A Cultural Miscellany
This is not so much one meeting topic as a group of them. If there is particular interest in your group in one specific cultural group then you may wish to do an entire meeting on this culture. Similarly you may wish to hold a meeting on a culture if you have extensive knowledge on them yourself. Here is a list of possible cultures:
- The Celts
- The Irish
- The Welsh
- The Scotts
- The Vikings
- The English
- The French
- The Florentines
- The Venetians
- The Genoese
- The Spanish
- The Flemish
- The Burgundians
- The Germanic people
Materials Required
As many books as you can possibly amass illustrating this culture.
Meeting Outline
The meeting outline is fairly free, and obviously dependant on what you can chase up on a particular culture. Talking about dance in Viking culture is obviously not going to take a large part of the meeting for instant, but may be important for the Burgundians. Here then are a number of topics that may or may not be used.
- History
- It is almost always worth going through the history of a people if for no other reason than to set the scene. Go over what made these people socially or politically distinct, the time span that they covered and other cultures that they had contact with.
- Clothing
- I feel that this is the most important part of this meeting. By giving people an idea of what was worn you put them in the first stages of creating a persona of that culture.
- Music and Dance
- Most of the cultures listed above had distinctive forms of music. The Italians certainly had distinctive dances. It is worth giving examples of these if at all possible.
- Cooking and Brewing
- Food also tended to be distinctive. Even though most people know what Italian food tastes like today, the tomato is a new world food and so early Italian cooking was completely different.
As for brewing, convincing people to drink alcohol can be difficult, if you convince them it is cultural exploration they may give in. Pass me some more mead, I wish to more fully understand the Viking experience.
- Stories
- Most cultures will have their favourite stories. Reading a short one out can be a good way of understanding the values of that culture.
- Games
- Board games are definitely encouraged if you can get your hands on some.
Possible Problems
Finding information on all these areas will be difficult for most cultures. If you thoroughly research this though the problem will be what to leave out.
Other Options
Help people to create a persona of this culture. Get a reference for names.
Resources and References
It really depends on which culture you choose.
Webbed by Conrad Leviston. Please mail any suggestions/corrections/comments