Author: Skippy

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

FACILITATOR: Cooper

SCRIBE: Mer

ATTENDEES: Mer, Cooper, Button, Adam, Problem, Clover, Henry, Pixie, Rocky, Prost, Beth, Izzi, Babbage, Breezy, Christie, Turtlebunny

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION:  Do scribe interviews next Monday, October 3.  MOTION PASSES.

7:44 AAR Update (Adam)

• Thomas and Princess stepped down, let the record show that they served the board admirably. We have a process for bringing on provisional members

AF Update (Mer)

• We had Town Hall, and we had a retreat.
• There was a warehouse cleanup. [woots all around]
• Our policy on the warehouse should be: don’t treat it like it’s your house, treat it like it’s your best friend’s house.

Town Hall Recap

• So the way this works is, we talk about the positive things first, then do feedback. Good format for all sorts of things/meetings.
  • Kudos to Bean, Squirrel–they painted the bathrooms.
  • Dano led the charge on disposal of trash.
  • Henry helped get rid of a bunch of stuff.
• Other things people liked:
  • Having the meeting outside worked.
  • Set-up and tear down was quick, kudos to a well-organized group of people
  • The fact that Izzi called out hands for tear down meant that it got done quickly
  • Storm clouds helped the impetus for teardown efficiency
  • Okay so we’ll make sure to schedule a tornado for 5min after close next year
  • From what she’s heard, the feedback is that voting inside the meeting space/room was good. People getting a few minutes of AC helped.
  • Three tents + chairs were good. Plus, we were able to get chairs out of the conference room: we got to use the event as a way to reorganize things. We didn’t get complaints from neighbors.
• What can we improve on next time?
  • I think we need airflow in the tents outside.
  • We had a few extra tables that we didn’t need and weren’t being used.
  • Maybe we need fewer tents for the AAR booths?  [It becomes apparent that the referenced tables are the ones we set up in between the shade structures to cover up the AV cables being run for sound]
  • We should engage volunteers and departments and make those tables available to them ahead of time.
  • We should encourage, not ask, if the AFs want to use the tables
  • Anything we can do to help the voting process go more smoothly?
  • [Re: marking participants as they acquired stickers and came inside to vote]: We went with sharpies over stamps, we won’t do that again. Sharpies weren’t going onto people’s hands because of sweat and sunscreen.
  • Next year: need a stamp
  • It’s helpful to have a table.
  • Was there a bottleneck of people at the stamp/sticker table? How can we fix that?
  • Ut was slower because we didn’t have a stamp and the sharpies weren’t working
  • We should have 2-3 people doing stamps
  • I’ve always viewed the corruptability of the voting process as a feature.
  • It’s better to print out theme names instead of writing them out
  • How was the sound setup at the back?
  • Historically the people at the back get louder, so you can’t hear in the front, so if you put speakers in the back ….
  • There’s no such thing as perfect
  • So no change. Thank you for bringing sound, Babbage
  • Liked sound level, didn’t blare in her ears.
  • Felt like CC presentation was boring (even though it gave the LLC time to count votes)
  • Maybe we can figure out a way to make it more dynamic and interesting
  • Was it a conscious decision to have the art AF present on DaFT selection?
  • AF didn’t want to do it, so I stepped up
  • I don’t think we did as great a job of reaching out to speakers.
  • So we should set expectations with speakers earlier
  • We should maybe do that in the middle of august

Respect Discussion Recap (Kat)

• Do we want to defer until Kat can be here?
• Only about seven community members showed up. That was okay, because you can have a different discussion with a smaller group. Some people might have been scared about the length of time we allocated for the discussion.
• We need to look at the scheduling of those things to give ourselves protection, timing it so that more people can attend.
• We thought that scheduling it around town hall would mean that a lot of people who were in from out of town could come, but I don’t think there were many out of towners that showed up
• We should check in with kat re: scheduling and participation [for events like this in the future]
• We should ask community members what they want to talk about
• It was a lot of info to take in. I liked the open discussion format. Kat had trouble with the wifi and that impacted her flow.
• Maybe we should check that out the day before to make sure it was up and running. I always have a hotspot I can bring and deploy. Problem, we have several different access levels to the wifi, maybe there’s another level that can be used for meetings like this?

CC Business

• CC Retreat
  • We’re down to 12 ppl right now, doesn’t include a scribe and an LLC. looking at $150/pp. Was wondering if people were willing to give financial help, right now it looks like a crunch unless we ask people for specifics. Personally stressed about putting this on my CC. have 8-9 ppl who can afford to go, 3 who can’t, 1 who said they can help. Should we move forward?
  • We could have a day long meeting at the warehouse
  • The CC can use our place for the retreat if they want
  • OK I’ll kill the reservation but protect the dates
• Scribe Interviews
  • How are we going to deal with scribe interviews?

MOTION:  Do scribe interviews next Monday, October 3.  MOTION PASSES.

NEXT MEETING: OCTOBER 17, 2016

TOPICS: Revisiting the Three Principles

FACILITATOR: Cooper

STACK: Beth

SCRIBE: TBD

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016

FACILITATOR: Prost

STACKINATOR: ?

SCRIBE: MER

ATTENDEES: Button, Cooper, Kataluna, Pixie, Prost, Adam, Turtlebunny, Problem, Dahling, Kati, Izzi, Clover, Mommacat, Starckle, Clovis, Babbage, Sam, Bonobo

TOPICS: Flipside Volunteer System Requirements; Communicating Open Positions; Town Hall Walkthrough

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

None.

8:00 — Meeting starts

• Henry’s topic of volunteer recruitment and retention is being postponed. Not sure if he wants to own it or if someone else wants to.
• Dahling: if it could be stacked onto someone else volunteery, that’d be awesome if we could talk about it at the same time.

