Rope Bondage Peer Workshop

Latest News

June 1st: Confirmed People updated. (Note: there are loads more people who have confirmed than are listed on that page - that's the media-philic ones who are happy to have pictures of some of thier work shown.)
June 24th: Stu has confirmed the venue is available and free of charge for us. There may be an after market party happening after the workshop, which would be cool. So I have gone ahead and announced the event on Informed Consent. and LondonFetishScene
June 27th: photo policy discussion started and more confirms added
July 5th: Several people have told me they are interested in coming up from London, but either don't want to do all the driving or don't have access to a car, and have asked if I can do anything about arranging car sharing. So, if you are going to be driving up from London and may have a spare space in your car that you are willing to share, or are in need of a lift and are happy to split the petrol costs, then drop me an email and I'll do my best to put you all in touch with each other, so you can sort out the details.
July 6th: To clarify, in response to questions. Yes, it is a FREE event. No entry fee. No membership. No tips or donations requested. We are going to have the place to ourselves - it isn't a club event. There is loads of space. You can bring along your suspension frames if you have any. You can even bring along spare rope to sell if you want to (though if you do, it would be nice of you to buy the owner, Stu, a drink, since he is going to be making a loss as he has to pay insurance costs by the hour, even with people buying drinks at the bar. Like I said, he is a nice guy). Basically think "munch with rope".
July 11th: The Photography Policy has been decided.
July 18th: Today's the day. I've bought some nibbles and am leaving for the BBB soon. I've turned my mobile on - phone me on that now to reach me. Warning for anyone else going to the BBB today: apparently there are roadworks on the A38 (Aston Expressway) leading into Birmingham from J6 of the M6, so you might be best off taking J5 or J7 (or so I am told).
July 19th: For anyone who is interested in there being further workshops I have set up a mailing list. You will need a Yahoo Profile.; I have got bounces sending email to people at the following domains: darksensation.com, hotmail.com and rouse.co.uk - if you gave an address at the event from one of these domains, please mail me so that I can confirm I have your address spelt correctly (or better still, phone me).
July 24th: Thanks to DemolitionRed for writing a review for londonfetishscene.com.
September 5th: It is now confirmed: The next workshop will be on Sunday 17th October
September 9th: There is a flyer you can print off, if you would like to help advertise the upcoming 2nd Peer Workshop.
September 16th: 1 month to go. We have an informedconsent.co.uk entry. A volunteer is taking copies of the flyer to the BBB. Someone else has kindly made a bondage.com thread. Things are looking good. Now, who's going to bring Jaffa Cakes?
October 10th: 1 week to go. Alex has kindly volunteered to bring along some really good photography stuff. We've had one offer of an additional suspension frame (but could probably use more).
October 16th: 1 day to go. There are lifts available from: London, Cambridge, Brighton and Essex. (join the yahoo list for details). Several people have offered to supply Jaffa Cakes.
October 17th: I'm just heading out of the door now, in a car loaded down with rope, 2 suspension frames and 150 Jaffa Cakes. I'm contactable on my mobile. See you all there.
October 18th: Next workshop will be Jan 16th, 2005
November 28th: Thanks to London Fetish Scene for publishing Masticallare's Review of the 2nd Workshop
January 13th: The San Francisco Rope Bondage Peer Workshop website has moved. The UK Rope Bondage Peer Workshop now also has a professional looking website, which hereby supplants this website as the definitive up-to-date source of information. Stu has confirmed that we can use Caesars for Workshop IV, which will be on April 17th. It is looking like there are going to be LOTS of new faces coming, so do say Hi to me on Sunday. If you don't know me, I'm the one with the beard.
January 17th: In alphabetical order, a big thank you to: Ellie (photobod), Friv (webmistress), Cru (quartermistress, publicity), James (food), MRK (floorboss), Stu (venue), to everyone who brought stuff (especially large stuff like frames and inverse suspension gear), to everyone who helped publicise the event, to everyone who supported the event but couldn't turn up, to everyone who turned up and helped out on the day, to everyone who taught, to everyone who did bondage and made the atmosphere fun.
January 22th: Thanks to lili for writing a great review of Workshop III.
April 13th: We may be a little short on suspension frames, but things are otherwise all still go for this Sunday (April 17th), 5pm-9pm. We now have 285 members on the email list. See you all there...
April 27th: The next workshop will be Sunday July 17th; We are starting to get press, with articles in FORUM and other magasines. Can anyone provide the text of this article?

