The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn's topics - tribe.net

Transformus invites? What you need to do!

2008-04-17T13:20:21Z

Reposted from transforma@lists.transformus.com

===

Greetings Mysterians!

As most of you are now aware, we have had some fairly widespread issues with our website, and specifically with our invite/ticket page. We need all your help to facilitate the repair of this system. We have the data of who was approved at this stage, and who is still pending. We also have PayPal receipts and data for those who have already paid for their invites. What we are needing is your contact information and other numbers to help us proceed.

If you have paid already you should have just gotten an email from us with your new gate codes. Any old gate codes you had are NO LONGER VALID.

If you have not paid OR were not accepted in the first round please go to http://www.transformus.com/invites/ and click on the link to register - filling out this form will give us the information we need to match you to your original request.

Please provide on this form:

* Your full name and snail mail address
* Your email address that the request was made from and to which you want e-invite codes returned to.
* the names for participants 1 and 2 (if applicable) as you entered them on the website request form, be it first name only, nickname, or playa name.

IMPORTANT DATES:
April 30th: Last day to send us your contact information if you have not paid or were not approved.
May 5th: Last day to pay for invites.
May 6th: Emails will be sent out for the second round of invites to those who applied on the former website.

Again, we have your names and some of this information, Your providing us with all this info will verify you are who you say, that you are on our list, and fill in any info we may be missing, especially contact info. If you never checked the website before it all went away, do not worry, it may just take a little longer to get in touch with you.

Thanks for all of your assistance!!
Transformus BOD

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 0 replies

Web Site

2008-04-16T23:50:48Z

The website and domain has been setup! Things are provisioning on the backend before we'll have a site up there. I'm out of time today and will continue initial setup tomorrow.

In the tradition of full disclosure...
$88.38 To Network Solutions for altburnative.com and altburnative.org
$203.49 To Dreamhost for the website, a static IP, SSL, and altburnative.net (domain was free).

I realized later that I could have registered the .com and .org with Dreamhost for $9.00 a year, oops. Next renewal, we can do that and save a little $.

It's way more than I wanted to pay, but with this, we'll be setup and ready to go. SSL will be set in place to protect private information that must be exchanged on the website.

Now, we need webdesigners. Any one who is interested, please contact me. Be ready to vouch for yourself with me or Merritt, since I know and trust her. If we don't know you, we need to get someone who we know and trust to vouch for you. I am not going to volunteer potentially sensitive data and the ability to destroy our community's work to someone I don't know. I hope you all understand. In the future, we'll come up with better ways to deal with this sort of thing. I have some ideas in mind and will be posting something within the next few days about how to manage ourselves moving forward.

Alright, who's ready to help get this beast moving?

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 9 replies

Heading to AltBurnative Tribe!

2008-04-16T03:52:09Z

Hey y'all!

It seems already the dream is becoming a reality!!

We have our site, our name (AltBurnative), our dates (the 11th-13th of July), and thanks to Pete we have a spiffy new website in development at Altburnative.net! Thanks to Christina we have one of what I suspect will be many new Altburnative logos!!!

Also thanks to Pete we have the new AltBurnative tribe, which y'all should join to help plan and plot the reality of this event, instead of the dream!

I'll continue to post here but the meat of the discussion is moving there, and to the website soon!

WOOOHOOO for progress! :) Great job all!!

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 1 reply

FINAL ROUND of NAME THAT EVENT

2008-04-14T21:11:13Z

Okay y'all, we have a deadline coming up, so there's a hurry on about picking a name (we need to do something about it so we can register a domain, and get tickets on sale by the end of the week).

So far our lead suggestion in the voting seems to be Altburnative.

Okay with y'all if we register that domain tomorrow and go with it? I know I said we could vote 'till April 27 but I was just wrong...:(

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 11 replies

call to artists and web designers

2008-04-14T00:21:16Z

Howdy!
If you are interested in donating time and skills to the web and print graphics required to promote this event please join this thread!
I am pretty good with web construction, but would love to have as many artists as possible working to create a fluid seamless design for this event. I would also love to get suggestions for site layout and general requirements! All artists are welcome, including non-digital!
Many thanks,
Christina

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 30 replies

Name That Event

2008-04-10T22:38:19Z

Any suggestions? I made a joke about calling it "ReFormUs", but that was a joke.

Still, we should call it SOMETHING, we may not have much else in stone just yet but names are free, and then I won't have to keep typing the event the event the event over and over...

XXXXOOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 57 replies

Proposal to the site for festival organization PLEASE READ!!