AAR LLC Update (Problem)

• Not much to talk about because of That Thing in the Desert, we paid rent on the WH so that’s settled.
• So wait, we pay rent for a whole year at one time?
• Yes.
• Triple net lease means the actual money you pay in rent is their profit. Taxes, utilities, rent, and maintenence, divided by square footage.

Area Facilitator Update (Dahling)

• Relatively quiet, gearing up and assessing for leads recruitment and ready to put out a blast, have our retreat this weekend, pretty much it.
• That land search poll that Sexton put out, has anything been done with that? Are we going to get to see the results, or was it just social media masturbation?
• Scott is the land search lead, just today I was doing number crunching on the raw results and there were 373 respondents, asked how many hours people were willing to drive, bias towards number of hours people were willing to drive–people were willing to drive more than three hours, 231 said they were from Austin, 38 from DFW, 13 from San Antonio, 7 from Corpus, 20 from elsewhere including Canada. Bias from respondents from Austin is disproportionate to the — ⅔ respondents from Austin, in reality about half of FS comes from Austin, based on mailing addresses. A little bit of a bias from people wanting to be closer to regions they were closer to, but not as much as you’d expect. For the purposes of the survey, we divided the state into five pie wedges. The SW was by far the most popular region. Bias towards that, but not as much as you’d expect. The SW region was overwhelmingly popular. Houston has their own regional, Unbroken Spring. DFW wanted it to be in their backyard. Asked about swimming and trees, had the scales reversed–general bias to swimming holes and trees as more important but wasn’t as clear cut, people wanted trees but swimming holes wasn’t as important. I have a lot of concerns that will make me think “we’re not going to have FS there, even if it checks everyone’s boxes, but I’m not going to say OK to a property that checks nobody’s boxes.”
• The info on how many people are coming from a theme camp (TC) and badlands, not necessary key for picking land, but it does help us re: portos, roads, etc. We’re thinking about population totals, rather than focusing on who’s where and how we’re picking land.
• One way the data would effect it is if you have a greater concentration of TCs then we don’t need as many trees because they have big structures. Our current land is better for TCs. Kind of odd–tree cover and SW TX is mutually exclusive (IE there’s not many trees in SW TX). Also the way that the survey was structured made you pick one region instead of being able to pick multiples.
• I remember thinking about this when I looked at it at the survey, but I’m willing to drive up to five hours, but that’ll have a big effect on how many Work Weekends (WWs) I can make it to, and don’t know if that was something that was considered when the survey was made.
• Google forms makes it easy to add a five point scale, so that’s how the survey was designed. 259 said they camped with TCs, 97 with a few friends, and 19 by themselves.
• In response to what Prost said, trees are actually still really important to theme camps. I haven’t set foot in our current “swimming hole” since 2011–back then it was to stagnant and sketchy, and recently it’s been like “don’t go near it, you might die”. So to me, swimming holes definitely aren’t as key as they were back at Flat Creek and there was no shade and we needed the swimming hole to stay cool during the day. But speaking from a TC lead’s perspective, yeah, we have big structures, but that shady space for tents is absolutely key to keep our campers happy.
• Trees are great but murder trees are not so great. 1-2 downed trees per event is kind of scary.

8:20 Regional Update (Clovis)

• I took it upon myself to go check out our other regional in Gerlach, pretty nice, fairly big. Big PnP (Plug and Play) camp got vandalized. I ran short of cables for the temple burn, inducted a young provocateur to come with me and grab some cable from that PnP camp, so it probably happened during temple burn (everyone who was there murmurs that they agree). Myschievia is coming up, Engulf (New Orleans) burn coming up.

8:27 Flipside Volunteer System Requirements (Dahling)

