Savvy
Savvy is a dedicated burner, explorer, and leader in all things that ignite her curiosity and passion. She has worn many leadership hats over the course of the 7 burns in 10 years she’s been with camp contact. This year she’s leading the charge in Cultural Cohesion, aiming to create a unified family feeling within camp as a whole where every member has a sense of purpose, to inspire contribution culture. She’s also helping pre-playa with kitchen organizing and food ordering. On playa she’ll be building domes as the Domenatrix, then ambiance fairy decorating spaces. Ask her about late night bacon nachos.
Roger (CK)
A nomad at heart, CK is on an endless journey of self discovery. Seven Burning Man's in, all with Camp Contact, each one offering another opportunity to step further into leadership. CK views Camp Contact as a place where he can explore the connection with himself and others. Camp had also been a place of deep healing for CK and because of this he has become devoted to keeping the flame alight throughout the off season. You can find CK creating menus and organizing food logistics pre-playa, he is also heading up the interviews for camp knowledge passing to really solidify the longevity of this camp he loves so much. On playa, CK will be a knowledge support branch for the build and during the burn you may find him playing “Mousetrap Reverse Jenga” with his partner Savvy in the living room. Sounds intriguing right?
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Kyle (Rocky Road)
Rocky Road is a veteran burner, nomad, and resident time traveler. With every burn, he goes further back in time to embrace his inner kid. This year, he’s summoning Camp Contact’s spirit to re-envision what it means to be a trailblazing community1, how we hold each other’s hearts, and inspire our minds. In beforetimes, Burning Man ignited his pursuit to synergize2 with each other, regenerate the planet, and laugh along the way. As a social & ontological architect, he loves to push the boundaries of possibility, reimagining and rewilding our world for the better3, and occasionally tempting a rocky fate ;-). Outside of BM, he’s an insatiably curious explorer, kombucha brewer, and lover of all things outdoors. He is a steward of positive impact for the future 7th generation. On or off playa, ask him where you should go next.
1 a community that brings our future imagination to life
2 where the net result of collaboration is greater than the sum of its parts
3 some things are better left alone
Lin-Z (Peace Weaver)
Lin-Z "Peace Weaver", formerly known as Night Wolf, will be serving as this year's Camp Coordinator for CC Burning Man '23. Lin-Z sees them selves as a life long citizen of Black Rock Desert and chooses to show up as such in all of their endeavors. This will be their 7th year on Playa, where they have camped with multitude of artist camps including Anahasana Village. Throughout their time in the dust, they have helped build the Temple and other large-scale art pieces, led workshops, held a position at Camp Decentral as their Volunteer Coordinator/ Camp Orienteer, became a Ranger and Temple Guardian, and worked at the Center Camp Cafe.
In addition to their involvement at Burning Man, they have also applied their Ranger skills to Regional burns, worked with vendors, and assisted Zero Waste crews. They have co-organized Catharsis on the Mall 2017 as well as Metamorphosis Gathering (in Costa Rica) 2019, 2020, and 2022. Lin-Z also has a deep passion for connecting people to themselves, each other and nature and would love to dive deep with you about emotional intelligence and the natural world.
Lin-Z believes in inclusion, transparency, and finding ways for everyone to express their gifts and beauty. They strive to uphold these values as a member of Camp Contact this year and look forward to burning with you!
Notes from Spacious
First off, I want to thank 'Z' Peace Weaver for editing this and the rest of the newsletter, it's been so nice to have this support!
After 15+ years of instigating Camp Contact and spending nearly two years of my life building, burning, or striking at either the big burn or regionals, I continue to be fascinated by the way that spiritual, artistic, health, social, educational, humor, whimsey, inspirational and other forms of value that are created without the use of financial incentives. Burners do stuff ‘cos they are intrinsically motivated, and they go to burns ‘cos they want to receive that which organically emerges from their fellow human beings. The value I receive, and witness other people receiving at burns is priceless. Sure, there are huge impacts and a lot of great things that people do as volunteers, without financial reward, yet there is something more than simple volunteering, something unique about the collaboration, organic structure, and shared abstract vision that comes within the Burning Man culture. Burners are great at balancing sovereignty and interbeing at the same time and at allowing each person’s unique gifts to be given, while having communal effort happen in a way that is incomparable. The Burner culture expands the gift economy across a vast array of people, motivating the creation of transformative works of art & experience, offering deep service to others, and united by a common desire for innovation and the celebration of the 11 principles.