2008-04-09T16:19:18Z

Okay, I know I'm not giving everyone enough time to really look over this and share their ideas, since we have to submit this proposal to one site by tonight and talk by phone with another site at that same time.

So, I'll lay this out here and then send all y'all Sneeches a tribe message...get your ideas and comments in quickly! Sorry that this is immediate, but, that's the way these things usually go. We've been mulling over half-formed basic proposals for a few weeks since we started this, but now's the time to jell them up.

Here are the factors that the land owners want to know about...how many, when, and what insurance/infrastructure.

Here is what I propose we propose, and why...

INSURANCE. It's a nightmare. As best I've been able to determine, having done *some* but maybe not *all* the insurance research in the world, our biggest problem with insurance isn't the cost of the insurance itself, but the cost of the deductible. The best I've been able to find so far seems to be about $500 for the insurance itself, with a $2,500 deductible.
I'm going to be working here using that figure, and if it turns out that any of us can find something better, we'll revise our ticket costs accordingly before determining a final ticket price.

Believe it or not, I've had Good Souls offer to put the deductible up in case of a claim, but I've said no to this, simply because I don't think any one person should be out that kind of money because the site got set on fire.

So we need to include $3,000 in our ticket costs for that. I propose that that deductible ($2,500) then be held in trust for future events. We can't know until after a festival if we'll need it, and it'll be needed for any future festivals, unless we can locate the Crazy as Hell insurance company that doesn't need a big deductible! :)

How to do all that will be part of another conversation, How to Deal with the Money. We will have a little more time to determine that amongst us, that's not part of a proposal, but we'll need to decide before we can sell tickets.

However what IS part of the proposal is how tickets will be sold, and really it's kind of not that negotiable, we need to sell tickets online so that we'll have a certain amount by a certain time so we can go forward with this.

The site fee...okay, one site said we could do it at their place for $1 a head, but I'm saying, that's not enough. I think that the site should get at least $5 a head. That guy (the Alchemy site guy) is an awesome supporter of countercultural happenings in general, and I think we can all stand to give five bucks for him and the maintenance of the site.

Is everyone happy with this? Keep in mind that we'll have to give PayPal more per ticket than a dollar!!! We need to support good people and not just corporate things like the insurance company and PayPal with what we're doing!

The funny thing is that he's probably going to argue, but a friend of mine knows his wife and we'll MAKE him take the $5 a head.

He has said that he can lease portajohns for $65 apiece, I'm intending to say that we'll lease 4 portajohns for the baseline of 250 people, and add another per 100 people. In my experience with large crowds and their poop that should be about right.

For medical and infrastructure, I'm intending to promise that we'll have at least one experienced medical person (doctor, nurse, EMT, etc.) onsite for up to 250 persons, and to add at least three more up to our cap of 1000, with the addition of lots of medical volunteers and medical equipment like bandages, antiseptics and so forth.

For fire protection, I'm intending to promise that we'll have at least a "fire truck" (we have a workable plan to turn a pickup truck into a fire truck for the weekend, using 55 gallon drums and air pressure)...as many fire extinguishers and 5 gallon buckets standing around as we can muster, and many volunteers to keep an eye on things. I would love to promise an experienced trained fireperson and we'll try to get one or more, but so far I don't know who that is...but it doesn't take TOO much experience to yell FIRE and throw water if we're on top of things!

For setup and cleanup, I'll tell them that we'll be responsible for all that, and for returning the site to as reasonably close to its original condition as we can.

For promotions, I'm intending to tell them that we'll promote the event online through private lists like tribe.net, on Burner lists, and through some other private lists that we know of, as well as creating flyers that can be handed around from person to person, but that we will NOT promote the event "publically", by putting up posters in clubs or ads in local papers, nothing like that.

For who can come...now I know some of you are going to scream about this, but it's *not* an arguing point, and I'm about to tell you why.

People attending this event must be over 18.

And here's why...it's a federal child sex crime to engage in overt adult behavior with children present, THE END, no arguing. This legal responsibility extends to the festival organizers as well as the parent/guardian and the person committing the "crime" of being topless around minors.

It's considered to be a child sex crime if we do things as innocent as going topless or spanking people at the gate. We flat out SHOULD NOT expose the organizers, the children themselves who could be ripped from loving homes, the innocent couple having fun giving out love spankings in revealing attire, and all the other festival goers who didn't buy a ticket to come to an event being raided by CPS, SWAT, the FBI and other agencies due to children being allowed.

