum of 750 square metres, otherwise we would be turning away too many of our ‘regulars’! Now however, anything over 600 square meters is worth a look, as we are considering slightly smaller shows due to falling exhibitor numbers. Just as High Street shops have closed, so exhibitors have gone out of business too.
Next, having found the room, we need to look at practicalities such as:
- Is it lockable, alarmed, is there a security guard?
- Does it have enough electrical outlets to supply every stand?
- Is there somewhere to site the entry desk that controls the flow of visitors and can we easily restrict it to one entrance only?
- Is there a separate room in which to hold the talks that seats around 70 plus people? If not, can a marquee be used effectively for this purpose?
- Do we have exclusive use of the rooms during show? I have memories of a University where although the management said we did, the students who used the atrium as access to other parts of the University, saw no reason why they couldn’t walk straight through the show! Quite a difficult weekend ensued and of course, we did not return!
- Timings are important – council and university buildings cannot always accommodate our access timetable. We need access from 10am to 7pm on the Friday preceding a show, from 7am to 6pm on the Saturday and from 8am to 8pm on the Sunday to allow for breakdown of the show. So many times, we get this far and the excess hours on Friday and Sunday nights, or the early start on Saturday cannot be accommodated.
- Parking and food come next. Is there onsite parking? If not, is there good on-road and car park facilities nearby? Can exhibitors park near enough for unloading and is the unloading point suitable for trollies? We prefer one large room on the ground floor of a building, but if it is split level, then is there a good, modern lift – is there a service lift or secondary means of access if the lift should break down?
- Does the venue have facilities to run a café? Do they have in-house catering which we are obliged to use or can we get our own? These days, there are hardly any venues that allow us to bring in our own catering, as they want to make the extra revenue from this too. Getting them to cater for a larger than usual number of vegetarians, special diets and stock copious amounts of bottled water can be a challenge in itself!
- After all of that, we get down to the bits and pieces, such as can we put up a large banner outside and for how long? Some venues won’t allow it, some restrict the length of time it can be there and others charge for it! At Chester for example, it has cost over £800 to have a banner up for one week!
- Will they allow posters and flyers in their reception and a pull up banner? You would be amazed at the amount who won’t.
- Do they supply first aid provision or do we need St Johns?
- Do they have trestle tables and chairs or do we need to hire them? Both of these add to the quoted cost of course.
- Do they hold the necessary Markets Licence and entertainments licences?
Having managed to tick all these boxes, the crunch comes – can they do the dates we want and how much will it cost? You would think this would be the first question, but most venues won’t quote or look at dates until they have gone through all your requirements.
Dates are a problem with hotels, as most don’t want to book shows in the summer because of weddings. Some won’t take three-day bookings at any time of the year, preferring to get a wedding, party or formal dinner on the Friday and Saturday nights. We need three days of course – one to set up the show and two for the show itself.
If we do get over all of this, it is then ‘cross-fingers’ time, as we wait for the quote. Quotations of up to £12,000 per day are not usual with city centre venues that tick most of the boxes, and quotes of around £3,000 a day are common with the larger types of facilities. Some can be negotiated to a reasonable figure, others will not budge and so fall at the final hurdle. These days I try and push for a ‘ball park’ figure before going through everything, but venues are very reluctant to commit themselves until they have all your requirements.
When we really want to do a show in a particular area and cannot find something ideal, we do look at a compromise, as happened with our recent Nottingham show. Most of the city centre venues were in the £7,000 to £12,000 a day bracket, hotels were not interested and so we found ourselves at Nottingham Forest FC. It was an upstairs room, not our favourite, had two lifts one of which broke down and was a very difficult shape to work with, complete with fixed seating along one side and a ‘balcony’ type area which was overlooked by many visitors. Signage was restricted by the football club and catering was not what we usually look for, all of this came at a price of over £3,500 for the weekend but it did enable us to try out Nottingham. As it turned out, with the show falling far short of expectations despite heavy investment in advertising, I was pleased I had not paid more!
So here we have it – the life and times of an event promoter, or at least, a very small part of it. You can perhaps see why, when after all of this, exhibitors walk in and say ‘this is hard to find’, I don’t like the atmosphere, the lighting, the parking, the unloading, the position I am in or any one of a hundred other things, we sometimes sigh deeply to ourselves before summoning up the cheery smile and trying our best to make them feel comfortable and happy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next instalment – Things That Have Gone Wrong – a trip down the memory lane of my biggest nightmares and some of the things that have provided the steepest and sharpest learning curves! Fortunately my sense of humour and sense of the ridiculous usually enables me to look back at them with a grin, even though at the time I was probably on a search for the nearest rafter to hang myself from! :)
Friday, 1 August 2014
Weekend Reads
A bit late this evening, sorry! We hope you all have a great weekend, here's a few hand picked sites to check out x
The Mind Unleashed
Not sure how to describe this site but I've spent hours on it. Fascinating articles - in their own words:
"We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically. Many say exploration is part of our destiny, but it’s actually our duty to future generations and their quest to ensure the survival of the human species."
Aquarius
A great curation of new age articles.
Self Help Astrology
Phil is a favourite at the BSSK events but have many of our visitors had a look at his site? Great information with a really lively and informative blog.
Paracon UK
Not a lot of articles on here, but we're really excited about this event. The Paracon website gives us a little taste of what will be the UK's first paranormal convention.
The Mind Unleashed
Not sure how to describe this site but I've spent hours on it. Fascinating articles - in their own words:
"We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically. Many say exploration is part of our destiny, but it’s actually our duty to future generations and their quest to ensure the survival of the human species."
Aquarius
A great curation of new age articles.
Self Help Astrology
Phil is a favourite at the BSSK events but have many of our visitors had a look at his site? Great information with a really lively and informative blog.
Paracon UK
Not a lot of articles on here, but we're really excited about this event. The Paracon website gives us a little taste of what will be the UK's first paranormal convention.
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