• Before I became the Volunteer Coordinator (VC), I had this master plan of re-coordinating the volunteer system. Right now it’s a combination of private excel spreadsheets, google docs, wikis, and I want it all unified into a system. The wikis have been a pain point for rando 1st time volunteers. They don’t know what to click on, maybe the lead entered it wrong, and uhhhhhhghghhh.  I want a system that keeps volunteer shifts in a database, for example: the Sanctuary (sanc) page knows if you’ve been trained or not, makes the shifts available to you at the discretion of the lead, etc etc. I had a meeting before BM and hashed out a doc for requirements for this potential system. Big question for the CC that we couldn’t resolve w/o community input: we’re storing crap in a database, tying it to your BFS account, have ability to mark how many shifts you’ve done over your time in the community etc etc. It’s good for leads appreciation because we can track line volunteers who work like 40hrs per FS, because right now we don’t know how many or who those people are. It’d be nice to be able to track those volunteer hours. But there’s the privacy issue about the things people are doing at FS. We wanted to open this up before we did anything.
• We have buy in from many leads, not many keys–the topic is, do you guys think there’s a problem with tracking this data–what about performance data like “never shows up to shift” are there concerns with that stuff being documented and kept
• There’s already a privacy concern with wikis that are gathering emails and phone numbers. Would like to see system that removes those from public consumption.
• Point of inquiry: does that mean you’re happy with this even though it means we’re storing it privately and permanently?
• Yes.
• Like the idea of shared volunteer database. Having filled out the same form for the same department over multiple years, it’d be nice to have the ability to put all of it in every time and tell them my qualifications, that’d would be helpful for the user and the volunteer who wants to participate. As well as people who want to weed through the volunteers they have in their cache to get a good matchup of volunteers for a single shift. I did the sanc schedule this year, and figuring out how to reconcile sanc shifts with Ranger shifts was a pain in the ass. If we could work together that’d be fabulous. Regarding privacy issues: the institutional knowledge we have about people’s skills can be sensitive–not be the best info to pass around departmentally–but I like where this is going overall.
• Agree with Clover. I jumped in feet first at Burnt Soup, noticed where people were strong and where they were not. We had an issue at greeters because there was a miscommunication re: signup sheets and a lot of slots didn’t get filled, and the sheets weren’t available on site. Having those sheets available so leads could go in and grab those things seems like a great resource for a lead. Looking at it from a planning aspect, a database (DB) like this could make things flow easier.
• In favor of having this DB. But feel like it’s my job to catastrophize, so–If we do have this persistent data or how you performed, we know a lot of other burns give discounted or free tickets to volunteers based on previous years. If you’re tracking this info, why aren’t you using it? People will look for ways to use that info once they know that we can track it, and they might start to expect discounted tix or omission from a potential lottery, etc. We want to be able to say to people that their volunteering was a gift. If we don’t, it gets into weird minimum wage issues that we can’t possibly meet. There are probably moral hazards that I haven’t thought of yet that a system like this could lead to.
• In general this sounds like a great idea. Depending on who has access to this info–
• We’d have different access levels for the volunteer, the lead, AF, LLC.
• Given lead turnover, you can let go of this staying private info. 60-something leads with web access–it’ll be there and hackable with your real name and proof that you’ve been at this place, but it’s all there anyway already.
• Yes, if you hack the site you could get at everyone’s stuff
• There’s a fine line between “I can find it if I can search Google vs I can find it if I hack this website”. Some people like Prost never enter their real name into the website.
• Would you be adding any safety info in there, ICS training, first aid cards, any time sensitive documents?
• There could be an expiry date for things, as an option for leads
• Probability of hacking might be low vs the convenience of having that info at your fingertips
• Volunteering is a gift, they do make the event go but they’re not the only people who do it. There are lots of people who contribute in lots of ways–TCs contribute too.
• I like idea of consolidation, and a historical perspective. DBs are only as good as the data entered into them. Favoritism that might result from the data that gets entered, makes me nervous. How do you grade some of this stuff, maybe too subjective? That leads to liability issues.
• I’m not sure there’s much impact to the potential problem that Adam pointed out. If people start getting entitled and expecting special treatment or discounts for tickets, the only thing that’s going to lead to could be potentially a shitload of emails to Dahling asking for special treatment, which could be easily solved with an auto-response message.
• I like idea for a central repository for one year’s event–like having it be stored until after leads appreciation. Might be nice to make it easy to sign in, but I’m not comfortable with using it as a system of reporting on the volunteers and how they’re doing. One of the things we’re about is growth, and I don’t want the fact that someone did poorly last year to prevent them from trying to do it better this year. Leads are human, and they might read a report and nix someone from volunteering, and thus prevent them from ascending. Don’t like the idea of carrying it year to year, I like it as a tool to keep volunteer info in a central place, including shift info.
• The devil is in the details. There are lots of personal details I have to deal with when scheduling sanctuary. I’m a masochist and I love spreadsheets. Red yellow green. Wanted to balance experience and newness vs training. Relying on info that people had provided for maybe the sixth time while signing up was difficult. I like idea of institutional knowledge for the facts, but not necessarily the potential bias. I like the central space. I don’t assume anything I put online is private. I don’t like relying upon info that’s been shared in seven different places to gather data for planning. If it could all be gathered together in a single spot it would help.
• As it turns out, I’m a professional data scientist!
• I like this as a tool and would hate to see us get caught up on the details on opinions of a person’s performance. If I can see they’ve been to the last three Safetysides or regional events I’m going to put that person on that shift, as opposed to someone who’s brand new. People might want to branch out and try out a different department and if that doesn’t work out it, I don’t want this big scarlet letter on PERMANENT RECORD. I filled out census from BM and didn’t want to rate my transformational experience on a scale of 1 to 7. If I’m a lead I want someone who knows what’s going on and is prepared–and I want to know there’s a balance in our shifts. Rather than knowing someone who screwed up their last shift because they screwed up their last timeslot. Can we use this as a tool but not a weapon to build a community?
• Specificity is important. We shouldn’t create permanent records, that sounds insane. Centralizing info for who wants to do what is good, a place to say “person has done these things” is fine. Considering permanent report cards = taking power and experiential learning away from leads and potential new ones, getting away from the here and now. For example, I don’t want to be on fire team because I don’t want to get near a big fire. But I know I’m a good spotter, but not the guy who wants to rush in there. This creates too many opportunities to let someone’s volunteerism die. If we can centralize info for people who’d like to do a new thing, that’d be great. Permanent records doesn’t work so well, doesn’t tell you anything about where someone is right now, or what their actual capabilities are. If they got into a position with a lead who was like “they sucked at everything” that doesn’t help. If we can create username that signs government name and login fine, but not to track everything.