Some of you know that there was a big ugly incident of this nature earlier this year and that Transformus was specifically mentioned. I personally have communicated the reality of the legal situation to the BOD and community, and I'm uncomfortable that they continue to insist that it's not an issue when it IS, that the disclaimer covers this legal situation when it doesn't, and that it's okay to continue to state that Transformus is abiding by all laws in the organization of the festival when it isn't.

That's why I'm saying no one under 18 isn't really debatable, it's totally unfair to ignore this reality for the good of the whole festival. Frankly this situation isn't very child friendly anyway, as much as I appreciate that some folks love taking their kids everywhere.

But, we have another group that usually gets dissed that love taking THEIR kids that we CAN satisfy, their fur kids that is.

Most every event says NO DOGS NO PETS, but gosh a lot of folks love to take their pets. Now, *this* is debatable, I personally am inclined to allow the animals, I don't think it's that much hassle or additional security needed. The good thing about animals is that as far as the legal stuff goes, the law is very clear, all actions by an animal are the sole problem of the animal's owner, the end. So, we can't increase the festival's potential liability with this decision. But, y'all let me know what you think.

Here's the basic idea...we have a baseline for the festival, and that baseline breaks down like this...(these are ballpark figures, but it's going to be close)...

This is all based on the idea of a minimum of 250 attendees. The reason for this is that that's the very minimum that we can hope to cover that awful insurance/deductible base with, without making the ticket costs WAY high.

Our idea is that we will set up ticket sales ASAP...over the next week or so...and everyone get as many tickets as they want, heading toward that 250 minimum. If we do NOT have sales of 250 minimum by June 1, we can cancel and refund everyone's ticket costs *minus* whatever fee Paypal charges for the transaction, which is like a dollar something, sorry but I've spent too much time today trying to find where that exact figure is on PayPal's site, and I'll find it later but it's more than a dollar and less than two, I remember.

That gives us this basic budget...

We need...

5 x 250 for the site = 1,250
insurance = 500
insurance deductible = 2,500
fire truck/safety/medical equipment=500
portajohns 65 x 4=260
misc. festival costs which will NOT include transportation=300

Total 5,350

Keep in mind that some of this is guesstimating, like the fire equipment costs and misc. costs, but most are real costs.
Also note that this is the BASELINE of costs, for instance we haven't yet spent a dime on wood or fuel which we would like to provide!

At this baseline our ticket costs should be around $22.

If we had to cancel because we don't have 250 by June 1, we can still take whoever's interested into national park lands or something where insurance isn't an issue.

Any ticket sales ABOVE the baseline of 250, I think that for this festival we should then use those funds to benefit THIS festival, not to try to sock anything away (other than the deductible which we can't spend in advance, obviously). We could let folks vote and have a lot of input on how any further funds were spent. Wood, fuel, food, and so on.

Some of this that I'm rambling about isn't specific to the proposals for the site, but it's stuff I want to get on the table at this point.

One thing is that TOTAL TRANSPARENCY is important, and I'm going to provide it. Some decisions aren't really "votable", like how much insurance costs, but everyone should be informed of everything, all along the way.

For this festival, NO COMP TICKETS. Obviously whoever owns the land has the right to have themselves and certain people on the ground, but no "free invites to the party". I haven't talked to these festival folks about this, but if they want some passes I'll tell y'all all about EXACTLY how that's going to happen. We'll provide some real accountability at the gate to assure everyone that it's really happening this way. It's not that hard, venues have to deal with this issue all the time.

And oh yeah, we're initially thinking a cap of 1000, but the most likely site might allow us more if there's a demand.

Whew...there is probably a lot I haven't thought of...gotta work on this with y'all today to get to a clear proposal by this evening...HELP!! :)

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 65 replies

Rule Enforcement

2008-04-09T14:41:09Z

If you haven't already seen this coming, enforcing your rules can be a huge problem at burns. The main reason why is the only concrete punishment you have at your disposal is eviction and/or banning. It is a pretty harsh punishment, and not called for in many situations.

The best way is for the community to police itself. You don't want your community members to be too nice when it comes to people who don't get it or don't want to. It seems many burners would rather pick up moop someone else carelessly threw on the ground then educate that person. I think this is a bigger problem with the smaller burns because people know each other better and there is more a sense of community. At Burning Man there seems to be plenty of absolute strangers willing to scream and cuss at you for any imagined offense, which isn't really very cool either.