Introduction - What's this all about?

Hi there, I'm Douglas.

A couple of years ago I spent a wonderful 6 months in San Francisco, where I took the opportunity to go to every rope-related event I could manage - book launches by Midori, munches with Jay Wiseman, classes by Cleo Dubois, workshops by the Two Knotty Boys and play parties with Waldemar.

And one of the best events was something called a Rope Bondage Peer Workshop. It wasn't a workshop in the sense of one person teaching and the rest learning. It wasn't a play party in the sense that while a certain amout of play went on the primary focus was the tying up, experimenting around, picking up new knots. It was just a whole bunch of people with a strong interest in rope turning up at the private home of one of the local bondage devotees (during the time I was there it was held at home of Loki, who ran Camp Arachnid at Burning Man, but I believe it has now moved to a space over the Madame S. leather shop). Many of them, in fact, were the same people who were giving the tutorials elsewhere.

And when they got there, there'd be a few drinks and snacks, and people would spread out around the couches and make some spaces, lay out their ropes. And a few people would start tying up their regular partners. One person might ask a few friends about suggestions for a better way to tie a particular knot. Another was getting ready for a tutorial they were due to give elsewhere, and were trying to work out for the hand out the easiest way to explain a particular harness. And a couple of escape artist bondage bunnies were happily getting tied up then making suggestions on how to make the tie more secure. Not everyone tied up new people, and if someone wanted to hide in a corner they could, but mostly it was just a lot of people being helpful and creative. Everywhere you looked you picked up new ideas on how to do stuff, or saw some really pretty ties. A great atmosphere.

When I got back to the UK I started missing it, and wondered why no one was running a similar event over here. It is not as if we are short of really great rope artists. In fact I kept bumping into talents all over the UK and mentioned it to them hoping they would know of such an event and kept getting the same response "Hey that sounds great, I'd come, when are you going to run it?". Well, my house really isn't suitable, but I mentioned it to Stu (the new owner of the Caesar's play space near Birmingham) and because he's a great guy and really into this himself he said "What the hell, let's give it a go, you can use my place one Sunday".

Details

Date: Sunday 17th, July, 2005 (That's the 3rd Sunday)
Time: 17:00 - 21:00 (5pm - 9pm)
Where:

   Caesars Nightclub,	
   Kenilworth Road, 
   Balsall Common,
   Nr Coventry,
   England
   CV7 7HD.
Cost: Free

Directions: [caesar's website]
Map: [multimap website]
More info: Philosophy, Policy, Mailing list, Public Website

Who is welcome

The short answer is: anyone who knows they have a sincere interest in rope. You don't have to have given tutorials elsewhere. You don't have to own tons of rope. Anyone who wants to do or learn more is welcome.

I'm initially sending this invite out to people who I know and have seen play. If this is going to work, it will work because everyone is pushing it to work, so please PLEASE pass this invite on to people you know are likely to be interested and fit in with the atmosphere. And to topical forums such as rope bondage specific mailing lists and websites.

What to bring

Rope. Well, duh. :-) You don't have to bring any, but there is no such thing as too much rope. And as no one will be specifically responsible for making sure you have some (its that "peer" thing), if you don't bring any you may find yourself begging around for scraps.
Stuff to lie on. If you plan on laying down or laying someone else down, I've always found having a mat, rug, blanket, towel or something to be handy.
Comfortable clothing. Feel free to dress in high fetish fashion if that's what makes you feel comfortable. But it isn't required. And if you are likely to be be tied, wearing something loose (or removable) is advised.
You won't need to bring drink - it will be available for sale.
Stuff to learn from. Books, pictures, tutorial handouts, whatever. Entirely optional, but the more the merrier. I'll be bringing along my copy of The Ashley Book of Knots and one or two other things.

Photography

I'm open to suggestions on what the best way for us to arrange this is. I will not accept any arrangement that does not guarantee that nobody will appear (even so much as a finger in the background) in any shot without their prior explicit consent. If people are interested, I could bring along a PC, a digital camera, and a paintshop application you can use to remove faces so you can go home with a floppy disk.
Update: The Photography Policy has now been decided. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the creation of this document.

Contact

You may still contact me directly if you want: douglasr@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Home Phone Number : 01223 426462
Mobile (not normally on, but it will be on for the day of the event) : 0 77 3 99 888 11

However for things like arranging lifts, finding out what faciilities are available, asking whether it would be suitable for you to come, you would do best to subscribe to the mailing list and ask there.