• Don’t mind people having their certs known. Re: volunteer evaluations: never gonna write one down, kiss my ass. If you want to know my opinion, you can ask. Several reasons. 1) too subjective 2) putting that info out is… 3) if I’ve got something shitty to say about someone I’m goddamn sure not putting it down to paper. But having people being able to track their participation would be wonderful.
• Depending on the DB, maybe no one but the VC could have access, or maybe leads could have it, set those controls so each lead only sees the people they need to see. Need to know basis. Only use playa names on schedules. Disclosure waiver info–thank you so much for gifting your time and abilities, we really appreciate your gift to this event–inform them you’re putting this in a DB so if someone’s paranoid they’ll tell you. Would give people peace of mind in terms of knowing where their info is going.
• When I bought my ticket and signed up (for Burnt Soup) it asked for my info anyways, and I don’t know where that’s going. Knowing where it’s going makes me feel comfortable. We don’t know where people are printing it out and leaving it on their kitchen table. If it’s in a DB then it’s in more secure anyways. If it’s on a wiki then people can google it and tamper with it. 90% of this info is on people’s computers and phones and on paper anyways. Anyone could walk by and see it. Certificate records–all they keep track of at work (in kitchen she works in) is “AB has their TABC effective, this date”, managers have it listed in case inspectors come in and want to see the actual certs.
• I see three tools here: 1) a volunteer scheduling tool in single place to facilitate and organize those activities; 2) a skills and experience DB; 3) an evaluation DB. From my experience, that’s a huge scope of work. I’ve very rarely seen the evaluation portion done well. Leads/volunteers/afterburns — that’s how that gets passed around. Certification pieces are black and white. I have first hand experience in this– and certification pieces can range from “god’s honest truth to complete fucking self promoter.” Trust the leads to figure that out and that’s the art of being a lead and scheduling shifts. Resource management– I’ve got so many horror stories about 1) signing up 2) stay signed up 3) know where they’re supposed to be at the event. In terms of the scope that’s being laid out here– we need to take baby steps. Bite off the scheduling piece first and get that nailed down before we start jumping into the other things.
• Clarification on re-certs
• So that part is in the bag. That’s all.
• 1) In the past there’s been Rangers engaging in inappropriate behavior on shift. There has to be a method of institutional knowledge of that person doing that. Beyond not showing up etc– like, “this person is a dangerous person to do this shift.” Needs to be communicated to other depts. Would there be more comfort with this notefield if it was only AF accessible–? 2) half of my motivation is the “volunteer roulette” process is horrible. It literally took me 100hrs to sort through all the data this past year, and all the individual emails. 3) security. I’m an info security pro. I know about a lot of these concerns already. Literally nothing’s perfect. We’re not being cavalier with your data.
• I don’t want us putting things in a DB about what people did. Nobody is perfect, and I’m not going to try new things if I know that’s happening. I like the idea that Starckles raised–I’m going to give BFS dot com my base info and trust they’re not going to fuck me over. I don’t have qualms about having the shifts I did listed in my profile–but without the comments.  Just year by year, event by event. In a DB you add as many filters as you want, while figuring out levels of access. I’ve agreed to have my info on a DB by signing up and giving my name and phone number, that’s my permission. Our community is aware of the situations that happen, and would like to think that that info could be handled and is being handled and I trust the org to do so. But it’d be cool to have a way to know if someone went to Saftetyside, or how many times, etc etc.
• I’m still for keeping track of this stuff, but I don’t see it as burner report card–while you guys trust us and that’s great, people don’t talk smack in their afterburns or in general and so a lot of this stuff doesn’t get back to us. We do the same thing with lead feedback, CC feedback, etc–so to make it self service for the people coming in, filling this thing out, would stop double cross signups. You can’t be on call for two depts at once.
• Is this actually a problem that needs to be solved? not the scheduling but the side info–like someone shows up drunk for a shift?
• Sometimes it gets up the chain and sometimes it doesn’t. (Shares example about one time he was khaki, put an incident in the log, but doesn’t know if it filtered up or not.)
• Keeping track of situations/one timers: I can see wanting to have the info. The shift lead or lead can report it, and it should be rare occurrence. We’ve had situations that were reported, and we’ve have asked volunteers to not volunteer in departments. When you make AAR aware of it, we can take care it. I don’t want that electronically stored in a DB. When they’re reported, our policy is to resolve it with the people involved, but I don’t want to make that a policy. If we start tracking that info, we’re breaking our own policy. Don’t feel comfortable making that change without a deep discussion.
• There’s issues with legal issues, don’t want that to become subpoenas. Groups should be able to keep their info if they want it. Info that they’re volunteering to share. As soon as we get into evaluations, credit card numbers, DOBs–It’s out there and it’s a hazard to even retain it if it’s about personalities or evaluations.
• Garbage in, garbage out: how is the lead expected to fill out report cards re: all their volunteers? Why don’t we have a single wiki DB? Because it’s too hard. Either this new tool is going to be either super simple or people are going to go back to use excel. Or they’ll revert to their own systems and then go back to email to getting the changes they need made.
• I’m in the “teachable human” camp. You are a teachable human, and you are dynamic. There are some people I know that aren’t going to be able to do sanctuary again. That institutional knowledge is relevant, and word of mouth is important. If we can create something that’s as basic as we need for jobs, scheduling, attendance, great. It could be a marriage of oral history in the community with what has “actually happened”…we can’t come up with a panacea for volunteer input/output. We’re presented with a challenge that isn’t clear cut. I don’t want to create a monster. I don’t want something to replace the one on one experience. There should be info that should be kept off the record. I don’t want info turning into swiss cheese, where I feel less capable as a department. I want access to the tools that I need in the moment. I want to know that I can show up and not be turned away or taken advantage of in a position of vulnerability. I want to have access to info that volunteers don’t have to re enter every year into the same form.
• Alot of this discussion is rooted in scope creep, and the question of “whose job it is to know these things?”. Morning meetings (Safety meetings with AFs and LLC, each morning at FS): this may or may not be the time to let people know that this person should or shouldn’t be allowed to staff shifts etc. We create space where you don’t have to let someone know that “this or this did or didn’t go well”. Interpersonal communications is key, and if we’re failing at that, maybe we should be talking about how to get that info year to year, month to month, locking someone into past behavior isn’t the thing. Knowing where to put someone: that’s the job. The whole point is we’re all volunteers, figuring out how to cull people is moving in the wrong direction. Tools for departments seems like it makes sense. Figuring out who’s good for what spot–that’s the job.
• So, I’m hearing: scheduling great, credentials great, tracking great.
• Straw poll: 1) leads: don’t write it down at all, ever  2) google docs, SQ 3) central control
• 4th option: ways to keep info w/o…
• We already know within departments who’s unsuited for a shift
• So, where we ended up in this discussion is: the collection of info is great. My experience tells me that the problem with exception reporting is that it’s, you know, problematic. This is a good topic for the AF retreat. If there’s an incident, we need a process to collect that data, at the end of the day the AFs and the leads are accountable–and sounds like those incidents got handled. I don’t need to know about that if it got handled.

