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Welcoming in Circle.

In this episode Julia & Tessa discuss:

Transcript:

Julia: This episode. You've got Julia and Tessa together, and the topic is welcoming. So you are very welcome to this episode of the circle. Holding. Podcast. I hope you're sitting comfortably. You might be listening while you're out on a walk. You might be listening while you're sitting in your car. But if you're at home you might want to make sure that you're sitting really comfortably. You've got a nice cup of tea or a drink, and you're settled ready and comfortable to listen to this episode. So Tessa and I have been chatting for a while before doing the episode. But I'd love to ask you, Tessa, how are you feeling on this hot and sunny June afternoon?

Tessa: You know, bit of a heat wave at the moment, but I'm in the cool part of the house, actually feeling very settled and ready to go. How about you, Julia?

Julia Davis: So I've got a massive plant of mint outside my back door, and before we sat down to chat I cut a bit of mint off. I put it in my teapot, poured the hot water in, and I'm sitting here with my cup of fresh mint tea ready for this episode.

Tessa: Sounds, very refreshing.

Julia Davis: Yeah. So today, what we really wanted to do was give you a feel for what a welcome means at a circle. And some of it involves the pre-preparation, and some of it involves the actual time while you're there at the circle before the 1st minute of the circle begins. So before. Let's say you've got a circle starting at 7 o'clock in the evening. It might be 6, 45, till 7 o'clock in the evening that warming up time where people may be arriving, and we wanted to give a few different examples of that, depending on what type of circle you might be holding. So to start off with, Tessa's going to talk about a few of the circles that she runs, and how they differ from each other, and how that might affect the welcoming that actually occurs before the start of the circle.

Tessa: Yeah. So the women's circle that I run is currently at my house. And so I say to people, you're very welcome to arrive from about 10 min before the start time, and so people don't come all together. They're coming in ones or twos, and the doorbell will go. I open it with a big smile, and welcome them in. Show them into the room, and it's been going quite well, so most people know each other. But if there's a new person I'll introduce and say, this is and their name, and get them chatting, and I tend to go off and start making some teas for people, and I'll ask one of the people that's already there to open the door if the doorbell goes again. So that's kind of how I manage being in, you know, getting people comfortable when there's people arriving over, usually about a space of about 10 min, and so they'll be chatting, deciding where they're going to sit making sure that they're going to be warm enough if it's winter. There's a lady who comes who's a bit shorter, so whichever seat she sits on, her feet are always dangling above the floor, so I'll make sure that I've got her a cushion so that her feet are resting on something. It's just to really attend to those basic needs, and that if it's the 1st time somebody's come in that they feel welcome. And so that's how it happens for the women's circle in the mum and baby circle. It's held at a venue in the center of the place where I live. It's like a church hall. It's quite cosy church hall as they go, and so I'll have set up play mats on the floor for the babies that can be sitting and moving around. And then there are chairs in a circle around the outside with some tables, because if we're having tea we want to keep them out of reach of the baby. So from a health and safety point of view and so, as people arrive, I'll welcome them in. There is a small fee for that one, so I'll collect it as they come in and offer them a cup of tea and introduce them. But it's often that people don't arrive within a sort of a small small window like for the women's circle. There might be somebody who actually arrives halfway through, because the baby did a massive tunami. So for that one, I have a collaborator, and that means that if somebody arrives late they can still give them that really lovely, friendly welcome. Bring them up to speed, offer them a cup of tea, and bring them in that way. So it is a different setup. And then I was just going to give you one more example, which is when I've run circles online again. I'll say, you know, the start time you know, feel free to to be logging in some minutes before. So you've got your text sorted out. And so if you, if I people see people pop up in the waiting room. I'll let them in from about 10 min before, and we can start having a chat just like they've walked in through my front door rather than letting everybody in all at once. So I've made a bit of a contact with people, and that helps soothe my nervous system, especially if I haven't met them before, I feel like I've got a bit of repartee with people. But yeah, probably a shorter welcome settling online, because I'll already have talked about, you know. Have a cup of tea ready, and be comfortable. And they're they're sorting that out in their own space.

