Alcoholism

**Are you looking for a way to launch your New Year in a fresh spacious manner? This could be for you.** **January 1st to 3rd for 45 minutes.** Three mornings of Meditation to start the New Year. Come for one, two or all three mornings and join us at a local cafe afterwards. Whether you are new to meditation or an old practitioner, this is for you. Jenny Anderson is a meditation instructor with 20 years of experience. She will guide you in a spacious, non judgemental manner, with a number of short sits in our beautiful Buddhist Centre in Carlton North. No need to register - Just come along. Concession $5 Working $10 Visit our Website: [https://rigpa.org.au/rigpa-melbourne/](https://rigpa.org.au/rigpa-melbourne/)

Kick off the New Year by joining your fellow LGBTQIA+ folks for a social evening of board games at Marché Board Games Cafe. We have access to the games library at the cafe. If you have a game that you want to share, please feel free to bring it along. We play all sorts of games - card games, party games, strategy games - and we're happy to teach new players. Groups for games usually form between 6:30-6:45, so it's important to try arrive on time to ensure you're allocated to a game/group. Anyone arriving late may have to wait for a game if all groups have started. The cafe has drinks and food available. Check out their menu here: https://mbgcafe.com.au/menu.pdf We only accept payment at the time of booking to reserve your spot. This means you will need to pay the booking amount via PayPal at the time of booking to confirm your spot. If you can't make it to the event, please ensure you get in touch by messaging the event hosts or emailing rainbowbg.melbourne@gmail.com at least one day before the event, and we can reverse your payment via PayPal. The cafe does NOT have a liquor licence. Consuming alcohol on the premises is illegal, and will result in any members being banned from future events. See you on New Year's Day!

Looking to get outside, clear your head, and connect with good people? Join us for a relaxed walk around the beautiful streets and coastline of Port Melbourne. This is a casual meetup—no fitness goals, no pressure. Just a friendly stroll, good conversation, and a reason to step away from screens and into the fresh air. Whether you’re new in town, working from home, or just want a social reason to walk, you’re very welcome. Come as you are. Comfy shoes, water bottle, and curiosity are all you need. **Optional:** After the walk, some of us might grab a coffee nearby — feel free to join if you’re up for it!

**\* CLOSED - NO CLASSES** **THE BENTLEIGH CUBAN SALSA** **& BACHATA DANCE CLASSES** are currently **CLOSED** for the **CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR BREAK** **\* THE 2026 BENTLEIGH CUBAN SALSA & BACHATA CLASSES** **start back date will be confirmed in the new year.**

Welcome to Elixir Melbourne's monthly meetup. Where we go over Elixir ecosystem news, listen to great talks, and socialise with other Elixir developers of all levels. We’re rebooting the meetup after a hiatus with new (and old) organisers, a new venue and emphasis on more time to socialise. There are still speaking spots open. If you want to talk about anything Elixir related, get in touch. **Agenda** * 6:00pm - Arrive, socialise * 6:30pm - Welcome; introduction; “who’s hiring” pitches. * 6:45pm - Talk 1 (speaking spot open!) * 7:15pm - Food, socialise * 7:45pm - Maybe another talk (speaking spot open!) * 8:15pm - Finish up and head to Saint & Rogue (down the street from SuperAPI at 582 Little Collins St, Melbourne) **Sponsor** Huge thanks to [SuperAPI](https://superapi.com.au/) for catering and venue.

**Are you looking for a way to launch your New Year in a fresh spacious manner? This could be for you.** **January 1st - 3rd for 45 minutes.** Three mornings of Meditation to start the New Year. Come for one, two or all three mornings and join us at a local cafe afterwards. Whether you are new to meditation or an old practitioner, this is for you. Jenny Anderson is a meditation instructor with 20 years of experience. She will guide you in a spacious, non judgemental manner, with a number of short sits in our beautiful Buddhist Centre in Carlton North. No need to register - Just come along. Concession $5 Working $10 Visit our Website: https://rigpa.org.au/rigpa-melbourne/

Meet at Jacky Jones for dinner at 6.15pm Then a movie around 7pm. Will post flick options on Wednesday. cheers

Come Trek to the incredible nerd heaven that is Fortress Melbourne! Eat, drink, and Trek out with us in this incredible venue. This month attendees will get a speciall Christmas door prize!! Amazing pub snacks, full meals and drinks of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety are available at the bar at pub prices. Come for all or some of the social event. FINDING US : Easiest way is to enter the Emporium shopping mall from any entrance and head to the basement level. Just walk right in to the tavern side of Fortress (there is no entry fee). We'll be at a table somewhere near the bar! Look for Starfleet uniforms. OPTIONAL : If you can, please make a small donation on the day to help cover the Meetup platform fees!

