The History of the MiChatOhs

Where does a circle begin? Like so many of you, Beth came to a catharsis back in 1994 about who she was in the realm of Dominance & submission (D/s).  She met seemingly great people online in a chatroom called Le Chateau (a hint as to how we got our name) and soon yearned for real meetings.  It was easy as a submissive newbie to meet Dominants and she had a couple of wonderful experiences.  Beth happily served her 2^nd experience with an intelligent & kind Dominant from DC and they went together to their first play party in Princeton, New Jersey.  The party had taken over more than one floor of a hotel there.  It consisted of three rooms; one for chatting, one for eating, and the third for playing.  As Beth watched people playing, she asked her Dominant "why do people play together publicly?"  He answered that "they play together to show their friends their commitment to each other."  Those words gave her the encouragement to have her first public scene later that evening.

Back in Detroit, Beth searched for similar groups.  She found Stocks & Bonds through Doc, which was a fun group but it didn't have exactly what she was searching for.  Most of the players fell into two groups, those who enjoyed SM and those who were Spankers.  There was very little protocol and that was her catalyst.  She found another female submissive online and they both hurriedly made plans to meet for breakfast and it was a joy to be reassured that there were others who thought and wanted to act like she did.  Beth knew she needed to find others to do the same with.

The beginning of something special With the help of Joy, who came in from the East Coast, Beth hosted a weekend party at the Kingsley Inn.  Other parties at that time had a night of play, but Beth wanted to add another element.  She knew that many people wanted to learn more and would ask questions online - perhaps this weekend could fulfill those needs.  As far as we know, this gathering of about 60 people was the 1^st to have scheduled discussions.  (Later, Beth suggested this to the Chicago group, bringing in experts in different fields became status quo).  People came from across the country and from Detroit as well.  The group included Yggdrasil and his raven.  He used firm but kind methods, even those that were sadistic, and he used hand signals. 

Somehow Beth was the fortunate recipient of Yggdrasil's friendship.  When she told him she wanted to start munches, he was there to support her.  Although it was Beth making the plans for where to meet and to find folks online to join us, Beth believes it was when people met Yggdrasil that the real folks knew they were in the right place.

The official group is started We had needed a name for our group when signing up at the hotel, and Beth wanted the name to be a reflection of who we were, yet vanilla sounding enough to have businesses want us there.  So the name, MichChatOhs.  Sounds like Chateaus, like the name of the first online group on Aol that Beth found herself in.  Yet to the vanilla, it would sound like a group from Michigan who like to chat (online and off).  Many people have wondered about how our name came to be. Our first meeting was in 1994 or 1995 at an Irish pub in Farmington Hills with four of us, and little by little, we grew.  Soon we had an average of about thirty people at most munches and Beth's "assignment" was to introduce everyone, first name and screen name, with protocol to the rest of the group.  Wonderful people came through our doors and everyone protected each other.

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