This section has been archived: it is no longer being actively maintained, though I've left it here in case removing it breaks anyone's links.
Men's work became an important part of my life for a while in the early to mid nineties, chiefly as a result of participating in many workshops with Everyman between 1992 and 1996. It's recently started to become important again, as since late 2000 I've been involved with a local men's group which meets weekly.
My experience of the Everyman workshops was very positive. It's easy for people to make fun of men's work, stereotyping it as a few eccentrics yelling and drumming in the woods. That's a shame, as it probably puts a lot of men off the idea before they've really considered it. For me there was a feeling of coming home. It's a very precious thing, being able to really meet each other in a deep way, bridging the gaps we maintain between each other in everyday life. There's a lot of fear around that kind of contact between men, as we're conditioned to hide our emotions and our vulnerability.
Doing the Everyman workshops led me on to do more growth work (particularly around creativity) and now things have turned full circle with the creation of the local men's group.
The Everyman workshops provided me with a safe space in which to do this work initially, and I'd encourage any man who's even vaguely interested to give it a try. Unfortunately, Everyman is no more, but the most important event they ran (the Rites of passage) was first passed on to Wild Dance Events, who have since also ceased operations, and then to Mandorla. Details of how to contact them are available from the residual Everyman web site.