I don't have any idea how to begin dealing with this problem. Rules do need to be followed and enforced in some way. People can get hurt when some rules are broken. And the rules that don't generally put people's physical safety unnecessarily at risk, like LNT, create more work for your volunteers. Unless you have really high volunteer rates, this leads to frustration, ill will and burn out pretty quick. There are always going to be some selfish assholes. The repeat offenders can be identified and dealt with. But getting the people who just believe a certain rule doesn't really matter, apply to them, or is just to much of a hassle to follow this one time is the main problem. Educating the community and community peer pressure is probably the best solution, but it takes some work and motivation. But if you get started early, then it will be much easier down the road when it all the veteran attendees are backing you up.

Rule 'escalation' example: PDF has a parking lot for most vehicles on the property, but just outside the gate. People are allowed to take their vehicles in to unload their stuff but are supposed to be quick and come right back out with their car and not spend time setting up their camp. Because people were ignoring this it became, "You have 30 minutes to unload, here is your pass, keep it displayed, return it to us when you get back out." However, too many people ignored that and the property owners don't want too many cars in the camping area at once. If there are, then we can't let other cars in. So we'd spend hours walking around trying to find people by yelling the make and model of their car and the license plate. This was often unsuccesful and was onerous as hell for the volunteers, so now the driver leaves their ID at the gate so we know their name if they have their car inside to long and they are more likely to come back out quickly to get their ID back. It is a huge pain in the ass, but it is the best way we found and it has worked fairly well so far. It would be nice though if we could just go back to "don't take to long, enjoy PDF!"

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 13 replies

We've got a site that's interested!!

2008-04-03T09:23:08Z

Hooray! There's one site that's going to take a proposal to their group this weekend and another (the site in GA that hosts Alchemy)..has pretty much told us yes, they're in.

Will come back and share more details and ask for input on the proposal, but hey y'all, it looks like we're gonna be able to do it! :)

WOOOHOOOO!

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 4 replies

Locations

2008-04-01T23:51:27Z

Thread started to discuss locations

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 22 replies

Location Location Location

2008-04-01T21:24:30Z

We've got two sites we can think of to contact that might be interested in hosting a gathering of 1000+ crazed folk for the weekend. If it seems interest in this is developing, I'll contact them.

Does anyone else know of any sites in the Southeast regional area that might be approachable with a proposition like that? It's probably best to only approach sites that are (a) already used for parties of this flavor, or (b) are owned by folks that are part of this scene.

'Cause we wouldn't want to scare anyone to death...

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 14 replies

Transformus on Fire

2008-03-25T20:21:00Z

Well, the word for today seems to be SHIT!!!

This was just posted to the Transformus list. I'm trying to get more details, but as of the moment the Transformus site seems to be gone, and I'm figuring that's because Transformus' webmaster, Mustang, has pulled it down.

This is his post in response to several emails (attached at the bottom) where Sir William and Kelly (from the TF BOD) are discussing how wonderful their ethics are, and how they are going to change the world with all this...

I know that Mustang is a stand up guy. I didn't think he would be involved with anything less than ethical. Seems like he wouldn't, after all.

I apologize for any unathorized use of this post in reposting it, but, I think folks need to see it.

I guess this means there WAS something fishy about the 'invite' process...

Oh, this sucks!

****************************************************************************************************************************************

From Mustang:

Priceless. The scammer who routinely demanded special treatment for his "theme camp" -- "we can do this. we are loved." -- and always seemed to get it. pfft. You, with other ill-motivated people, have damaged your daughter's view of her place in the world with your petty dealing and shameful sense of entitlement. You, "Sir William," are a complete fraud. Shame isn't even worth mentioning to the likes of you.

And the trainwreck of a person who abandoned the ticket project when I rejected participating on her idea of a frat boy/rush week form (attached). Just wonderfully hilarious. Shows where people are really coming from. Folks, you need to know that several of these people hold you in contempt, have no instinct to respect anyone, let alone so-called principles (they seem to enjoy mocking them), and seem to share a conspiracy over past questionable business practices that may well have legal consequences. And somewhere in the mix here is a member of the NC Bar Association. Again, hilarious. I have never encountered such a petty, underhanded group of people in my life, and I haven't exactly been sitting in a mountain hollow the whole time.

I might be removed from this list before Gizmo can even jump in to try to change the subject again, because countless folks have held a conspiracy to lie to outsiders about your shared, dirty past, involving hundreds of tickets that were not sold as advertised, and all about the apparent fraud perpetrated in prior years with a gaping back door for "important people" and other unspecified related favors. And destroying business records will send you to jail, folks. This is very probably business fraud and other crimes in a prosecutor's eyes, and I look forward to being on the witness stand for the prosecution.

Lastly, if anyone attempts to make unauthorized use of my copyrighted and prioprietary materials, I will be forced to seek redress in the courts, which I reserve the right to pursue in any case.

