Between the Veils issued a public apology regarding their closing ceremonies on February 20, 2023, just five days after I called them out for failure to be accountable. I do appreciate that step, because it provides a needed apology to all affected members of the community, including those who did not contact BTV directly. It is a good start, especially given how soon it was posted after my article went live.

I have thoughts about the content of that apology, but first I want to share it with you in its entirety. It can be also found on their social media and on their website at https://betweentheveils.org/accountability/.

Hey there BTV Community,
 
We fucked up, and it is now way past due that we come out and acknowledge where we have made some errors in judgement. At and following The Gathering Paths Conference, we had folks bring up their concerns about our closing ceremony. The ceremony was conducted in a way that was triggering for many, especially those with Christian-related trauma. Trauma from attending church is very real. Folks who were affected by this include attendees, presenters, volunteers, and staff. Folks of all categories expressed their feelings of discomfort and trauma response. Many received an in-person apology at the conference from our board members, some via email or private messages, but we neglected to make a public statement acknowledging that we take accountability for these very valid grievances.
 
Because accountability is one of our core values as a community agreement, we should be leading by example. We recognize our failure here, and this will inevitably lead to changes in how we handle things as a board and an organization going forward.
 
We recognize that for some this will be too little too late. We don’t want to override the seriousness of that oversight by giving you excuses, and at the same time, you are owed reasons in the name of transparency.
 
Although the closing ceremony is something that deserves care, substantial planning, and deep consideration we, unfortunately, did not give ourselves or the community enough time to do it justice. It was an unfortunate oversight for us to not plan ahead in a constructive way, or give a thorough explanation and a content warning before the ceremony began.
 
The simple and complicated reason as to why we haven’t issued something sooner is because as a board we have been struggling to agree on the best way to handle this. Many intricacies about the situation made this difficult to navigate- namely, where blame belongs and how to word things in a thoughtful way in order to accept responsibility in a way that causes the most healing and least amount of harm. Immediately after the conference, we were also physically, mentally, financially, and spiritually exhausted. Some of our board were personally impacted by the fire, while others contracted COVID, not to mention the need to wrap up many other important post-conference duties- such as paying our presenters and sorting our financial obligations to the DoubleTree. BTV is a volunteer-run organization, which includes our board and staff members. A wave of burnout touched all of our board members in different ways after the conference, and we have only just begun to meet regularly again in the new year. We appreciate all of your patience, and we fully acknowledge your frustration.
 
We want to deeply, and sincerely apologize for letting these things get in the way of our responsibilities to our community. Our hope is that our mistakes don’t override the quality of events we have provided in the past and intend to continue providing to our community. Our commitment is to do better with more precise planning, and careful examination that BTV events reflect our community standards so that everyone feels safe and valued.
 
If you would like to reach out to us you can email us at info@betweentheveils.org where we will do our best to communicate with you.
 
Between the Veils Organization

First, I very much appreciate that this is a real apology. There is no hemming and hawing or wishy-washy language – just a very clear declaration of “we fucked up”, followed by a very brief acknowledgement of where they fucked up, and a good description of who was hurt and why, including acknowledgement that those affected came from all aspects of BTV’s diverse community.

BTV also clearly stated that, yes, they failed to adhere to their principle of accountability in letting this go unaddressed for so long. They also admitted that changes would need to be made going forward to ensure nothing like this happens again. There are no specifics on what will change, but that is entirely reasonable considering it will take time for them to figure out exactly what those changes should be. It is my sincere hope that they will be communicative with the community on prospective or enacted changes, so we can know that they are actually addressing the problem. Further silence will only create more problems.

After that, the apology comes to the word “transparency”.

This was a word I used a great deal in my article, but one I cannot remember being used by BTV previously. I am glad they are starting to consider transparency, but at this time there is nothing transparent about how BTV is run or communicates. Anyone who is not directly involved with the Board has no alternative to speculation, because there is no mechanism by which we can know what the Board is doing or discussing.

In fact, there is so little communication between the Board and the BTV community that I had no idea the membership of the Board had changed between the Gathering Paths conference and now. The fact that this happened and why is not mentioned anywhere on their social media as far as I can tell. I only realized a change had happened because I checked the Board of Directors page to make sure I was attributing communications accurately in my previous article.

Even just creating a place on the BTV website where we can look at the minutes from the Board meetings would go a tremendous distance in creating that transparency they mention in the apology. While it is unlikely that very many, if any, people would bother looking at meeting minutes, the fact that it can be looked up creates a mechanism of direct accountability and transparency. When something like that exists, the community can know what is going on. If such a mechanism had been in place, when I and others wondered about the public apology and how BTV was handling the issue, we would have had the option to look at the minutes and see if they were discussing it, and in what ways. We would also have been able to see that meetings were infrequent for a few months, and the other important issues they were dealing with at the same time.

As it is, the apology says they were discussing accountability, but the reality is that we have no way to verify that. Was it just being mentioned in the meetings as something that should be addressed, or were they genuinely working at problem solving? What ideas were being bounced around? What actions were being taken or tabled? Where are they in the potentially lengthy process of changing the problematic systems? Have they even identified exactly what systems need to be addressed? Was there any discussion about the need for a public apology quickly, even though the other changes would doubtless take time to sort out?

