WorldWide WitchCamp Agreements
(with some language lovingly borrowed from CloudCatcher WitchCamp’s Online Code of Conduct)
Consent
Consent is mandatory. We ask that you also consider your own and respect others’ boundaries while communicating online. While we may be online and not be with other people ‘in the flesh’, boundaries are still important! Honour yours and others — it’s an important part of self care and being in right relationship with community!
Always seek the consent of others before engaging in conversations that may be sensitive. We strongly believe in the principles of enthusiastic consent.
“No” means no.
“Umm” means no.
“Not right now” means no.
“I’m not sure” means no.
“I’m uncomfortable” means no.
“Yes!” and “Omigods yes!” means yes.
Impact is more important than intention.
Consider intention vs. impact. There will be spaces to communicate in real time and asynchronously throughout camp. If you say something that harms someone else, we ask you to consider impact over your intention. If you were carrying a tea and accidentally spilled it on a friend, you would apologise.
Of course, you didn’t intend on spilling the tea, but the impact is that your friend is now in pain because of what you did, and so you do what you can to make amends. We trust you would do the same when engaging with community while online.
Basically, if you hurt someone’s feelings online, apologise, make amends, and aim to understand why it had that kind of impact on them so you can avoid making that mistake in the future.
Privacy & Confidentiality
As at in-person camps, we ask that no recording devices should be used during path, ritual, community meetings, optional offerings, affinity groups, and photos and recordings should not be taken of people without their express permission.
As there may be deep group sharing involved in paths or offerings, we ask that all discussions be considered private and not be communicated to anyone outside of the immediate group. Of course, you may talk about your own experiences in a way that respects and maintains the personal privacy of other participants.
Self Care
You are your own spiritual authority. You do not need to ask to take care of your own needs. If this means stepping away for a moment, eating a meal even if it’s the middle of path because you need to get grounded, taking a bio break at a not-prescribed-bio-break-time — this is all welcome.
WitchCamps can bring up a lot, and we encourage you to think about your support network before camp, and who in your own community you can reach out to if you need in-person support.
Cameras On
Witch Camps are about being in community and in an online camp, this means having our cameras on as much as possible. With our cameras on we can witness each other as we make magic. We also acknowledge that sometimes we may need to turn our cameras off as a self-care practice, or to avoid distracting others for a moment, while something is happening around us. These instances are of course accepted and we trust campers are doing their best to stay present.
Timeliness
We will run on time and start when we say we will and end when we say we will. We ask you try to show up to path, rituals, affinity groups on time to the best of your ability. We also recognize life happens, and we will think well of people and offer grace if they arrive late or need to miss part of camp.
Sober Space
WorldWide WitchCamp, as with all public events in the Reclaiming Tradition, is a sober space, meaning free of recreational drugs and alcohol.
We will not partake in recreational drugs or alcohol during any of camp’s events including: paths, rituals, affinity groups, and optional offerings. We agree to respect the community and its members by adhering to the drug-free policy throughout camp.
We agree to this because we believe it is possible to attain higher states of consciousness without the use of mind altering substances. We agree to this because there are many people in our community who are in recovery, and we aim to create safer, sober spaces to engage with spirituality and witchcraft. We acknowledge that some traditions have relationships with plants and mind-altering substances and engage with those plants/beings/substances as part of ceremony and ritual, and we respect those practices, however these practices are not a part of our public practices.
No waist-below nudity on screen.
This includes Paths, Affinity groups, Rituals, and optional offerings.
The exception to this agreement is if we have volunteer priestexes to hold an 18+ bower space, or if someone wants to include more nudity in an 18+ optional offering (and directly communicates that’s what will happen in that space). For all other spaces in camp, we will agree to be clothed from the waist down.
We recognize this agreement is different than how many in-person witchcamps run, but with added security risks of being online, and not being an exclusively 18+ camp, this is the best way to ensure everyone’s safety.
Reach out to us if you’re interested in being a volunteer priestex for an 18+ bower space!