And I want my $110 back.

Bye y'all.

Mustang (mustang@dcburners.org)

Attachment:
Kelly and Rob's interpretation of Burning Man and its principles, in questionnaire form:

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Subject: [invites] what we have so far...

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K-Lo's after our phone conversation today:

Here is my first draft. I did change a few things..not many and let me =

know what you think.

So, you want an invite to Transformus? Well, answer a few questions for =
us first.

The information that we collect in your profile will only be used by the =
Transformus, LLC for the purpose of distributing invites.=20

Unless you sign up to volunteer on a team, then the team lead will =
contact you.

Transformus, LLC will not sell your information (How un-burner like =
would that be!) and we will take ALL reasonable efforts to prevent =

unauthorized disclosures.

Name:

Burner Name:

Addy:

City:

State:

Zip:

Phone:

E-mail:

Please sign up for the announce only list (link). You will receive only =

information that is integral to the event! We promise no chatter!

Please sign up for the monthly newsletter, the Mountain Hollar. (link).=20

Have you read Transformus' 10 Principals? ______ Yes ______ No (No =

Points)

Have you read Transformus' Survival Guide? _____Yes ______No (No Points)

Have you attended Transformus before _____Yes (10 pts) _____ No (0 pts)

2004 _____ (10 pts) 2005____ (10 pts) 2006 _____ (10 pts) 2007____ (10 =

pts)

(We would like this to be the first page of the form. If you check yes, =
you would go to a page just for experienced Mysterians, if no, you go to =
the Virgin's page)

Virgins Page:

Have you been to other burns? _____ Yes (10 pts) ____ No (10 pts)

Which burns?: TTITD_______ Flipside______ PDF_____

Afterburn______ Alchemy ______ Pre-Heat_____

Others:___________ (no points awarded for specific burns)

Have you volunteered on a team at other burns? ____ Yes (10 pts.) =
_____No (0pts)

Are you a Burning Man Regional Contact or on the Board, or an organizer, =

of any other burn, or part of B-Morg? _____Yes (23 pts.) _____No (0pts)

Would you like to Volunteer on a team at Transformus? _____Yes (20 pts) =
____ No (0 pts)

(Have team drop down list here. At the bottom of the list, state: "You =

will be contacted by a team lead about your volunteer shift." After the =
leads list, list the critical teams!)

Would you like to be a Ranger at Transformus 2008? (link to a =
description of the Ranger team)

_____Yes (30 pts) _____ No (0 pts)

(In order to get these points you must check one of the boxes below)

Have you Rangered at another Burn? ____Yes ___No

Would you be interested in Ranger training either at a work/play weekend =

or one the first day of Transformus 2008? _____Yes _____ No

Would you like to be a member of the EMS team at Transformus 2008? =
_____Yes (30pts) ____No

Are you a ____Dr ____Nurse (and by this we do not mean "oh Nurse bring =

me a cocktail" but sexy Nurses are encouraged!) ____First Responder =
_____ CRP/First Aid certified ____Paramedic ____ Other

Would you consider taking CPR/First Aid training at a Town Hall or Work =
Play weekend?

______Yes _____No

(In order to get 30 pts, you must answer yes to one of those questions)

Would you like to Volunteer on the Fire Safety Team? ____Yes (30 pts) =
_____ No (0pts)

Are you a trained: ____Fire Fighter ____ Volunteer Fire Fighter _____ =

Self-Trained Fire Nerd

(again, must check one to get the points and we need to ask Vespa for =
the language he wants)

Did you receive a creativity grant to bring your art to Transformus =
2008? ____Yes (500 pts) ___No

Tell us in 100 words or less why you want to attend Transformus, or how =
you will participate in the event:

Returning Mysterians Page:

Have you been to other burns? _____ Yes (10 pts) ____ No (0 pts)

Which burns?: TTITD_______ Flipside______ PDF_____

Afterburn______ Alchemy ______ Pre-Heat_____

Others:___________ (no points awarded for specific burns)

Have you volunteered on a team at other burns? ____ Yes (10 pts.) =

_____No (0pts)

Are you a Burning Man Regional Contact? Or, on a Board, or an organizer =
of any other burn? Or part of B-Morg? _____Yes (23 pts.) _____No (0pts)

Are you or have you been a theme camp organizer? Yes ____ (500 pts) No =

____ (0 pts)

Which camps? ______07 ______06 _____05 _____04 (no pts)

Are you planning to be a part of a registered theme camp in 2008? ____ =
Yes (20 pts) ____No

Which camp? ________

Are you a past or present team lead or co-lead? _____ Yes (500 pts) ____ =
No

Would you like to Volunteer on a team at Transformus? _____Yes (20 pts) =
____ No (0 pts)

(Have team drop down list here. At the bottom of the list, state: "You =

will be contacted by a team lead about your volunteer shift." After the =
leads list, list the critical teams!)