Julia Davis: very similarly, for in person and online circles, one thing I wanted to talk about was not only the time before and the arrival time, which I think we do. Very similarly, it's about making that person feel comfortable. Seen allowing it to feel easy for them. With my studio we need to have closed lids on everything, so I will tell people in advance to bring their drinks with them, and then I have a break in the middle, where people can refill their hot drinks or refill their drinks. We have a little snack time in the middle of the women's circle that I run, and the space I have as a studio at the front of my house, so you can see the studio, and it might be that people are arriving, and they know that they can enter in the summer. I'll have the doors wide open on a day like today. So my circle on Thursday is full. All the chairs will be laid out. I think that is definitely if you run a circle that has a mix of people. Chairs often aren't created with women's bodies in mind, and I've got blocks in my studio, and at least half of us have our feet on blocks. And one thing that I might say at the beginning of a circle is, we've got chairs. but we've also got bolsters and meditation stools and other ways of sitting. We tend to start the circle, sitting on the chair, and then throughout the evening people move into their comfortable way of sitting, which might not be on a chair. So it's little things like that. With the introduction. It's not only about allowing them to feel comfortable, but to give them a little bit more of a feel of what the space might be like once it begins, and that might have already occurred before the evening. But it's nice to remind people to do everything we can to settle their nervous system around this new, brave, courageous experience that they're going to be having. One of the things I wanted to mention was the pre-time, the welcome before the welcome. And that is really important. I've actually got circles that I run where you can book without speaking to me first, so you can book it, and then I don't know who you are when you're booking, and you don't know who I am when you're booking. But then I'll have contact details for the person who's booked. And I'll make sure that there is correspondence with that person. I'll in that email. I'll put my mobile phone number. I will welcome them to contact me if they would like to to talk through anything, and oftentimes they do, and I often give the space for it to be an email correspondence or a Whatsapp or a text. So they've got different ways of communicating with me before the circle. And one of the things I write in an invitation to the circle, because it takes more bravery to come to a circle on your own than it does with a friend. I'll often say it could feel really nice to come along to this space and bring a friend along with you and that often happens as well that people come in twos when they enter circles, so they've not only got me when they're introduced, but they've also got somebody else with them.

Tessa: Yeah. And I think, as well as the email, I tend to send out ahead of a circle about what to bring or sort of setting some expectations about how the space will be held. I think it even starts in the marketing as well. You can create a feeling of welcome in the words that you're choosing in the kind of photos that you're you're having. Maybe you know, you're trying to make sure that they're representing the people who actually come rather than just some random photo you found on Canva, for example. So I think you're setting the scene long before anybody walks through the door or or clicks join on the the Zoom Meeting. And for me it's about having this soft start like once we go into the circle proper. We're, you know, thinking about explaining the guidelines. So people are really clear about how this communication is going to work and depending on your kind of circle. Maybe there's some kind of almost ritualized start to it where you have the same words that you say, or you have a particular way of introducing yourself. But before all of that more official stuff starts, I think it's so important to give space to that soft side of welcoming people in, and that can have a practical consequence that if you're hiring a space you need to have enough time for that to happen. You know some venues are very strict that you're setting up. Time is is included in the time that you're paying for, rather than then, you know. Say, your circles 2 h, and you just think well, I could go, you know, half an hour before and set up. It's always worth checking because they you might actually have to pay for that, but it's absolutely worth it, so that you can set up this beautiful space. You've had chance to take a breather yourself. Go to the Loo, calm your nervous system, and then people start arriving.

Julia Davis: And what I would say is, we've shared some of our examples. But one of the things that we like to do on the podcast is invite a whole variety of people who have openings in different ways. So there's an episode that we've got in Series 3, where rob talks about the men's circles that he runs, and the fact that he uses office spaces that are actually often free to use in the evening because they're empty spaces, and the lights have been left on, and they're open.And he talked about non-alcoholic beer being brought along, because it's not the going to pub after work thing, but it is a social gathering. So the idea of having drinks there that look familiar and feel familiar is useful. It's really worthwhile thinking about the demographic that you're bringing together, and what welcoming them in might feel like. I know that you do, mother and daughter circles. Sowith that, it's thinking about how the mothers might feel, or how the parents might feel to feel comfortable, but then how the children might as well, so that welcome might look different too.

Tessa: That's such a good point, Julia, because with the mother and daughter circles because they're about puberty. I'd really like to check in with the mums before we meet with the girls. So, although the the actual circle happens in person, I tend to have a Zoom Meeting with the Mums the evening or the week before, so that I can just hear a little bit about what they're feeling anxious about with puberty coming. Anything I kind of need to know about how it's going with their daughters, and that helps them relax and really bring a positivity in space when they arrive with their daughters, because sometimes, you know, the the girls. They're like spending an afternoon with a stranger. Talking about periods is not on the top of their priority list. So it really needs the mums to be very positive. We're going to have amazing time, just you and me hanging out bonding. And you know we're going to take a treat along, or whatever it is to get them there, and when they come they have a great time. So I've already sort of helped settle the mum's nervous systems before the circle, and then I can focus on a lovely fun. Welcome for the girls when they arrive on the day.

