California Men’s Gatherings Sacramento presents…

Diwali Indian Dine-Out

Sunday, October 27th, 2019

Date: Sunday, October 27th, 2019
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Location: Monsoon Indian Cuisine, 555 South Sunrise Way #107, Palm Springs, CA 92264
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
RSVP: Lorenzo at cmgpssocial@gmail.com
Event Cost: $17.00 per person includes tax, tip, and beverage.
Parking/Transit: Free parking is available.

Diwali Indian Dine-Out

Come celebrate Diwali, or Deepavali, one of the most popular holidays in Southeast Asia with CMG friends. Diwali symbolizes the “spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.” Based on the Hindu calendar, it is an annual five-day autumn festival of lights, celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists in the Indian subcontinent and those living in the diaspora. Our Indian lunch buffet will be on the final day of the five-day festival, which traditionally culminates with a family feast and, appropriately, the theme of the day is Bhai Duj or brotherhood.  It is traditional to wear bright colors. Invite your gay friends who might be Hindu or who might celebrate Diwali.

We’d love to see you there! 

California Men’s Gatherings presents…

Fall Equinox Ceremony – Griffith Park
[w/ Gay Men’s Medicine Circle] 

Sunday, Sept 22, 2019

Time:  11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Location: Griffith Park, just above the Greek Theater on the left side of Vermont heading north.  Just park at the north end of the large lot there and you’ll see us to the left of the restrooms under a large tree.

RSVP: none needed, just show up.
Event Cost: FREE
Parking: There is plenty of free parking for this event. Metro is possible by taking the Dash bus that goes to the Observatory and stops at the Greek Theater. CMG strongly encourages carpooling.

A Fall Equinox and Rain Ceremony with the Gay Men’s Medicine Circle

Fall has arrived! Come join the men of the Gay Men’s Medicine Circle, and we’ll celebrate and share our feelings for this wonderful time of the year. As you’re heading up Vermont towards the Observatory, the Greek Theater will be on your LEFT. Then there’s a parking lot. We are in the small meadow to the left of the restrooms, under a large tree.

What to Bring: Something to share. This is best something personal. Your memories of Fall or your thoughts about the season now, a poem or reading. You might also bring some food or beverage to share but that is optional. Something to sit on. Something to make noise with. This is a ceremony, after all. If you have a drum, or a Tamborine or finger cymbals or a rattle or even a harmonica, whistle or two pieces of wood to bang together. It all makes for a beautiful noise. Something pretty for the altar. This can be flowers from your garden, a special crystal, a photo of a loved one, whatever. Something special to YOU.

Our Hosts: The Gay Men’s Medicine Circle serves the community by collecting and sharing shamanic teachings from around the world. They offer workshops and trainings to strengthen the community. Many of the current Circle are active CMGers.

We’d love to see you there!

All CMG events are drug-free. This event is also alcohol-free.
Sponsored by the CMG-Los Angeles Local Events Committee. All persons identifying as male 18 or older, local or visiting, are welcome.

To see all events we have going on in the near future, visit the Local Events Page on our site.
If you would like to PROPOSE an Event or a Workshop, send a note to the Local Events Committee HERE and we’ll help you make that happen.

CMG-Los Angeles welcomes additional support for planning and carrying out the events we offer.
We are very interested in having additional homes where events could be held.
You need not join the committee to host or work on an event!
If you can help in either respect, please send us a note to learn more!

Why is the Fall Gathering in 2019 going to a flat-rate pricing structure? 

Early-Bird/Late Rate

Year after year, our volunteers were burning out because it was so hard to plan anything when literally half of the registrations would come in during the final week. This repeatedly caused stress as committees struggled to figure out how to downscale for possible smaller numbers followed by scrambling to change things when the numbers usually (but not always) went up a lot in the final week, even up to the night before.

While it’s nice to ask people to sign up early to help prevent that, simply asking in the past hasn’t made the difference.

As keeping volunteers coming back is an important goal, we decided to make this a priority, even if it required a change in payment policy to make this work.

We have devised a change that we hope will be successful in achieving that.

Flat Rates

The Fall 96 Committee has worked hard to create a reasonable set of flat rates for this Gathering instead our previous sliding scale plan based upon income.

Here’s why:

1)  Marketing with a sliding scale is really confusing! Organizations need to be able to more simply answer the question, “How much is your event?” When rates could vary so greatly between the high end and low end, budgeting is very difficult as well.

2)  We also have found that the sliding scale was alienating many men of higher incomes who felt too much of the burden was falling upon them; we were losing them from CMG. The flat rate gives them the chance to feel like they can register at a fair price, then if they feel like being generous, donate extra to help CMG’s success, without being required to.

This is a bit of an experiment, but organizations have to take some chances to grow!  We’re hopeful that many higher-income men will still donate extra to help with our success.

Financial Aid will still be available for those for whom the rates are still prohibitive; we encourage those men to take advantage of early-bird registration to achieve maximum savings. And we’re giving them about eight weeks notice and multiple reminders to bring in as many of them as possible.

Please note that the early-bird flat fee we have come up to is LESS than the lowest tier rate for the last fall Gathering in Julian, which was well-attended by men at all tiers. With that, the new flat-rate should not be such a big number as to be off-the-chart of lower-incomed men.

If a first-timer learns about CMG during the November 1-7 last-minute window, he will be allowed to pay at the standard rate, so higher pricing won’t dissuade him from coming.

If you’d like to comment at FallGathering@theCMG.org, your feelings on this will be heard, but at least for 2019, the plan is in motion.

We very much hope to see you over the weekend of Nov. 9-11, 2019!

California Men’s Gatherings presents…

BBQ Potluck Picnic – San Diego

Date & Time: Sunday, September 8, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Location: Monzo’s home in Normal Heights (address with RSVP)
Accessibility: Mostly flat, partially paved backyard.
Cost: $8
RSVP: Click HERE to RSVP

BBQ Potluck Picnic

Return to San Diego Events page.

We want to hear from you!

California Men’s Gatherings is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Sunday, September 29, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Join the CMG executive committee for a Zoom call to discuss what kind of workshops
YOU want to see offered at future gatherings.

We will take your feedback and work with each of the Gathering Planning Committees
to help make sure we are offering workshops that are of interest to YOU!!

CMG Workshop discussion for future gatherings
Sep 29, 2019, 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time

We’re looking forward to hearing your ideas!

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/170903771

One tap mobile
+16699006833,,170903771# US (San Jose)
+16465588656,,170903771# US (New York)Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 170 903 771
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/acsl8sRcNy

If you are not available to be on the call, or would rather send a list of workshops
you would like to see, you can send your ideas to welovethecmg@thecmg.org.
Thanks to those of you who have already sent us your great feedback!

We’d love to see you there!