All philosophy of metering technique aside, it is possible to make photographs---even with flash---without a meter.
If you aren't using color film, and have easy access to a darkroom, you can make a three or four value exposure test on one sheet of film by pulling the darkslide in increments, just like making a test strip when printing. There may well be someone around who has used that equipment before, and who can tell you roughly where to start.
Pick the working aperture that you want to use, and adjust exposure by multiple flash pops---if you set up the picture and like the way it looks on the groundglass at f/11, you may be surprised if a meter convinces you to open up to f/4.5! This will work fine if you are doing "classic" still life and keep the flash about the same distance away from the subject all the time. If you want to do dramatic things (backlighting, very high key, etc.) then you will need a spot meter and/or a lot of testing. But for a given room, light source, film and development, the exposure should be relatively consistent and well within the fim's latitude.
Good luck, and let us know how it works out over on the image sharing/still life thread!
Harold
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