Julia Davis: Yeah. And that takes us into you might run individual circles. But you also might want to weave circle into a retreat that you're running or a workshop that's taking place. And in that case, if it's something that's going to be over a period of time, you might want to do an initial. You might not call it a circle. You might call it a getting to know you session or let's meet. You've got the opportunity to meet online so that you get to know the faces of everybody who's going to be coming along on this experience with you. And then what we would recommend is that you use those circle skills when you bring those people together for the 1st time. So everyone's had the opportunity to hear each other's names and all of that all the things that you would normally do in circle, so a welcome could actually be a circle in and of itself.

Tessa: I'm just remembering a time where it was for the women's circle, and somebody turned up an hour early, and it was while I was at my home, which was kind of good in a way, because I was there. If it had been at the venue I used to have it at, I probably wouldn't have arrived. They would have come and thought, Oh, maybe I've got the wrong day. Maybe they would have gone home or tried ringing me when I was driving.but it was a bit disconcerting, because it was so much in advance, and this lady had come by taxi. So it wasn't that I could ask her to sit in her car or just go down the road to a cafe, or that was a little bit difficult. I just sort of said to her, well, I was just about to start setting up the space, because I just finished eating dinner with my daughters. So I said you're you're okay to stay if if you're happy for me to be setting up around you, if you know. But I'm gonna have to concentrate on that. So if you're happy to kind of look at your phone, or if you've got a book with you, or something like that, because. I knew that if I tried to give her the welcome I normally would. When somebody walked in through the door I wouldn't be able to set up. I'd be feeling frazzled even before the circle began. So I was quite clear in. Hello! I'm glad you're here. But you're an hour early. So this is gonna be how it works. If that's okay with you.

Julia Davis: So I have had people arrive early, but because I've got that space I tend to set up my circle a few hours in advance, and then it's already set up, and then I can arrive and that settles my nervous system to know it's set up. It's ready. I double check my numbers, and then I'll go out. So I have had people arrive early, but I have said to them, You're welcome to come in. You're welcome to settle yourself if you need to come to the toilet. Then you can ring on my front door, and then I'll settle myself a little bit more inside, and I'll keep myself separate from the circle, and I think I run a circle for elders. And they always arrive so far in advance. They're always there early, and I've got very used to giving them the space to welcome each other into circle. Actually, because I think when you've got a circle, that's the same people that come every week. If I have a new person, I'll make sure that I'm there in advance to settle that new person in. But because these people already know each other, and they're used to the setup, and they get themselves ready, and they find their spot that they used to that they like to be in. They'll do the welcoming of each other, and then I'll come in, and it might only be 5 min before the start that I'll come in, because I'll literally come in and go. Hi, everybody! They've settled themselves for circle.So it's quite nice. So you might have that you might have people that are able to settle themselves. I'm kind of thinking about maybe a classroom situation. The students know each other. You've asked them to arrive, maybe a little bit early for this special session that you're running, but they know each other, and they'll be chatting to each other, and actually you come in as a circle holder and go. Okay, settle down everybody. You're here now and then you can begin. So it really does very much depend on the demographic that we're working with how the settling works so think about who they are and what their needs might be.

Tessa: Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's being conscious. And you know, you've got some decisions to make. Do you sort of make the social aspect, the chatting, you know, actually part of it, or something that's happening informally. Does it happen at the beginning, or does it happen more at the end, you know, like I know some people who run circles, and they'll hold the circle, and then afterwards there's space to have a bit more of a chit, chat for another half an hour, maybe refresh your hot drink. Once a year for my women's circle. We have a shared dinner before the the circle. So we meet an hour earlier than normal. And that's so lovely. Everybody brings a dish. It happened a couple of weeks ago, and yeah, it feels a bit different. There's something about sharing food that I think really brings people together. And I actually had a new person come for that circle, I said, we don't always do this just to set your expectations, but you're very welcome to join us. And at that point, actually, most people had decided what they were bringing, and I. So I gave her a couple of really easy options that she could bring, since it was the 1st time, and she loved it.

Julia Davis: In August we're not actually having a circle. But one of our participants is a comedian, and she's got a one woman show, and the seeds of that one woman show was sown at our circle. So what I decided to do. It's on the 6th of August, and that's pretty much when the next circle would be. But I'd already decided it's August people go off on holiday. I'm not going to do a circle in August that's going to be the month with no circle. But I've sent a link to absolutely everyone who's part of the circle, even the new people saying a few of us are going. If you want to join us, come on our outing. So it's nice to have an alternative, something different every so often, maybe, as you say, once a year, that is slightly less reflective of what a normal circle might be.

Tessa: I can't wait for my next circle now.

Julia Davis: I'm lucky. I've got mine on Thursday.

Julia Davis: Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the circle, holding podcast.

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