9:40 Communicating Open Positions (Cooper)

• I don’t know what the current process is for identifying open lead positions–we need to reach out. The babies are coming–there were seven infants at the last town hall, and they’re being had by key volunteers in our community. We need mentorship. We have to get more engagement–to keep the event at its current size, much less grow it. Not going to get the penalty free environment anywhere else.
• A lot of people who could be leads in ‘17 can be LLC somewhere now. We need to take that seriously. We need to be recruiting and appreciating volunteers, just because we don’t know them well enough. My experience as a lead: you should be terrified of it, you should do it, and you should be fine.
• Froggy has done an awesome job. And she’s young and she could be a bigger part of our community. I like the idea of recognizing folks and engaging with them and trying to get them more involved. Much twinkles to Cooper and it gels with my topic (scheduled for a November CC meeting).
• Informal volunteering/shadowing seems like a good model–popping into the shifts when you can. As volunteers and leads, we need to encourage people and rope them in. Encourage it throughout the event, not just at TH. They see the “do you want to volunteer” button when they buy their ticket–they click no because they don’t know what volunteering is, they don’t realize it’s just another, different kind of party. Need to do something to invite people within the event. Half the people I talked to at burnt soup didn’t know what volunteering was.
• I don’t think we’re in a race to chase volunteers from other events. Not in a race to make someone a lead for our event just because they’re an AF at another event. We can always learn from younger and older events. We should cross train organizations so we have a ready pool of volunteers for critical positions. There are ways we can get people into gateway positions and make them excited, and that’s good. Communication and enthusiasm is key. Make people aware that FS doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There’s no magic bullet, just takes more communication.
• I appreciate Starckle’s perspective, it definitely works for line volunteers. Leads and AFs need to be recruited in Dec/Jan or before. We don’t have criteria for recruiting leads and AFs except for a few departments–which we call liability leads–where they have to run it by the LLC. But what you do need to have, because we have one person departments where you don’t need to have experience in that department before you can become a lead in that department. Lots of examples of people who…(I missed something in here) you need to be more plugged in, to have someone nudging you.
• One issue with recruiting leads for FS: we have this reputation of having our shit together. We try to structure our lead roles so that people can fail, fall flat on their face and not break FS. People are intimidated by the organization and we need to do something about that.
• Volunteer recruitment is a hellacious job. You could do it year round and it wouldn’t work that well. In non profits, it’s a full time job, year round. Announcements and standing on a stage doesn’t work. Asking people “in person” is the only reliable way to get people into positions.
• Smaller events are looser, more free form, don’t appear to have their shit together as much, but that might be a perceptional barrier. We might be good enough with this that it might be an issue.
• (Shares story about Orfunner ‘08, getting held a radio and told he was khaki now.) There’s beauty in knowing you have coverage. Freedom in knowing a 300 person event is going to self manage in a way that a 3K person event isn’t. 800 people is the breakdown point. I hear this from more people than I want to: “hey my hundred best friends are throwing a party for 2900 people I hate”. Search your heart and soul for the new person, for the outsider, because this is pointless if we’re not welcoming the outsider.
• All it takes is a nudge. Volunteering with someone else, they’re doing amazing. Pulling people in on the fly. They all interacted with LLC on the fly. Encouraging people to grow as a community and other burns. People get stuck in the sanc and PETS rut and it’s good to let people know they’re not being pigeonholed.
• This community is great at empowering and enabling people. The only promotion I’ve ever gotten, I got in this community. Penalty free environment to learn new things and expand what you think you can do. Clovis is the best boss I’ve ever had–when I was Transpo lead he told me, “Honey, it’s okay to make mistakes. Just don’t make the same ones a few years in a row and yer fine.” How do we become more accessible? Less intimidating? Ava, Stephy, other huge networkers are good people to ping to try and find more new folks who would be good fits for various roles. Problem says people are intimidated by FS because we appear to have our shit together–I feel the same way about BM. I don’t know the first thing about how to volunteer for BM. There’s a potential problem with recruiting from the volunteer pools of other regionals, too–people need their “fuckoff burns” and we don’t want to be seen as “poaching” their volunteer pools.
• It’s not about poaching people, it’s making sure that people who are your friends don’t get burned out. If it weren’t for Clovis I wouldn’t have kept going. You should encourage people, ensuring that your family doesn’t harm itself.

Town Hall Rundown (Pixie)

• We know the things that need to be done, need to put them out there.
• Mer, Cooper and Pixie will produce
  • MC: Dahling
  • Sound: Problem and Babbage
  • WH mgrs: make sure the WH is unlocked
  • Organizing community members to present themes: Pixie
  • Copy/repost the msg for people to come get stuff
  • Kati will get in touch with Russ re sticket
  • Izzi will organize portos
  • Mer: TC list on FB
  • Parking: need someone with a safety vest to tell people where to and not to park

CC Business

• Retreat destination hasn’t been finalized. People who aren’t able to support themselves vsl people who can give a little more (Nov 11-13). Goal is to get a space to accommodate everyone who can get out there. Clover will resend the google doc. One individual is going to have to take it on financially.

NEXT MEETING: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

TOPICS:  Respect Discussion Recap; Town Hall Recap

FACILITATOR: Cooper

STACK: Kat

SCRIBE: TBD

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2016

FACILITATOR: TurtleBunnie

STACKINATOR: Pixie

SCRIBE: Adam

ATTENDEES: Samantha, Babbage, T-Rey, Susan, Prost, Izzi, TurtleBunnie, Pixie, Gwen, Adam, Henry, Decibel, Wrinn, Jerry, Bonobo

TOPICS: PETs and OTC Medications; Town Hall Planning

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION: Recommend that the LLC add OTC meds to the “must bring” list in the Survival Guide.  MOTION PASSES

MOTION: Recommend that City Planning encourage theme-camp leads to stock a first aid station including OTC meds in their camp. MOTION PASSES

LLC Update

• New AFs:
  • Dotti stepping up from Art AF
  • Stephy moves from City Planning AF to Art AF
  • Mercedes stepping down into City Planning AF role

PETs and OTC Medications (Adam)

