90 minutes. Whenever you want to connect with others. A supportive space to talk about what you’re doing creatively. Where you’re stuck. Listen to each other. Encourage each other. Brainstorm with each other. On Zoom.

Welcome to the Rolling Café!

Who is the Café for?

If you have ideas about doing something new and creative but aren’t yet doing something about it, or have been stuck in the middle of it, or can’t put the finishing touches to it, the Café is for you.

This can be any kind of creativity; it’s not a craft workshop, such as a creative writing group or a watercolour class or landscape design course. Your skills are up to you to finesse, and you won’t find that kind of critical educational feedback about your particular craft in the Café.

Your host

I am Dermod Moore. I was an actor in my twenties, working with the Abbey Theatre, and I love the collaboration of theatre. I wrote for Hot Press in my thirties and forties, and in 2004 my book “Diary of a Man” was published. I became a psychotherapist in 2004 and then later a supervisor of psychotherapists. I started teaching in my fifties, and, to my astonishment, during a personally grim lockdown, discovered that I enjoyed teaching on Zoom. Not too big a group, plenty of breakout rooms, keep it light and playful. I’ve held creativity workshops before in Dublin’s Capel Street, and have run various courses on sexuality (for six years) and psychosynthesis (for ten years at the Dublin Business School). I currently teach regularly at my old college in London, the Psychosynthesis Trust, online and in person, and at UCD. I’ve taught at most psychotherapy training colleges in Dublin over the years.

The course that I’ve offered before, which is closest to what Rolling Café is all about, is one I did in 2016 called “Creativity for the Caretaker” loosely based on the Artist’s Way workbook – please take a look at the orginal invitation and then at the lovely feedback and listen to the interview I did then – the same themes are at play. Yet the Café has more of a “drop in” feel to it, rather than being bound by the constraints of an educational training or a course of psychotherapy.

Structure

Each meeting will start with a brief meditation, then introductions, everyone sharing how they’re doing; then the theme of the day will be introduced, discussed and played with, perhaps an exercise and/or presentation; then we’ll go into breakout rooms to talk about what we need in terms of support and encouragement; then we go back to group sharing. Last act is to choose the next date and theme.

Inspirations

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is the one book I’ve recommended that has gone down the best with my clients over the years. I always say that it needs to be translated from the Californian, but the two basic techniques outlined in it are incredibly valuable, the Morning Pages and the Artist’s Date. Basically, flush out the crap in your brain when you wake up in the morning by hand-writing 3 A4 pages, freestyle without thinking too much, and then stop. Do that for a while and fuzzy brains begin to get a little more focused, brighter, clearer, and ideas come to you more easily. And the Artist’s Date? Take yourself somewhere nice, once a week. Nature/culture/foodie/wherever. The act of taking oneself somewhere like this is a lovely, sweetly paradoxical way of combatting loneliness.

When will it be open?

It will be a moveable feast. If there’s interest, I’ll up the frequency, if it takes time to get going, so be it.

See the Twitter account for the registration link for the next Café. Or sign up to the Rolling Café mailing list to get notifications by email. You register on Zoom for the meeting, then pay €30 “at the door” and then log in and say hi, ten minutes before the café opens. So please don’t book ages in advance and then not show up. The café only seats 20. You may have me all to yourself or there may be a crowd of us. You can pop in once a month if you like! Or just when you’re determined to crack on with that novel, drop in as often as you like and share how it’s going!

Values

A few core values I’d like to propose as the ethos of the Rolling Café:

• It’s all about encouragement. If you need encouragement but can’t offer it to others, this isn’t really the right place for you.
• Encouraging creativity in cafégoers doesn’t imply that we’re all budding geniuses hiding our bushels. Whatever our problems are, though, you can be guaranteed that thinking creatively and bouncing off other people will help with it. Worrying doesn’t cut it. It’s a waste of energy.
• It’s a Creative Commons Copyright (CC BY-SA) hangout. If you hear a great idea in the Café and want to write about it, make a stand-up routine out of it, shoot a film about it, graffiti it, sing about it, knit a dress inspired by it, or even make a papier maché sculpture out of it, then it’s all good as long as you credit the Rolling Café and the person(s) you were talking to. It’s a collaborative space for bouncing ideas off each other! If you are of the mindset that someone can “steal” your ideas then please, this Café is not really in your neighbourhood.
• You don’t, however, have any right to someone’s personal stories: if someone shares something really personal about their own life, it’s not yours to talk about outside the Café. Please be respectful.
• Café meetings won’t be recorded.
• Play is a serious business: I learned all about reliability and punctuality from being an actor. In the Café, the one thing we do take seriously is the creative impulse, and being courageous enough, and vulnerable enough, to follow it through. Life can be really shit and you can go mad with isolation and relentless criticism (from yourself and/or others) if your voice is not heard; we’re all doing the very best we can. In the Rolling Café, we do try to give each other a good hearing.
• Own your own shit: do the work on yourself, we’re not doing it for you! Acknowledge your own privilege, as I do mine; respect how others identify themselves, see the humanity in everyone and try not to “other” any group or individual. This Café is inclusive and respectful of difference.
• Do your journaling, your morning pages, your self-care, your health routine, if you can. If you can’t, that’s fine too; but let’s try to leave blame outside the Café doors, ok?

You’ll be assured a warm welcome at the Rolling Café!