Well. What a night. I have been running the Tuesday Night Experiencer Support Group since 1998 and in all that time the biggest we’ve had was nine, and that was the week after the Wandoona Lights when half the pub came down to see if it counted (it did). Last night we had fourteen. I’m still shaking. Partly from the attendance, partly from the plate situation, and partly because they came for me again at about 3 am which is a separate matter and I’ll do a testimony on it.
Who came
I won’t give full names because that’s the first rule, but for the record we had:
- The regulars (six of us, including Warren, who is not technically an experiencer but is “experiencer-adjacent” and brings the urn)
- Two ladies from Charleville who’d driven three hours after reading the site
- The man from Charleville (the one from the bench next to me, visitation forty-one, he’s doing much better)
- A young couple from Brisbane who have had “shared missing time” on the drive up and wanted to “process it before it set”
- Macca the truckie, passing through, who stood at the back with his arms folded and said nothing until the end when he said “triangle” and left
- A lady from Roma who it turned out had come for the Country Women’s quilting group which is Wednesdays, but stayed, and had a breakthrough
- Dr Faraday, taking minutes
- And a woman nobody recognised in a floral dress, a headscarf and a blonde wig, who sat in the corner with a notepad and said her name was “Keitha”
Keitha
I want to say first that the group is open to all genuine experiencers and we do not judge presentation.
I want to say second that Keith Rowbotham has been banned from the group since 2003 and everyone in Wandoona knows what his knees look like because he wears shorts to the Show.
“Keitha” sat quietly through the welcome and the candle and the reading of the Rules (no sceptics, no Keith, bring a plate, what’s said in the hall stays in the hall, nobody touches Cheryl’s chair). She nodded through the Charleville ladies. She wrote a lot during the Brisbane couple. And then during the sharing circle, when the man from Charleville was describing the bench, she put her hand up and said, in a voice about an octave too high, “and have you considered that it might have been a dream”.
The room went very still.
The man from Charleville, bless him, said “no, love, it was a bench”. And “Keitha” said “but how do you know” and the man said “because I’ve got the bruise” and “Keitha” said “but what if the bruise was from something else” and that was when Warren stood up and said “Keith, you’ve got your reading glasses on over the wig.”
He had. He’d pushed them up to take notes and forgot.
He was escorted out by Macca, who did not need to be asked, and he left the notepad, which Dr Faraday has entered into the minutes as Exhibit A. It contains the words “ASK ABOUT DREAMS” underlined three times and a shopping list.
The plate situation
Fourteen people. Nine plates. I don’t want to point fingers but the Brisbane couple brought a bag of corn chips, no dip, and the Charleville ladies brought one plate between them which is a plate per lady of 0.5 and the Rules say A plate. Singular. Each.
Of the nine plates, four were scones. Four. There is a sign-up sheet on the website. The sign-up sheet exists so that we do not have four plates of scones. Nobody uses the sign-up sheet. Shane says it got “eleven hits” and all eleven were him testing it.
Macca brought a whole roast chook which was lovely and which I think is why he was allowed to leave early without doing the closing circle.
Breakthroughs
Two. The lady from Roma who came for quilting realised halfway through the Brisbane couple that she has lost the same forty minutes on the same stretch of road outside Mitchell “every time, for years” and has always put it down to “the radio being boring”. She cried. We all cried. She is coming back next week and has been told about the plate.
And the man from Charleville said, for the first time, out loud, that he has started to feel that the bench “wasn’t that bad” and that “at least they were thorough”. This is enormous progress and I told him so. Warren said it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Dr Faraday says it’s “the first stage of integration”. I say it’s a man who’s finally stopped being angry at the ceiling and that’s what the group is for.
Motions carried
Dr Faraday moved, Warren seconded, carried 12–0 (Macca abstaining, Keith absent):
- The Rules to be amended from “no Keith” to “no Keith, in any form”.
- Plate audit at the door. Dr Faraday to hold the clipboard.
- Scones capped at two plates per session.
- “Keitha” to be added to the banned list separately, “in case”.
- The man from Charleville to be given the good chair, permanently, for services to recovery.
- Cheryl’s chair to remain Cheryl’s chair.
A word from management
I wasn't there, I was doing the BAS. But I did see Keith in the Commodore afterwards in the car park, still in the wig, eating a scone, and I will say he looked happier than I've seen him in years. I think he just wants to come. I've said this to Cheryl. She says he can come when he stops asking about dreams. He says he'll stop asking about dreams when someone answers. I don't think this is getting resolved. Nice chook, apparently. — Noreen
Next Tuesday, 7 pm, CWA hall. Bring a plate. A proper one. Not scones. Not Keith.
And if they come for you at 3 am, which they will, because they know we’re busy Tuesdays, you’ve got somewhere to talk about it now. That’s the whole point. Fourteen people. I’m so proud.
— Cheryl, Abductee Liaison Officer
Document U8MC-22-0209. Status: CONFIRMED. This file is retained indefinitely, or until the Men in Beige ask for it, whichever is never.