Would you like to be a Ranger at Transformus 2008? (link to a =
description of the Ranger team)

_____Yes (30 pts) _____ No (0 pts)

(In order to get these points you must check one of the boxes below)

Have you Rangered at another Burn? ____Yes ___No

Would you be interested in Ranger training either at a work/play weekend =

or on the first day of Transformus 2008? _____Yes _____ No

Would you like to be a member of the EMS team at Transformus 2008? =
_____Yes (30pts) ____No

Are you a ____Dr ____Nurse (and by this we do not mean "oh Nurse bring =

me a cocktail" but sexy Nurses are encouraged!) ____First Responder =
_____ CRP/First Aid certified ____Paramedic ____ Other

Would you consider taking CPR/First Aid training at a Town Hall or Work =
Play weekend?

______Yes _____No

(In order to get 30 pts, you must answer yes to one of those questions)

Would you like to Volunteer on the Fire Safety Team? ____Yes (30 pts) =
_____ No (0pts)

Are you a trained: ____Fire Fighter ____ Volunteer Fire Fighter _____ =

Self-Trained Fire Nerd

(again, must check one to get the points and we need to ask Vespa for =
the language he wants)

Did you receive a creativity grant to bring your art to Transformus =
2008? ____Yes (500 pts) ___No

Tell us in 100 words or less why you want to attend Transformus, or how =
you will participate in the event:

My first effort:=20
=20
Personally, I think points should be awarded for historical =

participation:=20
a.. Have you been to Transformus before? =20
Yes ____ (10 points) No ____ (0 Points)
2004 ____ (10) 2005 ____ (10)=20
2006 ____ (10) 2007 ____ (10)

(Check all that apply to you.) *if all four are =
checked, they get a 25 point bonus, and I need a way to sort these =
people into their own group for a project I am doing with Riz?
a.. Have you been to other burns?

Yes ____ (10 points) No ____ (0 Points)

Where?
TTTDITD ____ (10) Flipside ____ (10)=20
PDF ____ (10) AfterBurn ____ (10)
Others? ____________________(10)

____________________ (0)
____________________ (0)
____________________ (0)

a.. Have you ever been to a town hall meeting or work/ play weekend at =

Deerfields?=20
Yes ____ (20 points) No ____ (0 Points)
a.. Are you part of a registered theme camp/have you ever been with a =
theme camp at Transformus?
Yes ____ (10 points) No ____ (0 Points)

Which ones? _________________'07(0)
_________________'06(0)
_________________'05(0)
_________________'04(0)

a.. Are you a theme camp organizer?
Yes ____ (500 points) No ____ (0 Points)
a.. Have you volunteered with a team in the past, or are you already =
signed up to volunteer in 2008?
Yes ____ (50 points) No ____ (0 Points)

Which ones? ________________'07(0)
_________________'06(0)
_________________'05(0)
_________________'04(0)

a.. If not, would you be interested in learning more about volunteer =
opportunities with a Mysteria team?
Yes ____ (0 points) No ____ (0 Points)
Which ones? (*with a drop down with all the teams on =

it and "click all that you would be interested in participating with")
a.. Are you a past/present Team Lead or Co-Lead?
Yes ____ (500 points) No ____ (0)
a.. Are you a past or present member of the Transformus LLC/BOD?

Yes ____ (1000) No ____ (0 Points)

a.. Are you a RC, member of the BOD of another burn, or part of the =
BMorg?
Yes ____ (25 Points) No ____ (0)
(*by making this the only number ending in "5" they can easily be pulled =

out of the mix to guarantee tickets.)
a.. Did you receive a Creativity Grant to bring your art to the =
Mountain in July for TfusV?
Yes ____ (500 Points) No ____ (0)

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 12:17 PM, kelly loeblein <kal30@hotmail.com> wrote:

Chincilla and Sir William, thanks for your words. I also believe that this is the beauty of the burner world, what is so amazing about it. We should all take what we treasure in those wonderful days on the mountains or those magical days in the desert into our everyday lives. Why is burning man so successful? Why are transformus invites so hard to get? Because of the beauty that we find at these events. Unfortunately, we miss this beauty in our daily lives and we must survive in a world that does not always value our dreams. However, we must strive to incorporate expression, dreams, beauty, art, community building, individual rsponsibility and LNT in our everyday lives.....thats it, that is what this big party is all about.
K-Lo

Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:02:54 -0700
From: sirwilly7@yahoo.com
To: transforma@lists.transformus.com
Subject: Re: [transforma] changing the world

Chinchilla/miss fancy hit it right ....
on my application form for a low cost playa ticket, i wrote something to the efffect that the burner community represented, to me, the antidote to many of the things we see as wrong with our society.
"We are dreamers who take action, we are people who want to change the world. We are people who will change the world. Believe it."
This might be seen as a "hippie" type of principle, but no matter. We care. We are the contemporary mutation of all the rebels that have come before that in one way or another have tried to address the ills all around us and re-infuse life with meaning and freedom and vibrancy and wonder; alive-ness.
Riding on the Love Boat with you one evening, chinchilla, you turned to me and remarked that i always seemed to have a glow of joy about me. It does not take me too long, once i am surrounded by you all and what we are doing, to be bathed in an invigorating spirit, an immutable love, a joyous transformation and inspiration that will stay with me the other days of the year and guide me to do what needs to be done to really change the world. Don't let anyone ever tell you that this is all superficial, big party, window dressing. This all has far-reaching effects; this goes deep into our souls and the ripples travel far to places we cannot see. Believe it.

heart to the sky,
sir william

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 6 replies

LOKIBURN 09

2008-03-25T13:05:10Z

From deep inside the spirit I wish most to encounter, I propose an annual burn in my front yard.

It should be in the dead of winter.

It should be relatively chill, too. Downtempo. Not "quiet" - but not loud, either. I have neighbors that don't burn, see.

No electric anything. Electricity is a huge crutch. Ha! *No electricity*. I just now thought that up.

Where other burns are orgiastic, I propose this oneachieve its spirit via an alternative approach - festive and insanely creaative yet ceremonially somber and ritualistically paced. Tell your friends: LOKIBURN '09 for the win: we won't have DJs and the cops might just show up, but at least we'll put great big question marks over their heads if they do.

Long before I'd ever heard of BM, I held a fire-intensive Yuletide event on some property on the outskirts of metro-Atlanta - *huge* turnout, *crazy* fun, a *helicopter* was dispatched to monitor us (whee!), and it lasted for three days. A group of women took over part of my property, became maenads, and basically kept everyone else out of the forest while they unearthed a huge collection of old glass bottles on a big table (all dug out of the ground, apparently). The cops were very cool about it, all considered.

If you can drum *really fast* while remaining *very soft* on the touch - or if you want to feel what that sounds like - let's meet up.

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 1 reply

Some philosophical thoughts on what we're trying to create

2008-03-24T22:12:15Z

So, I thought I would clarify to myself and anyone else interested what I'm hoping to create, in attempting to organize an "overflow" co-event in this region.

I DON'T want to compete with Transformus, or create a 'splitter' event for those who are disillusioned about not getting tickets to that event. What I do want to do is acknowledge that there's more energy and interest in this than a single site, Deerfield's, can currently satisfy.

So I'm hoping to gain the 'nod' from Transformus itself before we go much further. I've asked for it on the Transforma discussion list, and I'll ask for it again and again if we find a site and go ahead with this.

Because what I believe is that regardless of how ticketing is handled by the BOD of Transformus, it's clear that there are more people wanting to do this than there are tickets. And I think it's very un-Burner, un-radically-self-reliant, and un-countercultural in general to regard the event itself as some kind of Holy Grail of partying.

We're the ones who create these events, and if lots of us want to party on any given date in any given region, WE should take the initiative and do that. And, that this should be regarded as a good thing, good news for all of us.

I have this strange vision of one day when the whole damn country takes the whole weekend to party nationwide, globally, everyone partying wide open everywhere, all at once!! Maybe not so strange, once upon a time I'm sure Christmas was an obscure thing that only a few people were doing.

But, in attempting to create another event around or on the same time, I'd like to make a few significant perspective changes from what I see happening with the organization of Transformus, and with other regionals in the area. I would like to first address the Ten Principles idea....

Realistically, if I go through and I break it down for you, I could show everyone proof that Burning Man makes exceptions to the Ten Principles in the organization of their event at every turn.

Everyone's included doesn't mean everyone's included, it only means that you can get a ticket IF it's available, IF it's affordable for you, and IF they don't decide to deny your ticket request for some reason. Without regard to race religion sex and so forth.

Fair enough.