Hi Everyone, Let’s grab a coffee, go for a walk around The Tan and enjoy being in the presence, meeting new people, exploring this social event in a relaxed and open environment. The Tan walk, jog or run around is a 3.827km track around the Botanic Gardens. We could do 1 lap, or 2 laps or 3 laps, see how we feel being in the moment. There are cafes on Domain Road right across from the meeting point. Feel free to grab a coffee before the event starts. This event is child and pet friendly. IMPORTANT! *Mind The Walk of this meetup will NOT accept any liability for any loss, damage, injury / accidents for your personal belongings/property at social meetups. *Attending and participating at social meetups you are taking responsibility for your own, self-awareness, well-being and safety. Thank you Mind The Walk

Camberwell Meditation Group Find Your Inner Peace within. Take a moment to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with your inner peace. Join our friendly community every Saturday afternoon for a peaceful guided meditation session led by a teaching monk, who will share simple techniques to relax the mind and find clarity — no religious commitment required. 🕑 Every Saturday \| 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM 📍 Camberwell Meditation 41 Cookson Street, Camberwell, Melbourne VIC 3124 (Just a short walk from Camberwell Railway Station) 🌼 About the Session Each 60-minute class offers a calm and welcoming space to rest, recharge, and experience peace of mind. * 🧘‍♂️ Guided Meditation (in English) by a Teaching Monk * 💬 Gentle reflections and Q & A * ☕ Light refreshments served afterward * 💝 Donations welcome * You don’t need any experience — just bring an open mind and a kind heart. Our approach is simple, practical, and suitable for everyone. 🌿 Why Join Us? * Relax and release stress from your busy week. * Recharge your mind and body with calm energy. * Learn meditation techniques that can support mindfulness in everyday life. * Meet kind and like-minded people who value peace and balance. Meditation helps you discover calmness and clarity within yourself — something everyone can benefit from, regardless of background or belief. 🌷

What is Anxiety? Free educational only meetup. All to many people experience anxiety symptoms. Some have it once in a while whilst all too many others continue to experience more then is considered healthy. Without factual knowledge about how the mind works anxiety can be experienced by any of us and strike at any time. Therefore all people are encouraged to attend. Today's meetup is not to diagnose, treat or cure. Its educational. So would you not like to know what anxiety is? and what it is you can actually do about all your unwanted conditions so that you can be free. The education shared today is not related to Faith, Psychology or Psychiatry. It's related to Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health. By L. Ron Hubbard. If you ever felt there was something holding you back in life, ruining your plans and stopping you from being who you want to be, you were right. The Answers related to any condition that you don't like about yourself and want to handle can be found in this book. ***** What is Anxiety? Every problem can have a YES, a NO or a MAYBE as its answer. A person is as sane as he has YESES and NOES and as he does not have MAYBES. The number of maybes which a person is carrying in his mind is directly proportional to the extreme foolishness or irrationality which he is demonstrating. Now, you get what i mean? A fellow says "well, I- shall I go downtown? If he says yes or no, he gets action or no action. If he says maybe, he gets turbulence. Now, life consists of action or no action - just these two things. And as a result you get turbulence when a state of beingness or a state of not -beingness cannot be entered with regards to any particular subject. "Was it my fault or wasn't it my fault?" is the toughest of those problems. "Was she to blame or wasn't she to blame?" And when these things hang up on maybes on major problems, an individual becomes uncertain. Anxiety is simply the state of maybeness. It's "what will happen if ...?" That's Anxiety. "What will happen if....?" A person then doesn't have a yes or a no. He has an inaction category which is a turbulent category. (Category here means each of a possibly exhaustive set of classes among which all things might be distributed.) He does not dare act because he does not have an answer. The smooth functioning of a mind, reaction time, the ability of an individual to be decisive and therefore to be in action, is dependent upon his capability of handling problems in yes or no categories. You want to get an individual unstuck, clean up his maybes Now there are several ways to clean up maybes. One of them is just get him to face the problem with current data. that's all. Face the problem with current data and reevaluate and re predict from the point where he hung up in the maybe. He made a decision once: was it right one or the wrong one? And that is the start of the maybes. He made the decision once: was it the right one or the wrong one? Now he gets afraid to make decisions, so he hangs these decisions up in maybe, and there's the anatomy of it. ***** All people of goodwill are welcome at this meetup or at any time. We are open 7 days each week 9am till 10pm Monday till Friday and Saturday and Sunday 9am till 6pm You may also wish to tune into Scientology network TV at www.scientolgy.tv If you feel too anxious to attend or can simply not be their at this time than call or SMS us on 0412 812 611. Order the book Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health and we will send it out to you. (free postage)

