Very Offline Club: A Preview

Description

Announcing the Very Offline Club: a collectivist approach to addressing smartphonification and its impacts on our personal, interpersonal, and collective health. More than a digital detox, this is a playful, holistic, and critical leftist experiment to reclaim our attention, our time, our connections, and our imaginations - together.

This social gathering is a chance to preview the Very Offline Club, launching in January 2025, a 3-month pilot designed for folks who’d like to:

• be intentional about their screen time
• critically analyze the role of social media etc on our personal, interpersonal, and collective conditions
• skill-share with other like-minded folks on alternative tools and tech
• access acupuncture treatments developed by radicals and validated by evidence to treat addictions, anxiety, stress and trauma.
• build community with other people on a similar journey.
   

This gathering will preview the in-person components of the Very Offline Club: acupuncture support, and offline social time. Starting with an ear acupuncture (NADA) circle to support our nervous systems, this is an opportunity to reconnect with ourselves and others in meat-space, with our phones safely tucked away. This is an all-ages event.

The agenda: 

1. Ceremonial Tucking Away of the Phones: tucking away the phones, ceremonially!
2. NADA ear acupuncture circle  - the NADA protocol is a non-verbal approach to healing that involves the gentle placement of up to five small, sterilized disposable needles or stickers into specific sites on each ear. Recipients sit quietly for 30-45 minutes allowing the treatment to take effect. This protocol helps treat cravings, withdrawal, anxiety, stress, and trauma.
3. Offline time: This is the time to hang out, read a book, chat with strangers or friends, play a game, daydream, eat some snacks, do some drawing or crafting, or whatever calls to you. 
4. Closing circle: share experiences, thoughts, longings. Maybe prizes? 
    

Access: This is a masked event. Some masks will be available Reset is located in a wheelchair accessible ground-level space, with a wheelchair accessible washroom. The basement is not wheelchair accessible.

Pay what you can, no one turned away for lack of funds.

About your host:
Gunjan is your host and context creator. Gunjan is a registered acupuncturist, cybersecurity analyst, community organizer, and weirdo who has dealt with screen addiction since the early 2000’s. As a queer, neurodivergent survivor and immigrant who has benefited from / been ensnared by / is shaped by the rise of social media platforms, Gunjan is very interested in finding spaces outside the frame to look at what is happening. Gunjan comes from a lineage of anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing and healing justice in Toronto. Gunjan helped found the People’s Healing Fund, and BIPOC Grief Circle, amongst other projects, and has been bridging healing and organizing worlds in Toronto for the last 15 years.

Date & Time

Tue., Nov. 26, 2024 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Venue Details

Reset's Living Room

634 Vaughan Road
Toronto, Ontario M6E 2Y3

Reset