What BTV is doing right now as an organization isn’t transparency. The section of the apology that followed the stated intention to be transparent is not transparent. It does give some superficial explanation of how the triggering event happened, but not enough details to be transparent. That would require a much longer explanation than would be appropriate in this kind of apology. This section of the apology also acknowledges the very real issues of the Board members having busy lives that require their attention, and the convention having other obligations that also needed to be sorted out following The Gathering Paths 2022. That was great, and deserved acknowledgement.

Unfortunately, the parts of the apology that directly relate to accountability are vague at best, and, frankly, make me cringe. But, they are at the same time rather illuminating as to why there have been significant delays in achieving accountability.

Despite my criticisms of their apology, BTV surprised me in a good way, and I am hopeful that they might be committed enough to figure out how to actually make this work.”

What most concerns me is that their wording implies they were particularly hung up on where to place blame, probably thinking that blame would help lead them to the best possible route for accountability.

This concerns me, because in a situation like this I see absolutely no benefit to playing the blame game. The systems they were counting on when arranging the ritual failed, so those systems need to be addressed and changed. The systems they should have had for how to handle an issue of accountability failed, so those systems need to be changed or created. The most important detail is changing those systems, regardless of who contributed to creating those systems originally.

Also, this was the first in-person conference. Things were not going to be perfect! Looking for who to blame when nothing had been tested is like expecting everyone involved to be clairvoyant and just know what would work perfectly without any trial and error.

The only individual I can see who owes a personal apology is the Board Director, Jonathan Quaint, because he made a proud declaration of, “This is my tradition!” before the ritual began. Regardless of his intentions or reasons for saying it, that was a rather public slap in the face to anyone who was triggered, or who simply takes issue with the problematic nature of Thelema and had it shoved down their throat. Accountability means accepting the harm caused even when it is unintentional, so he is failing to be accountable, but some misspoken words are not the same as blame for the entire incident.

If there is truly blame to be placed on particular individual(s) for the way the closing ceremonies turned out, that is even more concerning. It means the explanation I was given in private email immediately after the event was misleading. It is also concerning because if there is a member of the Board who is to blame, and that individual is fighting accepting responsibility, they are clearly either unwilling or incapable of adhering to principles of accountability, and thus unfit to be part of an organization where accountability is a foundational principle.

Given that BTV has taken its first step to reaffirm its commitment to accountability, a good second step would be to remove anyone currently on the Board who is fighting or ducking accountability. If someone is not committed to a foundational principle of an organization (any organization!), they have no business being in that organization, let alone helping to lead it!

If no one is truly to blame and the Board is wasting time looking for who to pin the blame on, they are missing the entire point of accountability in a volunteer-run, community-focused, nonprofit organization. Between the Veils, the organization, needs to be accountable, and it needs to have better systems in place to ensure that sort of thing never happens again. Finger-pointing is entirely counter-productive unless there are particular individual(s) who are glaringly responsible and continuing to act against the interests of the community. And even in such cases, the organization still has primary blame for the systems that allowed it to happen, because any such systems left unchanged can be exploited again in the future.

The systems they were counting on when arranging the ritual failed, so those systems need to be addressed and changed. The systems they should have had for how to handle an issue of accountability failed, so those systems need to be changed or created.”

Organizational accountability is great! Playing the blame game and slinging accusations will only hurt peoples’ feelings and reduce their ability to work together. Letting the organization as an entity hold the blame can strengthen teamwork and community within the organization, from the top to the bottom, by encouraging cooperative problem-solving. Focus on the tangible problem and work together to fix it, instead of needlessly dwelling on who contributed to what went wrong.

This apology was a very good first step. It was not perfect, but such things never are, and frankly I was not expecting it to happen at all. Despite my criticisms of their apology, BTV surprised me in a good way, and I am hopeful that they might be committed enough to figure out how to actually make this work. I am also confident that at least some members of the Board will read this, and hopefully my criticisms will provide a fresh perspective that can help them to overcome their current entropy and indecision.

I want an organization like what Between the Veils promised to be, and fixing what already exists is more likely than an entirely new organization forming anytime soon.”

For anyone who is curious, no, no one from the Board has reached out to me personally regarding my public statements, and that is perfectly fine. I received my personal apology six months ago, and my previous blog post could easily have left the members of the Board feeling that I most likely did not want contact from them.

I am, however, open to contact as long as BTV is sincerely working to reestablish their commitment to accountability. I want an organization like what Between the Veils promised to be, and fixing what already exists is more likely than an entirely new organization forming anytime soon. I have a great many ideas for how they could better adhere to their principle of accountability, and I have ideas for how the opening and closing ceremonies could be used to celebrate the amazing diversity in the community around BTV. I am happy to share those ideas and the reasoning behind them, if the Between the Veils Board of Directors is interested in hearing from me.

I will post further updates as things develop on the BTV blog tag.