7 Swimming Pools is open! And… should we start a membership program?

A blow-up beach ball floating in a blue swimming pool. Photo credit Raohaël Biscaldi, shared via Unsplash.

Right into the pool today — Seven Swimming Pools is open for registration!

This is like a national holiday for us — we love running this program every summer.

It works like this: Every year, we each choose one thing we can’t stop thinking about, and we turn it into a 90-minute workshop. Then we work together to plan and host that workshop, and we run one a week for seven weeks.

Since we’re six now (we miss you Ailsa!) we’ve made the final evening into a showcase for participants to share some of what they’ve created — an online Open Mic Night.

This program is designed as a fun, easy way to reconnect to your creative energy through a host of different doors.

It’s sliding scale, and if the lowest amount is a barrier, get in touch! We want you there.

And, we have a question. “Firefly Membership Program” — good idea or bad idea?

We’re always looking for new, low-barrier ways to create community with you. It feels like everyone is running membership programs these days… so maybe we should get in on the action? Maybe not?

We love connecting, and have endless ideas for what we could provide. But also — do we already offer too much? Would this make our offerings feel crowded? And is there something weird about a “membership”? We’re not a golf club…

As usual — we’re turning to your wisdom. We made a quick survey to let you help us figure it out. We’d love your thoughts.

Finally — we have small-group writing workshops!

This is where our favourite magic happens. Small group, multi-week invitations into chemistry and grace.

Let’s go babies! Please share these if you know someone who would love them.

I miss the pool.

I go every once in a while now, but it’s not the same as it was when I was a kid.

The endless excitement of water, time and friends. The way turquoise seemed to have a taste to it, burny but non-threatening. The word dunk. The rubbery feeling of limbs at the end of a long afternoon there, floppy and exhausted but still bursting with life.

I am wishing you a fractal of that freedom today.

In it with you,