I’m at a place where I’m ready to fully step into a role of inspirational leadership as well as research, and do less of the day-to-day coordination of running Camp Contact. I’m thankful for the people who have enthusiastically stepped in to help with coordination, and add their vision to how we can best do this! To that end, we now have a core team for Burning Man 2023 who are introduced in the previous section. This core team of five is collaborating to do the same job that I used to do on my own. With five of us, we can do that much more to engage the rest of camp to create ease in building a well-rounded camp that distributes effort more.
Further, we have an additional new team, known as the Cultural Stewards team, who are connecting with most every applicant as they express interest in joining camp. Their goal is to confirm that each potential camper is a good fit for the new Camp Contact community at Burning Man, give them an opportunity to get to know our camp and culture, and guide them to find the teams & roles that work best for them to show up in camp. We are setting up the Calendy system so that prospective campers can be interviewed. If you’re coming as a couple, please find a time to be interviewed together if possible. If you’re leading a pod, please sign up to be interviewed first, before your other pod members, so that you can talk about your pod and how you might contribute together as a group, and understand the expectations of the other campers in your pod.
Now that we have the Cultural Stewards team, I’d ask that if you have a friend who's interested in joining camp, please have them go directly to burningman.campcontact.org and apply, and ask them to put your name as the person who referred them to camp. Please do not reach out to Darrell over social media to make an introduction. Once the person has applied, the Cultural Stewards team will take it from there! We will have a lot more named roles within camp this year, and hope to have a lot more people holding structure and balancing the workload.
Rogerio has been working on a more formal org chart for camp! In particular, we’re looking for:
Authentic Relating & Acro Program Stewards.
Consent Team Lead
Emotional Support team / Resolution Counsellor Team Lead
PHP Dev, Drupal admins or developers or designers and mobile app devs
Builders / Plumbers / Electricians / Lighting / Carpenters for build week
Leave No Trace coordinator and team lead
At Burning Man in 2022, I realized that there are four key efforts (Strands) for a theme camp:
Infrastructure & Logistics (Build/Strike/Transportation)
Public Offering (Events / Steam Bath / Greeters/ Tea House in Camp Contact’s case)
Nutrition & Health (Kitchen/Meals/First Aid station)
Social Cohesion (coordination, collaboration, organization, culture, applicant interviews)
Historically, we haven’t had as many stewards involved in the Social Cohesion aspect of camp as I now believe we need. I’m glad to get a lot more people and roles involved with social cohesion this year. It will allow us to have a stronger focus on camp teams and workshifts, and work to be more efficient about our camp support structure. The tasks that we ask people to do will be able to be more specialized, giving more ownership to each task, while aiming to have the actual amount of time involved to be about the same. We can’t stress enough that we have an awesome group of stewards coming together to figure out the best way to do all of this:
- Elexis as Radical Inclusivity Steward
- Molly (Dr. Quinn) as Contribution Coordinator (formerly known as Workshift Coordinator)
- Jonathan B as our Social Cohesion Architect
- Rua Williamson as R.I.D.E. Team Lead
- Mika (Meex) as our Photoboard Manager
In the realms of social cohesion, I want to better answer questions like:
How can we better signal needs and wants for the camp community, including needs for rest and free time? How do we let ourselves be lead by eudaimonia and other camp values?
How can technology better help us to maintain social cohesion? Are there tools we can use to make Dunbar’s number less of a limitation to interbeing at camp?
How can we build our communities using biomimicry? How can our Pod system be strengthened to create stronger identity and accountability for our campers ?
