What to do once you get there? Okay, so you find your location you've advertised. And now everyone is about to arrive, expecting you to run a terror meeting. What do you do now? arrive early. I always arrive early to set up the chairs because in most coffee shops, you have tables that will seat about four.

And we're going to be a lot more than four. So we pull some tables together and just get the chair set up. And we put a sign on the table with the name of the group. So if there's new people coming, they can see who we are. As I've just said, some kind of sign on the table. Welcome each person as they arrive, make him feel welcome, because that's what we'll bring them back.

And just generally chat until about five minutes after Post is starting time, unless everyone has arrived before then. And if people are looking at their watches, wondering when you're going to start, I just say we usually give them five minutes, and then we start. If people are not buying anything, you can announce in a general way that we'll get started in a few minutes. So if anyone still has to get something from the cafe, you have time to do so now. And that usually works. It makes the point and it's important you won't be welcome there for long if you just sit there and don't buy had the first meeting.

Introduce yourself. Tell them why you're starting this group. Tell them your experience with Tarot or your experience with Tarot if you're just beginning. When I first started, I was just starting with Tarot. So I described the group as all learning together and it worked wonderfully. Well, if you're more advanced, tell them that to.

Also just at the first meeting, get everyone to introduce themselves and their experience or lack of experience with Tarot comment as appropriate. But don't let everyone get chatting. Keep in control of the group so he get down to business the tarot reading quickly. These previous two seconds can be eliminated at every other meeting. They're really just for the first one. But it's a good idea to do a quick once around with the group saying their names at every meeting.

Until everyone can easily remember everyone else's names. If you're a group of beginners, or almost beginners are very short teaching segments is much appreciated at the beginning of each meeting. And I did that at the beginning. have each meeting from the very beginning. And I was very surprised to find that people really, really liked it at one point, I said, Do you think we should keep doing this? And everyone says yes, yes, that was good.

And as you'll find out later, I post what I've said for everybody to download later on, and some people are gathering them and keeping them they've got them all in an envelope they bring along every week, so they really appreciate the teaching. First, I went through the major arcana, two cards a week. And I was just reading out a short description because it was brand new to me too. After the major arcana, we went on to the minor arcana and included numerology with that, but however you decide to do it, just seclude short piece that piece of teaching each week for those who have never opened a book during the week and have no previous experience. And if you're a group are more advanced and you're more advanced, there's probably other things you can look at and bring up because Taro is so multi layered that you never stop learning.

So whatever level your group is that just bring in a very short teaching segment at the beginning, and it can be a discussion if other people know they can join in and give their information as well. So pick something that is relevant and at the right level for your group. Or you may get the group involved in deciding what they want to learn. Because once the group is up and running, you can get all the ideas you want, by just asking for therapy has suggestions. After the teaching segment, if you choose to include one, split into groups of four or five, move the tables apart if you need to, because if you sit right together with two or three groups together, you can't hear what your group saying because you Have the noise of the other group. So we usually move the tables apart and sit apart for this.

Three, a group of three works if necessary to, but we prefer the four or five. But more than six in a small group becomes too cumbersome for during the readings, it just takes too long to go around and do them all. And there's too many ideas all at once. So it's just four or five, four is the best number. As we're about to split up into the smaller groups, I hand out copies of some questions for the Tarot and spreads I found online during the week. One of the most popular I came up with was a list of questions to ask the Tarot and it was just a long list of suggested questions.

Because sometimes people will say, I can't think of a question. So okay, look at the lists and come up with one and also, a list of possible three card spreads. People have kept these as still refer to them. So the possible three car spread was well past present future is obviously one, but just a list of all of these so people can say, Okay, well, we'll choose this one. But I come up with spreads appropriate for the time of year if there's been a particular Full Moon, or we just had the summer solstice, we have a tarot spread for that, or for coming to Valentine's Day, we'll have a tarot spread for that. So I can't try to keep them topical and relevant.

But if someone wants to do a different spread and has a different question to ask, that's absolutely okay. That's their choice. I like to post on the meetup site under comments with a link to a Dropbox file, a copy of the teaching material, the spreads and any other material I use, or you could start a Facebook page or a group for this purpose. This means I only have to print Enough spreads, one for each small group, not one for each person. And they can download their own later. What's in the small groups, each person in turn, does one of the questions are spreads for this week, unless you particularly want to do another one, as I mentioned, and everyone chips in with the reading, so no one's put on the spot.

If you do your spread, and you want to give your opinion, you you say you do your reading, you save what you see, everyone else gives their opinion, they add things to it, they make more suggestions. And that means that if you're unsure, someone who's new and very unsure, they'll just put the spread out and say, Oh, I don't know why it's there, and everyone else will give them ideas. On the other hand, if you're doing really well, you kind of know what this is. You give your reading, and you'll do really well but other people always see other things anyway and you'll get more ideas. So everyone shares in every reading and it makes it much more insightful. And everyone learns this in this way, no one is put on the spot for having to do a reading in front of others in the group because that would be quite embarrassing for anyone who wasn't very confident.

And everyone learns through each other's interpretations, and sometimes very useful discussions happen as a very insightful readings. We have a strict rule that this group is for intuitive tarot reading, notebooks, apps or internet allowed. We added this a few weeks after we started, because a few people were reading cards really long descriptions of the cards, which was very boring for everyone else and eliminated all other thoughts and interpretations of the cards. If our members want to learn the traditional meanings in their own time, and most do, and our short teaching session also helps with that. It's great when people offer keywords for cars during the reading. It adds rather than takes away from the intuitive insights, but no lengthy paragraphs out of books or websites.

We generally go through about two different questions or spreads per meeting. If we finish early in one group, we either pull one car per person to see what it says in general to us about where we are right now. Or someone might have a specific question they'd like to do a reading on. People who like the sound of their own voice can be a problem. So be prepared to say thank you quickly when they stop for a breath and move on to the next person. I've recruited three other members as assistance.

And we take one small group each if we have that many people, where we each lead the group and try to stay on top of the conversation, to make sure the target of Don't talk too much and requires your people are encouraged to participate. Because one thing I've learned through doing public groups like this is you've got to keep your members happy. If they don't enjoy coming, they will come and you won't have a group. So we if someone is really too talkative and dominating the conversation, if they end up not coming because you're cutting them short, that's okay, because the other members will be happier. Take away once you've had just one or two meetings, you will find that both you and your participants fit quite easily into the format and you You can adapt it as you go to fit your particular group. Just go in there with a clearly thought out plan for how each meeting should go and you will find a runs easily and smoothly.