• Should PETs stock OTC medications? This question came up on the PETs mailing list, but there needs to be a community discussion about this if they’re going to stop stocking them. Participants should rely on themselves for their own foreseeable needs, and should be able to turn to their neighbors for the stuff they don’t have, but is there a line beyond which people should not be expected to provide for their own needs? Also, how much do we want to stand on principle, even if it makes someone’s burn suck as a result?
• We insist on bringing a first-aid kit. Everybody should be accountable for their experience. We should begin with theme-camp leads and educate them about having a first-aid station. If we do a better job on education, we should reduce reliance on PETs.
• We should cover our own needs, and it should not be the PETs’ responsibility. Most places won’t accept the liability of keeping OTC meds. Educate people on what they should have in their first-aid kit. This is mostly an operational thing that should be up to the PETs lead and LLC.
• Agrees this is an operational question. How many people are we giving OTC meds to at PETs? Is it newbie burners hitting PETs up? People should use PETs only in case of emergency.
• Clarifies that the initial discussion on the PETs list was not about PETs being a place of last resort, but simply whether they should stock OTC meds at all.
• Speaking as a participant, has never occurred to him to go PETs for OTC meds. If needed anything, would rely on self, campmates, or do without. Speaking as a Ranger, always carries a first-aid kit and has some first-aid knowledge.
• May be the only person in the room who has used OTC meds from PETs, when she was really sick, and no one around had what she needed. So it worked out for her, and in her case, timing was important, so it is beneficial that there was a place to go rather than asking around at other camps. Asks whether the impetus to discontinue OTC meds was due to over-reliance on them by participants, or the expense of replacing expired meds.
• It was about the expense and management overhead of replacing expired meds, keeping them at safe temperatures, etc.
• Responding to the question of whether this experienced but lazy burners or newbies using OTC meds at PETs. There are people who come to Flipside as newbies at the last minute and haven’t been reached by education efforts. These people can’t really be held to account. [Sidebar on the problem of meds being required to be in packets, discussion about whether that’s really true for PETs.] Rebuts a comment from Henry suggesting that individual PETs volunteers have first-aid packs, saying this sets a bad example and is an unreasonable expectation for volunteers. Anything that can’t be handled by the contents of a first aid kit would go straight to the ambulance, so if we don’t have first-aid kits, why have PETs?
• First year volunteering for PETs. Pulled 3 shifts, 18 hours. Gave out one dose of Immodium, treated cuts, gave out gatorade. A lot of what PET provides is assurance, that someone can look at your problem and know the right way to treat it. If the actual medication part were pared down, it would make PETs a lot easier to deal with organizationally.
• Supports the idea of PETs deciding not have meds, but playing devil’s advocate, says, it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
• Started out being in favor of the self-reliant approach, but is moderating that in the cours of this discussion. Newbies might not feel comfortable hitting up a neighboring theme camp or even know that they can. The Survival Guide says that PETs is for 24-hour first aid.
• How much do we spend on this?
• Not exactly clear, but has written checks for as much as $300.
• So is this a point of principle?
• No, it’s because the health inspector dinged PETs for having expired meds.
• If we shuffle the responsibility for stocking and keeping current from the PETs department to individual volunteers, we’re just kicking the liability can down the road. Jerry has also gotten OTC meds from PETs when a PET observed him breaking out in a rash while he was volunteering, so PETs having meds can help support other volunteers.

MOTION: Recommend that the LLC add OTC meds to the “must bring” list in the Survival Guide.  MOTION PASSES

MOTION: Recommend that City Planning encourage theme-camp leads to stock a first aid station including OTC meds in their camp. MOTION PASSES

• We need to balance participant needs and volunteer needs. If a volunteer is finding it onerous to stock OTC meds, we need to consider that.

Stack closes 8:48 PM

Town Hall Planning (Henry)

• Set agenda; Identify speakers
• Henry volunteers to be producer
• We have a template agenda in the CC handbook
• Need to find an MC
• In the process of composing the next Flame. Are we soliciting volunteers for Parking? No, people park on their own out on the street.
• We have a new neighbor, and need to make sure they’re cool with us having a Saturday event
• Off-season events coordinator also helps wrangle volunteers.
• Our former one, Emily, has resigned from that position, but might be willing to help One Last Time. Will check with the 360 AF, Mer.
• Jerry is happy to talk at Town Hall about volunteering and leads selection.
• Do we want to have volunteers ensuring we don’t piss off neighbors by people parking in front of them? Also, the Warehouse may need some cleanup.
• It takes 6 people minimum to set up, and we’ll need at 2 people minimum as well to wrangle parking. It takes 6 people to close up.
• The Off-Season Events Coordinator has organized theme camps to take on those setup/teardown roles.
• Jerry is happy to create a signup page for Town Hall volunteering in the wiki. Also suggests we move the stage to the overhead doors, facing out.
• Suggests there would be a lot of distracting sounds.
• The neighbors might be open, and not want us to be projecting into the parking lot.
• There is stuff in the CC handbook we need to cover
• Are you expecting AFs to have booths in the fall?
• We’ve been doing that for the past couple years.
• [A great deal of conversation about how many shade structures the AFs need, if any, ensues]
• We need a sound engineer: Babbage volunteers himself and his equipment with backup from Bonobo and Decibel.
• Do we need a timekeeper? Tabled until next meeting.
• We need an MC: Jerry volunteers.
• Proposed agenda
  • Welcome/pledge/LNT
  • AAR update
  • Theme presentations & voting
  • Break
  • Stickets: check in with Russ
  • DaFT proposing: check in with Stephy
  • Warehouse: check in with Mer
  • CC update:
  • Closing
  • LNT reminder
  • Community announcement
  • Theme announcement

Stack closes 9:30 PM

CC Business

• The subcommittee on Flipside work experience guidelines met last Tuesday.
• The minutes for our last meeting were very long, and named names. Should we remove the names?
• We’ve been doing the giant pieces of paper for theme voting. It takes a long time to write out all the themes. Can we do something simpler?
• Bonobo: people are leaving shit lying around again. Is going to bug people to remove it.

