History in the making:  On February 19, 2017, The Love Camp has had its first official Steering Committee meeting for Burning Man 2017 via conference call with Logistic (James), Sassafras (Mitch), Qz (Ken), & Jim-dandy! (Jim).

Topics discussed:

• Encouraging anyone who is low on money for purchasing a Burning Man ticket, to apply for a Low Income Ticket.
• Nominations to the Steering Committee:  Trance (Doug), Rayco Garcia Perez, & Stu Carson.
• Logistic says that Soulistica plans on buying & bringing a 45’ diameter dome but not bringing their bus this year.
• How everyone can have less time obligated to being in the camp and more time enjoying participation in Burning Man by getting more volunteers to fulfill duties of the camp.
• It was suggested that the new web site camping registration be integrated with the volunteer sign up such that you must sign up for three volunteer duties before the camping registration will be accepted.
• The need for sub-committees for Food & Building, etc., i.e. For the Food Committee we suggested Sassafras (Mitch), Jenn Seymour, Laura King, and Stu Carson.
• New members of the camp must talk to someone on the Steering Committee before being accepted
• Sassafras & Logistic said that they would talk to Stu Carson.
• Ken mentioned Zalman Sher and suggested him as a new member of the camp (to help out with the electrical needs of the camp).

The Steering Committee has been having conference calls every Wednesday night. Sorry, I have not had time to post the minutes of each meeting.  Tonight I can announce that ALC got placement in the 6:00 Public Plaza at 9:30 (that's 9:30 within the 6:00 plaza).  We will have 80' of frontage on the plaza and possibly about 200' along I street and 100' along H street but I won't know the exact placement and shape of the camp until we arrive on the playa.

I believe that ALC should rent or purchase a trailer to be brought to Burning Man *empty* for the purpose of hauling away the bags of garbage and recycling.  Every day I drive past a trailer for sale that has given me the idea using a trailer for this purpose.  I present pictures of it here to illustrate the type of trailer that would be ideal for this purpose.  Since it is here in Idaho it is not the best solution.  The best solution would be for someone in CA to rent or purchase a trailer.  However, I could bring it to Winnemucca when I go there soon to get my Star of Shamash art project and I could meet someone there (probably Ken) who could bring it back to CA; so it is a possibility.  The one here has a bed that is about 5 feet wide and about 12 feet long.  The sides are 17” tall at the shortest, 42” tall at the front, and the back/ramp is 52” tall.  To me it looks like it is brand new and in excellent condition; it has trailer brakes (so the guy says) and costs $1700 (which I think is a good price for a trailer in this condition).  Hopefully, someone can find one in CA for less.  Here are the pictures that I took so you know what it looks like:

Minutes of the ALC Steering Committee conference call on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 from about 8:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M., Pacific Time:

Members present:  Jim-dandy!, Anat (for the first part of the call), Sassafras, Logistic, Ken, & Big Sexy.

Discussion topics:

All the same topics that were discussed at the last conference call (May 25) including:

Anat says she does the kitchen best.

We think we should assign chores ahead of time.

Should we provide bikes for our campers?  People can use Yellow Bikes.

Jim-dandy proposes that a trailer be rented or purchased and brought empty behind the rental truck that comes from Nevada City. The trailer should only be used to haul garbage (and recycling) from Burning Man.

Should we have a burn barrel?  If we have our own we can burn all burnables (paper plated, cardboard, etc.) on site.  Some recycling should be brought to the recycle camp on the way to ice camp during an ice run.

Should we increase dues to a minimum of $200 per person?  Higher camp fee but not ask everyone to bring so much food.  Perhaps we can bring all of the meat but still ask people to bring fresh vegetables for the salad later in the week.  Breakfasts are from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. and supper (or call it dinner if you wish) right after sunset (I think that is about 7:30 P.M.).

Anat and her crew in Nevada City will not have to buy and bring the bulk food.  We will find other people and assign them the duty of purchasing the bulk food so that Anat and her crew will not have to do that.

Duct tape seal for all of the coolers containing bulk food that is scheduled for certain meals. This will keep the cold in and if it is filled with dry ice it will last longer.

Perhaps we could assign someone such as Auntie-M to help plan out the meals.  Assign people to decide what food to purchase and who to pack it up.  We should put ice on food in coolers with food that will be eaten during the first half of the week and dry ice on food in coolers with food that will be eaten during the second half of the week.  All left over food after a meal has been prepared is available for anyone to eat at any time.

It might be easier to rent a truck in Concord rather than the Bay area.

We must find someone who will ask for volunteers and decide who we assign duties to.

Ken will think about the lights that we will need to line the roads.  Ken and Logistic will work on it.

If the camp decides to have Logistic purchase the materials for a 60’ x 60’ wind proof, multi-purpose, shade structure, mostly for tents to be set up under shade, it will cost about $2500 for materials.

Smoking should be allowed in certain areas only. Smoking should not be allowed in the kitchen and connected lounge area.

We still have to look into the possibility of arranging a bulk delivery of water and fuel.  If someone would like to volunteer to check into this, the following information will give you somewhere to start:

MECO Water  www.meco-reno.com (website reported as an unsafe phishing site)
Sparks – 775-722-1515 – 775-771-0720
Highly recommended you make reservations for water delivery through filling out the form on their website before you head out to the playa. Or you can send an email to meco-reno@live.com or call them.