Non-commercial doesn't mean non-commercial, it only means that they're trying to not have it OVERTLY commercial. Burning Man is a for-profit organization that pays its organizers a good salary. This year they accepted corporate sponsors on the condition that they not display logos.

Volunteer driven doesn't mean that all the key positions are filled by volunteers, quite the opposite. They hire the real infrastructure folks that they will need, because volunteer means voluntary, and necessary means necessary.

And so forth.

And I'm not saying that there's a damn thing wrong with this, and I'm not saying that Burning Man makes a secret of this. What I am saying is that in organizing Burn-related events, I don't want to waste time arguing about Principles as if this were a religion.

It's not, it's an event, and some things are going to be pragmatically true about it, if it's going to happen.
For instance, we're going to have to pay for portajohns, and the site. If our needs as an event ever become such that we realistically have to pay for other things, then we should do that too.

But I believe we should attempt to adhere to the SPIRIT of those principles wherever possible, and to have a clear reason for it if we cannot. For an example, I think that it's within the spirit of the principles if we were to (at future, larger events) comp tickets to key volunteers who will spend their weekend working the whole time at a grungy job, but it would NOT be in the spirit of the principles to comp a ticket to someone because they're the organizer's buddy.

I think it should be obvious what the difference is.

One of the reasons that I'm about what's happening in this scene is because those principles aren't something that Burning Man invented for ME, they're principles that I've attempted to adhere to my whole life. I believe in them wholly, will never violate them lightly, and will be trying to create a world around them more fully until the day that I die.

One of the Principles that I believe in most is actually Transparency. That is, I think that whatever decisions we're making, we should be willing to share those decisions with those who we're co-creating things with, and even if it's a unilateral decision, we should fully share the reasons why with each other.

However we handle whatever finances or other decisions, that should be open, and we shouldn't be surprised or offended if others question these decisions.

I'm also just done with the Tyranny of the Good Vibe. That is, as we work on this, I hope that we can get rid of some of the overwhelming "stop complaining! You're just being CRITICAL!!" factor.

Critical is good, even if it's wrong. If this "don't express negativity or we'll shun you" thing keeps building, what we're going to wind up with socially is a popularity contest where some people's opinions do all the deciding, and everyone else feels afraid to even comment, afraid they'll get labeled as negative.

So I say, if you feel negative, be negative. Do it. That negative opinion might be the very thing to save all our asses one day. I hope people will feel free to express it. Radical Inclusion should include and welcome dissent.

Now, this little philosophical rambling is just MY opinion, and doesn't reflect what WE are trying to create as a group. However, it's my hope that this thread can be an open forum for what our individual opinions about the subject are, so we'll know where we all stand and what we're all about here, as individuals.

There are only two forms of group behavior, consensual and forced. To be consensual, we all need to know what we think we're agreeing to, or disagreeing with, y'know?

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 10 replies

Skills and abilities

2008-03-24T19:05:20Z

Okay, so presuming we can find a site for 1000+ folks, we're going to need a lot of skills, talents and abilities to make it happen. Fortunately Burners have those, but my main question is, who's got what?

At the moment I've just unofficially started trying to co-ordinate, but I don't have any intention of keeping the job if anyone out there has some experience putting together large events. I've been involved with this kind of thing before, is the only reason I think I've got any business even thinking...

We'll need a site (working on that).

We'll need medical folks.

We'll need fire safety, and probably fire trucks.

We'll need rangers/site security

We'll need a list of equipment that I'll try to compile a starter list of later today...

We'll need web and ticketing help (have already had one volunteer for this)

We'll need setup and cleanup crew.

We'll need great folks who "bring the Burn" artistically, musically, and personal performance wise...

We'll need other things I haven't thought of yet, but maybe you have...

We'll need "stuff", like firewood, fuel, portajohns, and so forth...

Who's got what?

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 19 replies

Stupid Burner Tricks

2008-03-24T16:48:35Z

I've been spending my extra time thinking about silly ass games for Burners to play. My head is just wrong this way, I want to be a sane person but stuff like this intrudes.

Like, last night I was thinking about Hide and Streak. That could be basically like the regular game only once you're hidden you have to get nekkid, and then go streaking back to base before you're safe! I liked this idea, but then I thought that dammit, shoes would be a problem. Also having to go back and find your clothes later...

I also thought of one called Speed Hump, but I do NOT think that people would participate in that, LOL.

Will share more Dumbass ideas as I think of them...you know what they say, it makes the problem easier to deal with if you talk about it...;)

XXXOOO,
Me

posted in The Plain Belly Sneeches Burn - 3 replies