MUST TAP “ATTEND” (PLEASE SPECIFY NUMBER OF GUESTS) FREE ENTRY ONLY IF YOU BRING A FRIEND. Calling all introverts! Meet other introverts in Melbourne and make new friends in a safe environment with board games to help break the ice! Feel free but not obliged to socialise! ALL WELCOME! Please follow Instagram.com/eventsinmelb for more FREE events! LAST ENTRY STRICTLY AT 8.30PM

Sleep in on Sundays. When you've had your fill of pajama-time, roll out and have some tasty brunch with your fellow Humanists!

**Caller: Gaye Fifer** **Band: Hot Coffee Breakdown** **Big Scioty Contra Dance** **temporarily returning to our long ago location for Jan-March - First Congregational Church, 444 E. Broad St., Columbus 43215** WHAT IS CONTRA DANCING? Picture the Grand Ball scenes like you’ve seen in period films such as “Pride and Prejudice”, where the dancers are lined up in long lines, across from each other. That’s English Country Dancing, the predecessor of contra dancing. Now, add moves like “swing your partner” and “do-si-do,” like you’ve seen in square dancing. Set it to fabulous, high energy, live music with fiddles, guitars, percussion and more, alá “Riverdance.” Finally, set the whole scene down in the middle of Woodstock, with a hip, groovy atmosphere, a bit of tie-dye, and hints of counter-culture attitude. THAT’s Contra Dancing! Wear cool and comfortable clothes (you will get warm) and clean shoes that won't mark up our nice wood floor. Be sure to come for the beginner's lesson from 7:30 - 8:00, followed by dancing 8:00 - 10:30. All dances are taught; we will help you learn! Beginners always welcome, no need to bring a partner. Cost is $10.00 adults, $5.00 ages 12-26. Under 12 free. Free parking in church lot. For more information contact me or check out our website: [www.bigscioty.com](http://www.bigscioty.com/) Please bring your own refillable water bottle. Snacks to share are always welcome!

Join us for an hour of writing! We’ve discovered that it’s strikingly helpful to write with other writers. See if it’s true for you at 7:00pm the second & fourth Wednesday of every month at Two Dollar Radio Headquarters (HQ). Be it a book, blog, script, essay, dissertation, resume, melody, poem or just plain work stuff, you are invited to write it with us. No one will see what you've written or give you unsolicited advice. Instead of just thinking about writing, come and get some real writing done. **SCHEDULE:** 6:45ish - Quick introductions 7:00 - Timer starts: write for 1 hour 8:00 - The End **OPTIONAL SOCIALIZING** happens around 6:45pm. Writing is very solitary. Connecting (and sometimes even commiserating) with other writers is a cool thing. **BEING LATE IS OKAY:** just show up and get settled! If you were on time, please be willing to make room for the friendly latecomer. Happy writing & I look forward to seeing you at Two Dollar Radio HQ! **WHAT SHOULD I BRING?** Whatever you need to be able to write! Other customers are welcome at Two Dollar HQ at the time, so please bring earplugs/headphones if noise will bother you! **OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS:** * **RSVP:** Please RSVP by 6:00pm the evening of the meeting. This helps me know how many to expect, and if we'll need additional space! * **COVID:** While masks are not required, please be mindful of the other writers around you and their comfort levels. * **ACCESSIBILITY:** Two Dollar Radio HQ's entrance door on Cline Street is wheelchair accessible, they have two gender-neutral bathrooms that are both wheelchair accessible, and their ordering and table-seating area is as well. Working service dogs are allowed. * **WIFI/OUTLETS:** Outlets are limited, so please ensure your devices are charged when you come! But Two Dollar Radio HQ does have free WiFi! Yay! * **PARKING:** There is free public street parking on all surrounding streets, on both sides of Parsons Ave. You are also welcome to park in the Columbus Metropolitan Library parking lot across the street (1113 Parsons Ave). Two Dollar Radio HQ has a bike rack on the corner of Cline and Parsons, and the library has bike parking (across Parsons). * **FOOD/BEVERAGE:** Two Dollar Radio HQ is a bar and vegan cafe. Their food is 100% vegan and made from scratch, with love. They also serve a range of wine, beer, and cocktails, as well as coffees and teas. If you're able to, please consider thanking our venue by purchasing something!!