NEXT MEETING: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016

TOPICS: Flipside Volunteer System Requirements; Communicating Open Positions; Town Hall Walkthrough

FACILITATOR: Prost

STACK: Decibel

SCRIBE: TBD

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2016

FACILITATOR: Prost

SCRIBE: Mer

ATTENDEES: Prost, Adam, Problem, Apple, Pixie, Cooper, Babbage, Kati, Beth, Cooper, Rabbit, Judge, Clover, Breezy, Susan, Kataluna, Clovis, Wrinn, Monkey, Bonobo, Turtlebunnie

TOPICS: Surveys and Censuses; Capitalizing on Flipside Work Experience

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION: Within two weeks, list [survey] questions that we want answered. If we don’t come back with questions, we don’t have a survey. Post questions on CC list. MOTION PASSES

MOTION: Create subcommittee to explore guidelines to presenting work experience. MOTION PASSES. Subcommittee: Beth, Kati, Monkey, Prost.

MOTION: Schedule CC retreat Nov 11-13th. MOTION PASSES.

ACTION ITEM: Clover and Pixie will do a poll re: places for retreat.

AAR/LLC Update (Problem)

• We have a meeting with the company who runs gate soon, talking about what went well and didn’t, seeing if they’re interested in next year, or if we need to find new gate staff

Area Facilitator Update (Mer)

• The CC needs a scribe–ideally, a pair of scribes–and I’ll arrange scribes until we make that happen.
• The warehouse needs to be reorganized and cleaned up; the leads need to put their gear up in the mezzanine to help that occur. We need to take ownership of this space and that’s difficult to create; it didn’t just move along with the warehouse.
• Site Ops will come on wed to put their gear upstairs, could be good opportunity to get other teams in on that effort. CN = bring your work gloves and get the WH organized. Team Awesome Pants get the bridge out. Can the scrap wood be disposed of?   Who makes that call?
• It’s so freaking hot in the WH that nobody can stay upstairs long enough to move gear. We need a railing on the staircase. Need to address the airflow issue upstairs.

8:00pm Censuses and Surveys (Clover)