How do we facilitate each camper to have a strong network awareness? I define network awareness to be a sense of everything involved with making camp happen and a vision about how they can best support camp, even if they don’t know the details of camp ops.
How do we get people more connected ahead of time?
Do we want to do more fundraisers or would we rather pay higher dues, and how can we allow people to choose, particularly being a geographically diverse camp?
What is our camp really about, and what additional principles do we unite around?
When we notice a camper that doesn’t seem to be bringing as much to the network, how do we reach out to them with curiosity and connection to
Check our assumption
If it seems that they could contribute more, how can we help them to do so?
If there is something blocking their ability to connect & contribute, what is it and does it want to be resolved on playa?
How can we know that a given person showing up knows the culture of burning man and it feels good to help them, it feels good to have them be a part of camp.
Please reach out if you have ideas, and if you joined us last year, and haven’t already, Please complete the Camp Contact 2022 post-event survey.
Speaking of inspiration, I’m feeling very inspired by the concept of Eudaimonia (as distinct from Happiness). I asked ChatGPT-4 what the differences between Happiness and Eudaimonia are, and here’s what I got:
In summary, the main differences between eudaimonia and happiness are:
Eudaimonia is focused on personal growth, self-actualization, and the development of virtues, while happiness is centered around positive emotions and life satisfaction.
Eudaimonia is more about the journey and process of personal development, whereas happiness is a specific emotional state that can vary over time.
Eudaimonia is less dependent on external circumstances compared to happiness, as it is rooted in an individual's values, virtues, and sense of purpose.
Both eudaimonia and happiness are important components of well-being, and a balanced life often includes elements of both. However, the pursuit of eudaimonia tends to lead to deeper, more sustainable well-being than merely seeking momentary happiness.
How do we build Eudaimonia into our camp culture, allowing our intrinsic motivation to garner a collective sense of grounding and purpose in camp?!
Yes, you heard me correctly!
THIS PROCESS HAPPENS FASTER THAN A HUMMINGBIRD'S WINGBEATS!
(or a blink of an eye if you are trying to be all "human" about it)
We ask that everyone who has not already purchased a Burning Man ticket (this includes the Ticket Aid Program applicants) to partake in the main sale.
If you have gained a ticket through the Stewards Sale, ( but are not the purchaser of the original ticket, (as a buyer of the second ticket in the pack) we encourage you to attempt the main sale anyway to increase our odds.
What do I need to do?
Great question, you glorious human you!
- create or check your existing burner profile BEFORE April 5th [which happens to be Peace Weaver's Birthday :-)]
- PRE - REGISTER for the ticket sale on April 5th on or after12 NOON PST. at http://profiles.burningman.org PreRegistration closes April 7th at Noon PST.
- clear your schedule. The online ticket booth opens at 12pm ON THE NOSE! Some suggest calling out of work or leave early, also, setting alarms on your phone.
- Make sure your internet and computer are working smoothly... if you don't have a solid server at home, go some where you can access reliable internet like a cafe, library, someone else's home... maybe hide away in a closet at work... lol... but really though.....
- Attend our "CC Day of Ticket Sale Support Group" on the Camp Contact Zoom Room. This lets us know if anyone was successful. Plus, there is some lag time when you get on the "ticket line", Contacteers in the past have enjoying talking with others while waiting.
- You can only buy up to 2 tickets and 1 car pass. We highly encourage you to buy 2 tickets if it is within your means because no matter what, someone out there is hoping "the playa provides". [And getting to the purchasing window for the main sale is literally winning the lottery, so get what you can!]
Important things to remember:
- One credit card per purchase
- One name and email per purchase
- Must have a Burning Man account created by April 5th [https://profiles.burningman.org]
- Must Pre-register between April 5th and April 7th (Noon PDT deadline)
- Ticket Aid Applicants cannot purchase a ticket
- Sale starts at 11:59 am PDT exactly
Good Luck and Trust in the Dust!
Do we say goodbye to the Steam Bath?
Please take a moment to take an extremely brief survey concerning the Steam
Bath at Burning Man 2023.