July 12, 2019 ~ The Dinner and a Show

What a fun event. I suspect we'll do this, and other social things more often.  One I've thought of is the Ropes Course in town!  Or an afternoon during which we explore our trust issues with a series of games...? 

We watched Antonia's Line together, then discussed our thoughts about it over dinner.  I thoroughly enjoyed both.
We agreed that Antonia exemplified some of our own ideas of what makes for strong women.
We talked about the strong women in our own lives and what we thought some of our own strengths are. Resilience was high in all of these categories.
The film and the discussion touched us in personal ways and increased our understanding about each other a bit.  Details will be held in our memories rather than on paper.

In business, before all the fun started, we mentioned a couple of things that have popped up lately that we felt the group might address.
They are related, but not the same. To my mind the first item is confidentiality. We've always expressed that we keep things said here private.
But, there is the second item, that of adding a couple more people...or not.
We have agreed that these two matters will be the top of the business agenda at the next meeting, July 26th.
How confidentiality comes into the latter issue is in how and when we talk to prospective new members.

Some points that we might consider as we approach the conversation are these:
    A. We are only 10 members at this time; and one of those has not yet attended a meeting...
    B. Six of these 9 are couples or parts of couples. Travel or family things can deplete our numbers and our energy very quickly and could last weeks. And even we singles will leave a hole. Sitting by a recovering friend/family or taking that cruise/road trip we've planned for ages will impact all of us over time.
    C. We've developed a degree of intimacy over these short months; how do we include a new person?
    D. Take a different sort of look at this blog. Could it be an avenue for telling "prospects" something about who we are? I've been careful to avoid last names (though I may have to    refer to Revin as R in the future! :)  )  The Minutes category would include the only posts (I think) where individuals are mentioned. 
Please point out to me ANY place where you feel I have not held to the strictest standard of confidentiality.

My own point of view is that we need to grow. 
And, as I stated during our preliminary discussion, any of you may use my name in connection with this group if/when you want to talk about the group at all. 
I'm confident that we all know that our members' identities are the first and last matters of confidentiality.  We'll figure out the other constraints together.

I found this video interesting and it relates to our confidentiality conversation. I suspect it will be old news to most, but ..
6 Types of People Who Do Not Deserve to Hear Your Shame Story 

Enough of that.... next group meeting is almost here!