Author: Peter Haresnape

We are so excited to open registration for Cahoots 2024 – join us!

First – register via the Google Form.

Second – pay through CanadaHelps.

Third – tag, shouldertap, or email someone and get them to join you!

Please consider your financial situation when choosing whether you select a sliding scale ticket, a full price ticket, or make an additional donation. We make a limited number of below-cost tickets available. Cahoots is a volunteer-run festival and everyone attending in any capacity has the same right to access a ticket at whatever price point they can afford.

All tickets include food, lodging, and any workshop materials. You should be able to participate in the festival without bringing any money along (although you may wish to bring cash in case a crafter is selling wares). All prices are CAD.

Family tickets are designed to be accessed by 1-2 adults with 2 or more children or youth who they are legally responsible for (depending on the age and size of your group it may be cheaper to buy individual tickets).

• Adult (18+) – $170
• Youth (13-17) – $140
• Child (3-12) – $80
• Baby (0-2) – free
• Sliding Scale A-E – limited supply of tickets from $0 to $100
• Family ticket – $515

The Cahoots festival will return, May 23 – 26 at Pearce Williams camp. We would love to see you there and we hope you’ll bring a story, skill, or song to share.

Before that, we’ll have a special Thanksgiving fundraiser meal gathering in Toronto with our friends from the In This Together network who work towards queer and trans inclusion in the Anabaptist church community. Please save the date – October 5, doors open at 6pm

We gathered around and amongst the fires of Pentecost, speaking the languages of craft, company, care, cuisine, laughter, listening, and love.

Thank you for the gift of Cahoots 2023!

The Core Organizers will take a break until the autumn, but until then we crave your feedback to help us know ‘what to repeat, what to repent’. Make a cup of ginger tea and give us your feedback.

Next year we will reconvene for more faith, justice, and do-it-yourself. Are you ready to lead a workshop session? Is there someone you want to hear from? Or is there a skill you can teach yourself in these months ahead which you can teach us next year?

Session proposals will open in the autumn, and in January 2024 we’ll gather to sift the proposals and design the festival. Please be thinking about what you’d like to share! Sign up for the email list and follow us on Instagram and Facebook to get the invitation to propose something.

If you’re interested in joining us as an organizer, let us know through the feedback form. We only ask that you’ve already participated in a Cahoots festival, and that you have some organizing skills you are excited to share and develop.

Until then – peace, power, and righteousness! <3

(12+)

Elliot Gunn

We need to talk about how our money and our faith interact – because when we don’t, we risk inheriting oppressive attitudes towards both! We’ll begin with a whirlwind tour through the history of tithing as a part of Christian discipleship. We’ll look at creative ways to talk about money and build church communities around biblical principles like jubilee and koinonia. You’ll be asked to consider the role that your personal finances play in forming communities of radical generosity and embodied grace.

about the facilitator

Elliot (he/him) runs Faith & Big Ideas, a Bible study group through the Student Christian Movement Canada & First Lutheran Toronto, that provides intensive peer-led conversations that focus on existentially overwhelming questions in our spiritual journeys. He loves engaging with big questions and messy ideas through conversation grounded in Christ. He works in tech and enjoys nerding out about all things money…

Cahoots Festival: May 26-29, 2022

Propose A Session by Dec 31: LINK

What IS Cahoots?

Imagine a campsite where people and communities gather to rest, play, work, pray, learn, laugh, and think through what we need to do and who we need to be to create a world of justice, joy, and great food… that’s what Cahoots is trying to be, with God’s help, and with your participation!

We are so delighted to be planning a return to an in-person festival for May 2022! Tickets will go on sale in the new year, but please save the date and think about what you would like to offer. Will you volunteer in the kitchen? Offer to carpool? Prepare a workshop to share a skill, craft, game or exercise that you know? Lead a time of prayerful contemplation?

Cahoots is our attempt to be faithful to the needs of the world today. Learn more about our vision on our website https://www.cahootsfest.ca/about/so-what-is-cahoots/

Join us!

We are looking for your skills, passions, questions, hobbies, weird ideas and fun games – what do you want to teach? What do you want to learn? Propose it!

Propose Your Cahoots 2022 Session At This Link

Inspired by the crowd of people left out, left over, left behind, and gathered by God around a manger in a sleepy small town, we imagined Cahoots Christmas Leftovers, an online gathering to allow our community to connect during Christmas this year.

But wait, I’m busy at Christmas! – Don’t worry, friend! Christmas is a season, not just a day! We’re meeting on Tuesday December 29, at 6:30pm (Eastern), and we hope you’ll be there!

I’ve never gone to Cahoots festival, will I feel awkward? – yes, you’ll definitely feel awkward, we’re a bunch of awkward people. It’s built in. Come be awkward with us – share some silly and profound activities. It would be a real gift – welcoming new people at Christmas is a whole stable vibe, after all.

So I don’t get it, is this a church service or a hangout? – YES! We love going beyond binaries! We’ll sing some songs, pray some prayers, maybe make a craft, invite people to play a game. You can decide how and how much you participate.

How is this helpful? Sounds self-indulgent to be praying & playing while people are facing sickness & eviction. – Good challenge! We resist the myth of superhero labour; that the problems of the world are the result of us not working hard enough, or caring enough. We know that many of us are burnt out and exhausted, and stuck without their usual ways of recharging. This is our way of helping bring some restful, festive power. For us, prayer produces action – and action is rooted in spiritual work. Come pray with us – whatever that means to you. And then let’s work together to change this system!

Do you have a super duper poster and maybe a registration link? – you betcha! Click https://tinyurl.com/cahootsxmas to register, and then tell your friends. Can’t wait to see you.

Are you entitled? Have you ever been entitled? This is one of those questions that lands very differently depending on your social location – the particular balance of privileges and oppressions that any given individual can be assigned by social power.

To help us think through these questions, Lane Silas Patriquin adapted their workshop, originally intended for the in-person Cahoots, into an online session Cahoots Transfigured. we were blessed with several workshops originally pitched for the in-person festival.

Now we are pleased to present the full workshop video, to help us consider these important interpersonal/communal dynamics. Many thanks to Lane, to Emma for facilitating, and Lyf for editing!

Cahoots has always sought to be a safer space for LGBTQIA+ people and families, bringing together faithful lives and diverse identities to equip us all for powerful action!

We were thrilled to host Steph Chandler Burns at Cahoots Transfigured, leading us through an exploration of LGBTQIA+ identities, wisdom, and work to make the world a more beautiful place.

Whether you identify as cis, straight, trans or queer, you are warmly invited to this workshop recording, with great thanks to Steph, to Peter for facilitating, and Lyf for editing!