Running a tarot group - some ideas

Hello Hello,

I have been tossing over the idea for a while now of advertising in my local paper, and seeing if there is any interest in having a few people attend a Tarot Group.

I do not know a SINGLE person who reads tarot, (in person, AT doesn't count ) and I would love to share my passion with others, possibly in the same town and even better in the same room.

I was thinking that maybe if I advertised a Beginners Tarot gathering, and any person's intersted could attend. I would run the hour (maybe hour and half) session. I would incorporate methods from various resources into the sessions, to help learners get an understanding of how tarot can be incorporated into their lives, that there are no rules and that learning in a group can be fun.

All anyone would need to bring is a deck of there choice, a pen and notebook, and a gold coin donation. (do you think its ok that I ask for a gold coin donation, it would just help with the provision of beverages etc) I would provide coffee and tea and nibbles.

I was thinking about the first session. It would include something like this:
Choosing a deck,
The RW deck, and its use as a learners deck.
Some resources for personal learning.
Explain that everyone learns the cards differently and that everyone reads differently.
There are no hard and fast rules around tarot, there are just guidelines to help people start off on their journeys.
I would probably have people dive straight in at the beginning, have everyone shuffle their deck, and start getting to know their decks. I would probably start with having everyone pull 1 card and go from there. then go into the whole 'everyone reads and learns differently'.

Any ideas would be great, as I said its just an idea at the moment.
I live in small remote town, in the centre of Australia, and there is to my knowlegde, nothing like this in town.

Any thoughts are very welcome.

thanks

I'd make the first session even simpler.

I'd start it with a question-and-answer: what does each student think Tarot is? What does each student think Tarot does? Probe. Look for beliefs about good versus bad, prophecy versus creating events that weren't going to happen otherwise.

And instead of running a class first-off, make the first session just an introductory talk, perhaps as a question-driven dialogue. A gold coin donation would be excellent.

Then, at the end, have a sign-up sheet for "real" classes. Charge a reasonable fixed cost for those in incomes: pensioners, the unemployed, farmers-going-down-the-tubes and self-funded retirees, perhaps, could be admitted for the gold coin donation, whilst people in work could pay a basic cost, say $10 if you have three or more in the group.

Structure future lessons so that each one builds on the ones before, and set them homework, exercises to do alone and report back at the start of the next lesson. This makes people feel committed, and more willing to come back.

And make it fun! If something is quirky and humorous, don't be too serious and cosmic - allow yourself and the class to have a laugh. Anatomists have found out that the act of genuine laughter is closely linked to laying down new memories, so it helps their learning process.

Nisaba, Great thinking on having the first one as more of an introduction to tarot.

I have lots of ideas that I am trying to break down into some simple 'sessions'.

It will of course all be dependant on interest.

I really want to stress that Tarot is a person journey and that everyone learns differently and that the way I am exploring tarot with the students is only guidence.

And I do really want to make it fun! I thought that with the first couple of sessions we could do pull a card, write a story sort of thing. What a great way to get people's smiles and creativity going, in my opinion and hopefully break the ice a bit.

thanks for the response Nisaba! gives me more to think about!

I'm gonna suggest a slightly different tack... How about saying in your ads that everyone who comes will get a reading? (maybe only a one card reading, but you don't have to say that)

There's an analogy I like to use... Say you decide you want to take up locksmithing as a hobby, and you find two correspondence courses. Lesson one of the first course is "intro: what locksmithing means to you" or maybe "History of locksmithing", and Lesson one of the other course is "Pick your first lock tonight (tools provided)"... Which would you sign up for?

I would bring (or buy, if I were picky about others handling my decks, which I'm not) a couple of Illuminated RWS or Radiant RWS or maybe Hanson-Roberts--something "standard" and attractively colored, in other words--so that you don't lose the people who havent taken that first step of choosing a deck. I would ask everyone who brought a deck to pair up with someone who didn't, and I'd have them select a card, and take it from there... Like, say one person says "I got the 9 of cups" then you can have them tell everyone what it looks like to them... Then you say "who else got a cup?" and you talk about cups... Or "who else got a nine?" and talk about nines.

Don't get me wrong--I think you've outlined a good plan--but having taught many adult classes, I can tell you that starting with hands-on and making it FUN will get people there in the first place and bring them back.

(I used to teach a baking class in which I started by having everyone measure 3 cups of flour, no other instructions. Then I weighed each person's flour on a bakers scale--typical range was as much as 40% difference--and gave little prizes for the farthest extremes on either end. Only then did I show them how to achieve more uniform results and how to compensate for a heavy or light hand with the measuring cup. I could have opened with a little talk on how to measure flour properly, but I think my method was more fun. Everyone had a good laugh and learned something, and the worst duffers got a little bonus that the pros didn't.)

Edited to add: haha, I see you got there ahead of me! Making it fun is key, sounds like you have good ideas already!

annabel398 said:

I would bring (or buy, if I were picky about others handling my decks, which I'm not) a couple of Illuminated RWS or Radiant RWS or maybe Hanson-Roberts--something "standard" and attractively colored, in other words--so that you don't lose the people who havent taken that first step of choosing a deck. I would ask everyone who brought a deck to pair up with someone who didn't, and I'd have them select a card, and take it from there... Like, say one person says "I got the 9 of cups" then you can have them tell everyone what it looks like to them... Then you say "who else got a cup?" and you talk about cups... Or "who else got a nine?" and talk about nines.

Edited to add: haha, I see you got there ahead of me! Making it fun is key, sounds like you have good ideas already!

Click to expand...

I was thinking more along these lines orginally. I have some various decks that we can look at, and I thought after that first session people will know if they want to keep attending, and can then purchase a deck.

I was also thinking of having people find the Fool in each deck, work in pairs and list some descriptive words, from the images. then we could compare them all, and in that simple activity it would demonstrate how each Fool card is different, and how different thigns are seen by everyone, therefore tarot is different to everyone.

I might have to put all the ideas together for the first session and pick out the best bits lol

I thought you meant more of something along the lines of just a Tarot meet-up kind of thing where people into Tarot could just come and socialize. That's more what I'd be interested in if it were me rather than a class-type setting. Just something kind of cozy and informal where you could get together with like-minded people on a regular basis. Maybe if it were to continue, you could make it a simple small scale potluck luncheon or maybe even just have everyone bring a snack of some sort and a beverage. You could make it sort of a round robin kind of thing where it was at a different member's home every week or maybe have it at some public location that's easy to access. Then you could exchange readings or something.