If we want to have any ALC events entered into the Burning Book then someone has to volunteer to get that information and find out what the deadline is.

Deb & Ricardo might be about to plan to have a bar.  These drinks will probably be Brazilian themes and served in the morning.

Mitch says that he and Catra might plan a Barista party to be held at ALC.

We suggest that Anat has her Samba Dance Class in our camp rather than somewhere else.

We discussed the importance of planning and organizing our meal plan.

I think we nominated Jose as the official videographer.

We nominated Tree Love to be a Steering Committee member.  We think Tree Love would make an excellent coordinator.

We are hoping to make the chore of planning & cooking meals, and cleaning up after less difficult for everyone. We believe that the food should be purchased in bulk, loaded in coolers, loaded in the rental truck, brought to the playa, the coolers not opened until the meal is to be prepared.  This planning and organization is intended to reduce the stress during meal preparation.

I don’t know if I did as good of a job taking the minutes as I did the last time. A lot was discussed. I have invited all of the Steering Committee members to be authors of this blog so that they can add their thoughts directly.

We would like to hold another conference call Wednesday of next week, June 8, and hopefully we can have everyone attend.  Steering Committee members, please be available at 8:00 P.M. Pacific time.  Thank you.

Jim-dandy!

 

Minutes of the ALC Steering Committee conference call on 5/25/2016 from about 8:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M., Pacific-time.

Attendants: Jim-dandy!, Sassafras, & Logistic

Discussion topics:

To all Steering Committee members, please be available for a conference call on Wednesday, June 1 from 8:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M., Pacific-time so that we can discuss all of these topics with all of you.

We proposed that there should be no camping allowed unless the camp fee is paid to Ken or Jim-dandy through the PayPal account.  If anyone pays anyone cash they can’t camp with us until that money is paid through the PayPal account after filling out the registration form on our website.

We proposed that the camp fee should be refundable up until some date before Burning Man like August 1 when some of the money will already have been spent.

We proposed that we, as a camp, should purchase bulk food items for all scheduled breakfast and supper meals (from Sunday night, when Burning Man is officially open, to Sunday night before the temple burn).  The camp fee then will include all breakfasts and suppers during that time period.

We discussed the option of a debit card or a pre-paid VISA card as a means for Anat to pay for her Burning Man expenses such as renting a truck (and trailer for garbage removal), fuel for travel, food for the participants helping load up stuff in Nevada City, and for storage if we lose our current storage location.  Any purchases are subject to approval by the Steering Committee.

If we will be purchasing bulk food for the scheduled meals then we will need to purchase coolers that will contain only that food and the coolers will need to be kept closed, taped up, labeled: Do not touch!, until the food is prepared according to the schedule.  There should also be some coolers that people bring with some food that may be shared as we have done in the past.

We discussed the need to prepare a Schedule of Duties that the camp requires.  This schedule will include who will be helping load up stuff in Nevada City, who will make the bulk purchase of food for scheduled meals, who will help set up the camp (all the early arrivers), when & who will make ice runs and empty coolers of water and restock with fresh ice, when & who will cook the scheduled breakfast and supper meals, when & who will wash dishes after each meal, when & who will separate the garbage into recyclables, wet food scraps to be put in mesh bags to dry, burnable, etc., and take the trash to behind the kitchen (out of sight from the road!), when & who will strike the camp Monday morning and moop, more mooping Tuesday morning, and who will help unload stuff in Nevada City, etc.

We expect that a balance sheet will be maintained by Ken and Jim-dandy!, this information will be made available to all those who have paid the camp fee.

We recognize that the camp has gotten too big for one person to manage.  The Steering Committee members wish to do what is ethically right for the camp as a whole.

We believe that we should nominate a Kitchen Manager to be the head of organizing the meal plans, the scheduling of cooks, etc.   We suggest Auntie M.

Bay area people should schedule the pickup of the rental truck and trailer, the picking up of the coolers, the purchasing of the bulk food that will then need to be put in the coolers, purchasing of ice and dry ice for the meals to be prepared later in the week, then off to Nevada City.

There should be an early, early arrival team that arrives on the playa before anyone else who needs to park an RV or set up a tent so that they can survey the camp and mark/flag/rope-off all the main parts of the camp and roads within the camp so that we will be ready to place people in the designated camping areas as them arrive.

Logistic has volunteered to make a material list and cost estimate of a very large shade structure that many people will be able to take advantage of to set up their tent under and there could also be massage rooms, etc.

We should discuss the possibility of converting Jose’s truck into an art car for the future.

We should begin making plans for party events in our camp. Things like a barista party, open mic night on the stage, live performances, Deb & Ricardo’s Brazilian Sunrise Bar (name to be determined) for a morning drink and dance, etc.

Jose could make videos of burners who come to our camp and take part in our festivities and he could then take email addresses to send the videos out to those burners.

We would like to discuss nominating Tree Love to our Steering Committee.

We would like to know if Anat would like to prepare a meal plan for all of the scheduled breakfasts and dinners or if she would like our Kitchen Manager (and Steering Committee) to prepare the meal plans.

We would like to discuss all of these topics in more detail with all of the Steering Committee members next Wednesday night, June 1, at 8:00 P.M. Pacific-time in a group conference call, so please reserve at least an hour that night.  Thank you.

Jim-dandy!

 

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