# **Band: The Pegheads; Caller: Liz Burkhart** Beginner lesson at 1:30, regular dancing begins at 2:00 pm NOTE THAT WE ARE TEMPORARILY DANCING IN THE AFTERNOON INSTEAD OF EVENING. Dance with us in the afternoon then you can still go out in the evening! **Sponsor: All Soles Contra and Square Dancing, First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Rd., Columbus OH 43214** WHAT IS CONTRA DANCING? Picture the Grand Ball scenes like you’ve seen in period films such as “Pride and Prejudice”, where the dancers are lined up in long lines, across from each other. That’s English Country Dancing, the predecessor of contra dancing. Now, add moves like “swing your partner” and “do-si-do,” like you’ve seen in square dancing. Set it to fabulous, high energy, live music with fiddles, guitars, percussion and more, alá “Riverdance.” Finally, set the whole scene down in the middle of Woodstock, with a hip, groovy atmosphere, a bit of tie-dye, and hints of counter-culture attitude. THAT’s Contra Dancing! Wear cool and comfortable clothes (you will get warm) and clean shoes that won't mark up our nice wood floor. Be sure to come for the beginner's lesson from 1:30 - 2:00, followed by dancing 2:00 - 430. All dances are taught; we will help you learn! Beginners always welcome, no need to bring a partner. Cost is $10.00 adults, $5.00 ages 12-26. Under 12 free. Free parking in church lot. Please bring your own refillable water bottle.

This is an in-person meeting. At this meeting you will get answers to depression and anxiety. Find out the source of them and how to get rid of them. Did you know that unwanted emotions like anxiety, depression, unhappiness, loneliness, hopelessness, anger, fear, or feelings of irritation don’t just fall on you for no reason. They are not random occurrences that simply happen to people's minds. They are definitely not due to a chemical imbalance in your brain from some nebulous chemical reaction "by chance". Your negative emotions are the symptoms of the painful experiences that you have which are not healed, and which are still affecting you. The effects of these painful experiences are exacerbated by the pressures or difficulties of the other problems in your life. Come to our Meetup, where we can introduce you to some of the knowledge, tools and techniques of the breakthroughs in the field of the mind that we can apply to this ever important area of life. Be sure to click on the red "Attend" button below to come to this local event. We look forward to seeing you there. This group is created by the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation of Central Ohio and Church of Scientology of Central Ohio.

Our January program is privileged to have Kristen Tregar as our speaker. Ms. Tregar is the co-author with John de Lancie (the actor who portrayed the character Q on Star Trek next generation) of a radio play depicting the events surrounding the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. The trial decided the issue of some of the Dover school district board members attempting to insert creationism disguised as "intelligent design" into the 9th grade biology curriculum. She will discuss the trial and the process of writing the play. (Bob Leonhard has seen the play and it is riveting and tense). Ms. Tregar's bio is below: Kristen Tregar is a dramaturg, director, playwright, and theatre teacher. She earned her Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from the UC San Diego and UC Irvine joint program. In addition, she has a MS in Forensic Science from City University of New York- John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a MA in Educational Theatre from New York University- Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. In 2013, in collaboration with Irish colleagues, she founded *The Ireland Project*, an intercontinental devised theatre work with high school students in New York and Tallaght, Ireland. Her original short story "Far From Here" was recently published in *Stay Awhile Longer: More Scenes From Temecula Valley*. She has two rescued dogs (Kira and Harry) and she rides, competes, and foxhunts with her horses, Andromache and Baker Street Irregular. Food and drinks will be provided at the event. Feel free to show up a little bit early to hang out and talk. Going forward our meetings will be hybrid. You can meet us in-person or attend online Join Zoom Meeting [https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87836564953?pwd=4Mi57ElZkDIFlb1fnlNwOJ0NiOK4tP.1](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87836564953?pwd=4Mi57ElZkDIFlb1fnlNwOJ0NiOK4tP.1) Meeting ID: 878 3656 4953 Passcode: 760812 One tap mobile +19292056099,,87836564953#,,,,\*760812# US (New York) +13017158592,,87836564953#,,,,\*760812# US (Washington DC) The formal presentation will start at noon