Recently the Mother Grove (Board of Directors) of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF) took an action
that some, including myself, felt was not appropriate and should have been handled differently. This has prompted not a few people on my social media lists to reconsider their involvement, and some have even decided to stop supporting the organization. Now some of you know that I do not feel that some of the leadership are worthy of their position, and that I already left ADF once due to poor treatment of a specific membership population…mistreatment that I am still seeing, and that the training programs are lacking due to the subjective nature of the reviewers.
Despite those incidents and opinions, I have chosen NOT to quit ADF at this time. My reasoning is simple – I lead a grove and still believe in Isaac’s vision that each grove is pretty much a religion of its own. This means that for my grove, ADF is the legal vehicle by which our religion, Gentlidecht, can grow. So long as we are doing our thing within the rules established by ADF, and so long as those rules don’t change in ways that prevent us from practicing our faith, we will remain an ADF Protogrove/Grove. Even if we choose not to engage in the national organization.
I offer my best wishes to those that leave, and ask those that are staying in ADF to always look at the impact of your actions before to take them. There may be unexpected consequences when
you make assumptions or rush.
you make assumptions or rush.
I have been watching all of this from the outside (a position I take most times by choice) and have struggled with my views. I have not commented publicly as of yet, as I have not felt I really had a right to do so. I am a registered member of ADF, however I do not belong to a Grove and have not even considered the DP. I left ADF years ago, returning 2 years ago, but still have some fundamental issues with certain aspects. As for this current issue: I absolutely think what the MG did was wrong, it was self-serving and, IMHO, very underhanded. The way things were handled afterwards were just as shady. But that is just my opinion. Did any of it affect me personally? No..not one bit. Will I leave ADF? Not now…but who knows what the future holds.
I have many close associations on both sides of this issue, and I respect all of their choices, whichever they were. I have learned so much from many of you, and continue to do so. What I do not want to see is dirty laundry being aired or bashing from either side. That is in no way honorable, nor any way for those I respect to handle business. I am dealing with enough mudslinging of my own here from some local pagans and my ministry. It is sad to watch any organization go through difficult periods as this, but sometimes very needed for the community to learn and grow.
Yeah, some have been very ugly about all of this.
I let my membership lapsed & just re-joined in time to go to the Upper Midwest Regional Retreat & had a great time. I've heard some rumblings, but am pretty out of the loop of what's going on. I understand if for privacy you can't share the details, but you point out which weeks of which lists or MG reports to find out what's going on, so I don't have to slog thru as much?
BTW, I am not sure which membership groups you're referring to, though in my opinion we need to keep working on making the DP & other study programs more accessible to people with different learning styles & disabilities- it would help it were not so centered around essays.