Barry's only mentioned briefly, but I thought this whole article was
quite fascinating. I hadn't heard of this trend.

(Maybe the BMIFC should have one of these at their next convention?)

(Maybe not?)

***
FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE - Pleasures Pursued
Pampering Pleasure - The big squeeze A panoply of pastimes.
By DIMI GAIDATZI
18 November 2006

(c) 2006 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved

Cuddle parties are the creation of Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, a
pair of New York relationship experts, who launched them in the US two
years ago. We are touch-deprived, so wear your pyjamas and join the
party, they say; so far their "structured, safe non-sexual workshops"
have attracted 10,000 people.

OMG... no way... I do not hug, or cuddle unless I know you 'very'
well.... and even then I'd be hard pressed to... hug... (e-yeck).

I like what we do at work, we have team-building exercises, like
splitting up into groups, and playing short-games ... and then switch
people on the teams...did this at a supervisors training and it was fun
too... (oh this was a brain-storming exercise we had - we thought out
10 ways to boost enrollment and then had to thin it to the top 2 and
tell why - using 3 various voting systems).

And we had a cool Summer Picnic where we teamed off and had an obstacle
course to do (bounce basketball between cones, do 10 hoola-hoops around
waist, and etc.. now that was FUN...played checkers, chess, and
scrabble....

I guess for me... I'd prefer to get to know someone better
(intellectually, or personally) than be all.. huggie...

I am huggie to my kids... so kinda odd huh? I get hugs at work but they
always feel odd to me...

ah go figure
deb (reluctant hugger)