A really really good thing happened!
Ambivalent Adventurists! Graham here.
This week’s newsletter features actual *news* for once. How absurd!
As keen-eyed readers will remember, we’ve been working on a little ol’ thing called a ‘book club for feelings’. The book clubs are spaces for people to come together - online and off - to make sense of the messy stuff of being human, and connect with others who’ve been in the existential goo.
We’ve come up with a whole bunch of great feelings-content, tested the approach with people in five whole countries, and gotten feedback like, ‘This thing! Keep doing this thing! This is the thing!’
The only hold up so far has been that eternal question - *how* do we do this thing without any money?
*BIG EXCITING NEWS ALERT*
Well my friends. The big exciting news? We got our first philanthropic grant, and it means we’re rolling out the book club for reals.
A generous benefactor (who’d rather not be named) is funding us to develop our book clubs, in partnership with Melbourne’s Self Help Addiction Resource Centre (SHARC).
SHARC are a truly awesome community service who's been mentoring us over the past few months. They're led by people who’ve had plenty of first-hand experience in the existential goo themselves, so they totally get what we're all about.
They also know all about how to do good stuff without much money. As we embark on this next chapter, SHARC will be like our big feels big sister, helping us figure out how to float this little feelings ship.
What does this mean for you?
We’ll now be able to run the book club online for everybody, no matter where you live. It's gonna be a big ol' international feels fest for anyone who's keen. We'll also be starting more real life book club meet ups in a few places across Melbourne, and (longer term) working out how we can seed those in other towns.
Aaaand this funding support means for now we can do all this without charging y’all anything to join in. (Oprah voice: *You* get a book club! And *you* get a book club!).
If you want to be involved online or at the real life meet ups in Melbourne, sign up here to be the first to know what’s happening :))))
Keeping the feelings fire burning
This support also just feels like a great big *YES* from the universe. (I’m excited! I’m allowed to say woo woo things like that!)
We’ve put a lot of blood, sweat, and (obviously) tears into this little club for feelings, without really knowing what it is. Hearing from y’all has kept us going - in our inbox, on our Facebook page. Knowing that this stuff is genuinely useful. Hearing that you had a big, scary feelings conversation because of something we wrote. Hearing that one of our silly metaphors has helped make sense of the messiness, even if just for today.
Getting this financial support, and having a service like SHARC in our corner, feels like the next piece of the puzzle. As well as book club stuff, this first bit of funding will also help us cover some of our other costs, like mailchimp fees to keep this newsletter goodness in your inbox (oh thank god. Seriously, that stuff adds up).
And we'll still be doing extra stuff like our online courses, the proceeds of which will also help us inch our way towards #sustainability.
Sustainable feelings!!! Woooooo!!!!!
Thaaaaanks :)))
Thanks for helping us get this far, whether it was giving us feedback on what this thing means to you, sharing your feels on our Facebook page, or even just letting us in your precious inbox to hang out every couple of weeks. We got big plans for these Big Feels, and we're really glad you're with us <3 <3 <3
