witchesworkshop

Sydney, Australia

TIM Ozpagan HARTRIDGE has been a practicing Witch since his early teens, and became involved in coven-based Witchcraft in 1973. An active Pagan advocate, he has appeared in TV, radio and print media interviews. For a number of years he ran an Adelaide radio program 'Broomstick Corner' (1981-84) interviewing many alternate spiritual practitioners. Later after moving to Sydney he independently published 'Dark Cycle Magazine' (1986-89), 'Venifica' newsletter (1986-89) and 'OzPagan' newsletter (1992-93).
Tim launched the OzPagan Internet site in 1992, making it the first Pagan Internet site in Australia. He was the driving force behind the annual Eostre gathering (1985-1997), the first Pagan festival of its kind to be held in Australia. He later made a major contribution to the establishing of the Euphoria pagan festival from 2000 to 2002 held in Victoria.
In 1984 Tim founded the Sydney-based group Dark Circle Collective and in the following year he established a centre of magickal studies for the group. He presents regular workshops in Witchcraft and runs the WitchesWorkshop eGroup, a popular Australian based Yahoo online community launched in 1999. It is currently the largest Australian Pagan eGroup with more than 1500 members. In 2002 he launch the now well known companion website WitchesWorkshop.com.
In 1999, Tim founded a proto-coven which more formally established itself as Nuit's Veil Coven and began initiating members from 2000. The Coven has undergone many changes and still continues today, although has moved into a new stage of activity through its involvement the Witch Camps project (2007).
Tim is a contributing author to several books including the well respected Australian book on Witchcraft "Practising the Witch's Craft - real magic under a southern sky" (pub.2003 Allen & Unwin).
He periodically runs the "Casting the Witch's Circle" workshop and the "Anatomy of a Witches' Coven" workshop. These workshops have been presented in both Sydney and Melbourne, and he holds hope to also run these elsewhere in Australia.
In 2006, with the help of his Coven members he arranged the start of the social gathering L'Esbat Sydney Witches Meet-up. Several different venues have been used, combining guest speakers with topics of converstaion over cocktails.
In October 2007, Tim called for all interested persons to meet and help establish a planning group for a proposed ongoing Witch Camp. The Witch Camps could potentially be run for a great variety of purposes with education, training and deepening experience in pagan practices high on the agenda. L'Esbat Sydney Witches Meet-ups were re-established as a fortnightly Sunday afternoon meeting to discuss what a Witch Camp could be. Tim proposed that the group first try-out their ideas and "Rehearse a Witch Camp" (January 25-27, 2008) was the result. The Witch Camp group has emerged as an events based organisation and continues to take the project further.
A small dedicated team have since run with Tim a number of successful witch camps. Forming small workshops groups the team has been used to help run local a variety ritual events.