Each year, we ADF Priests report to the Clergy Council about what we have done, and some of us in turn share them with the folk of our Groves or ADF at large. There’s no obligation to share these reports; I know firsthand that much of this work is private and personal to individual priests, and they approach their vocation and service differently… and that is not only okay, but beautiful in its own way.
If you would like, you can read what Rev. Avende calls the “pretty version” of my report, linked at the top and available as a file attached here as well (warning, the downloadable file is pretty big at nearly 20 MB; it’s got a lot of full-sized photos in it).
I’m setting to work on a series of goals for this year, but this year is already shaping up to be active and fun. More on that, I hope, to come.
There were two new questions on the form this year, which don’t appear in this “pretty version,” because I didn’t really know what they were prior to submission. But here are the answers to those questions:
What are you most proud of this year in relation to your clergy work?
I lived. Exiting the year with an “all clear” from a cancer surgery was big. But generally, I’m proud of the fact that my work has been there for people, and I’m proud that in the last couple months of the year, my inspiration and creativity has returned and is currently burning brighter than before.
What have you accomplished this year that you hope will inspire others?
#TheFlameOfHope being restarted is a small thing, in the scheme of everything going on, but my hope is that the visibility of that work can help keep people warm, guide them to bright action, and help them share with their light with their community.
If you’re interested in my history of reports, I’ve decided to go find them all. There’s some inconsistency in my reporting titles: while the reports themselves are accurate to the date, sometimes the title is not (sometimes, I titled them for the year they were written, and sometimes for the year they were for). Anyway, here’s a list of previous reports.
- Priest Report for Calendar Year 2024 (not a pretty report)
- Priest Report for Calendar Year 2023
- Priest Report for Calendar Year 2022
- Priest Report for Calendar Year 2021
- Priest Report for Autumn 2020 (inclusive of calendar years 2018-2020) [created back when Senior Priests had a different reporting structure]
- Priest Report for Autumn 2017 (inclusive of calendar years 2015-2017) [warning, it’s a Google spreadsheet with a bunch of tabs]
The above set of reports covers just over half my time as an ADF Priest (which, by the way, this is my 20th year of doing). You can see that up until 2020, the rules were different for Senior Priests: we had to report only every three years (which, frankly, was a mess, and entirely unfair to our co-priests). I lobbied hard to change that so we would all be on the same reporting schedule.
And, of course, if you’re interested in learning more about how we report, why we report, and why I do what I do with this silly report, you should subscribe to Druids In Cars, Going To Festivals, because it’s coming back this year, friends! We just recorded an episode on these reports the other night, and it’s already edited and ready to go once the new season starts up.
I keep these reporting posts free on Patreon, but if you like this stuff and want to see some of the work I do more regularly, consider subscribing. You can become a free member and get notified when I post, but really, if you’ve read this far, maybe you want to do more. Think about it. There’s more to come!
