RI Pagan Pride 2007
Those who attended Pagan Pride Day last year will certainly attest to what a wonderful day it was. Lorna Steele as Local Coordinator for Pagan Pride did a superlative job, just as she had done the previous year. On both occasions Lorna found herself considerably out of pocket financially (specifically to a total of close to seven thousand dollars) but felt that it was a burden worth bearing for the sake of the local pagan community. Soon after Pagan Pride 2007 Lorna began receiving emails from Brian Ewing from Pagan Pride National and Sha the Regional Coordinator regarding complaints about her effectiveness as Local coordinator for RI Pagan Pride, complaints they had specifically received from Jane Driscoll, Adrian Hamblin and Cat Tyrson. When we asked what the complaints were, we were told that they were confidential in nature. Without any recourse to answer these mystery complaints we simply put it down to the political agenda of Jane Driscoll. In the summer of 2007 Jane in her capacity as Vendor Coordinator attempted a coup at one of the planning meetings to oust Lorna as Local Coordinator. Jane had difficulty accepting anyone else in control. All committee members were present at that meeting and unanimously gave Lorna their 100% support. It has been no secret since then that Jane was vying to take over from Lorna as Local Coordinator. Ironically, Lorna would have been happy to let her do so had she not felt that Jane would ultimately alienate members of the community. There are those who might suggest that the good of the community would be better served by keeping the status quo, as the last 2 years of Pagan Pride had been very successful under Lorna's leadership. But in any community there always seem to be individuals whose personal agendas take priority. Lorna had spent the prior year planning every last detail of the festival and creating the beginning of a manual on how to Coordinate a Pagan Pride event, which she willingly shared with her committee members. She worked with the whole committee to delegate tasks so that everyone would feel they had contributed. She provided page after page of vendor contacts for Jane to coordinate, having already done much of the legwork the previous year to amass a creditable number of vendors for a large festival. In her typical manner, she was friendly with the previous year's vendors and was then told by Jane in a nasty confrontation to "back off" and not contact them as they were "hers". This was the beginning of the power struggle that Jane would go on to exhibit. Read more...