• Should the org conduct surveys/censuses of the community, if so, how and when–what past efforts have occurred, and how was the data used? Is this something [the CC or AAR] wants to take ownership of, and how/why are we going to use that information? Is there a history of this, attempts, etc?
• What kind of census/surveys should we do? Are we tracking the demographics of the community, or the interest level of participation and volunteerism, theme camps, age range? Should we do this or have someone else do it? How could we use that information and what’s the benefit?
• Seen exit polls done at various events, might be good idea to gather this info, good to get a pulse on various issues–like whether or not to keep recycling.
• Kiwiburn had a great exit survey and would probably be willing to share the template or online tool they used. Also, in order to get to the form to buy a ticket, you had to do a type of multiple choice questionnaire thing that helped you determine what kind of volunteer you were–that was really cute and fun.
  • http://www.kiwiburn.com/participate/volunteer/kiwiburn-census/
• One potential use would to be able to break down Flipside population along demographic lines, depending on design
• We’ve had past attempts (in ‘12 or ‘13?) specifically about the Mass Gathering Permit (MGP) and other data, for the most part it wasn’t overly useful, it just confirmed that there is a confirmation bias. There was a census done by Tom in (‘14 or ‘15?) and didn’t find useful data. Pretty much what the CC says is what the community is feeling. Unsure of usefulness of another survey. There’s very uncomfortable data that can come from open-forms–people naming names and explicit issues in a way that you’d have to hand off to AAR, it can be an uncomfortable position to be in. Even closed CC list is too public a forum for that kind of data, so I’d want to keep the data inside AAR to avoid putting someone else in that difficult situation.
• Question: do we want to include this reference to the content of previous surveys?
• Clarification: free form comments = uncomfortable data?
• Sensitive acts were named, even though specifically asked to be omitted, got mentioned anyways.
• Asks about the Kiwiburn survey. What’s the point of getting this information? Flipside hasn’t struggled with population or growth, is this info the kind of thing we’re going to try and affect policy change with, or is it just mental masturbation–who would have access to it, who would have responsibility of going through it. Lots of people don’t want to look at that kind of thing immediately after the event is over. Are we trying to address any problems with this info or is it ego stroking?
• As an org, I wouldn’t want to run a survey unless we’d identified problems that a survey would be the best way to solve. Another problem is there’s no way to ensure that we’re getting a representative sampling. If the people who respond are the ones who want to respond, it’s not representative in any other dimension–therefore the info might not be that useful
• Kiwiburn data is very boiler plate, they use it to track trajectory of the event over time–population over time, distance traveled, did you bring an art project–growth curve, assessing potential needs for the community out in the future. 25-30 % response rate, pretty high. We don’t have the ability to easily make that trajectory comparison. If we had it, maybe we would use it–how is the general population changing in size and scope?
• Surveys might not be a way to solve problems, but could be a way to identify problems. While the respondents might not be an accurate representation of the event, it’s the most data we’re going to get. Might be a useful metric for survival guide content, folks who are likely to read the survival guide are pretty likely to go and fill out a survey. Surveys can obviously be useful–we have one out about land–if we ran a survey consistently, we could get valuable data tracking.
• Rangers have been doing surveys on “how did your shifts go?” for at least five years. Ghost also did a general safetyside survey, got 39 responses, of those 29 were Rangers–out of 100 total rangers for the event. While the entire safety dept wasn’t well represented, they got good feedback from Rangers. Probably because [Rangers] are drawing in people who like to problem solve, and that’s a good way to get data. Rangers have also come to expect surveys, so they take notes during the event on what works and what doesn’t. Consistency in calling for feedback, making it easy, causes good turnout. Having an explicit goal is key.
• What are we trying to solve? Could help identify problems. “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going.” Do we want more diversity? We have to know where we are in order to identify problems or establish baseline in terms of whether things are getting better or worse. If you conduct a survey and don’t get much response, doesn’t mean we should stop. It’s not scientific and representative to do volunteer polling, but the science of online polling has evolved a lot and we can certainly find info to figure out how those numbers could work for us.
• We have a lot of this data. ⅕ of the population doesn’t camp with a theme camp. Ticket registry data, etc. We have a lot of this data via other means. Graphs of when people enter the event. When we’ve used polls in the past have been specific questions–what do we do with the effigy if we can’t burn it, is a MGP good for this land? Narrowly focused polls are better at getting us the data we need. Generic polls aren’t very representative of population–five percent newbies on the poll respond, when we have 25% actually attend the event. Margins of error were double digit.
• You can take data from one source and marry it with another source. Can extrapolate conclusions based on different data sources–data you already have vs data you gather.
• We have a lot of information but no correlation. Ex: How does the number of newbs we have correlate to whether they camp with a theme camp or not. In that case, correlation could help us ID edjumication possibilities. Maybe polling people at the event would increase response.
• If we have 25% newbs then we need to have burner charm school. Polls and surveys could be a solution looking for a problem. We could track the way the badlands grows–there are so many other ways to find out, not sure it’s worth putting the energy into this other thing.
• Value in surveys is breakdown in demog data, correlating with other data sets. How much data do we already have? Number of years people have been coming to FS? We should have data collection year to year in order for it to be useful.
• Breakdown is as expected but the participants were self selecting. If we want to keep track of demographics, figure out why and what the goal is–do we want to encourage more people of color? Of course. The real question is, how do we fix that problem, not necessarily how to gather data on it. Comes down to the problem we’re trying to solve. We had more people who have been to eight Flipsides responding to the survey than we had newbs.
• We’re talking about two different types of surveys. There’s demographics, and then there’s questions like “did you feel safe at this event?” or “how did you feel about the FEG burn?” We already know basic demographics, but pointed questions would be a good place for surveys. I’d rather know what they think about the event rather than who we are.
• The way scientists design experiments is based on the results we’re trying to show. Draw the graph you’re trying to see. Until you know what you’re trying to answer, it’s just button pushing.
• Button pushing is awesome. Two methods: targeted and directed vs data mining/amorphous/undirected. Maybe you want to collect as much data as possible because you don’t know what part of it is going to be useful. Or, what interventions would you take if the data said a particular thing? For example [the data field from] “duration you’ve been at FS” (assuming it was a survey taken at the event). What interventions would the CC consider recommending to the LLC based on that data? Depending on data outcome, how does that change what we recommend? Interesting data is cool but that’s not who we are. We should be addressing problems directly and using data to do so, or we should be trying to improve our event directly and using data to do so–unless we have a feeling that a wide amount of unknown data might help us at some point in the future. Doesn’t feel like us.
• Does collecting too much information makes us look like the NSA? Surveys should be anonymous unless we do a focus group type thing. There’s a lot of existing data points but they’re hard to correlate. We don’t know how many newbs are in theme camps–if there’s one in a TC they probably don’t need to go to charmer school, but if they’re in the badlands, that’s the population we want to reach. Let’s enumerate some of the problems that we’re interested in, and design a survey that goes towards that, design followup survey on that topic. Do we know how many cars come to FS? Should we start with the kind of questions we need to answer?
• “What is art?” And make it a True/False survey
• One way to use this info would be building and sustaining volunteerism. What attracts people to certain departments, are we attracting people outside their comfort zone or are we encouraging burnout by asking people to do things for FS that they do outside the event? Demographics is scarier than questions that are pointed towards sustainability and participation. Is this a problem that we’re having? Our needs for surveys would be different than Kiwiburn’s survey for example. There are certain people who will fill it out, and people who will read it. How do we reach more people in the community? On site safety survey shift survey–while it’s fresh, immediately following a shift. Land survey had so many responses–will it always be the same kind of people who fill it out?
• For newbie edjumication, addressing this is key. It’d be good to know if most newbies were showing up with a ticket they got on immediately before the event. Then something early on like Burner Charm School isn’t useful to most newbies.
• How do we communicate with people? How do people get their info about FS? How do you get most of your info about events? Would be a good data set to have as the CC and as the full organization.
• One place to figure out the questions we should be asking is to look back at safety logs. Senior volunteers for those departments and site ops etc can point to recurring issues that need to be addressed–like people not wearing shoes and getting hurt. Could create surveys to be interactive teaching things–turn responses into knowledge distribution that could grow our volunteer base. Could ask questions that could test to see what people know about what it takes to volunteer for, say, medical.
• People will claim to know a lot more than you think they would have.
• There’s nothing stopping a participant from creating a survey and tossing out on social media. The question is how much does the org want to be responsible and liable for it.
• Targeted surveys aren’t a big deal–those are fine. Scattershot, seeing what sticks kinda survey–doesn’t promote the radical individuality. Let’s just address the problems we identify. Let’s have the discussions rather than having people take tests, possibly feeling like a barrier to entry. Let’s do this with intention rather than just seeing what’s going on. We know where the holes are, let’s just address those.
• Should this be a doacracy? If people run off and make surveys and ask questions that make the community uncomfortable? Could ask questions that influence responses in a way that’s not good for our event? Need cooperation between individual who want to do this and the org. Should form list of problems we’re seeking to address with the data, if we’re going to do that.
• The CC has a long history of deferring to personal interaction. It’s a doacracy, but TH interaction is more important than FB stats. Social media usage–what’s our goal? If we know numbers about participation means we can set that goal. We’re more interested in the people who show up (to CC meetings). We don’t have interest in random techno-skewed sampling. It’s an opportunity for issues to come up that are up to the community to solve, and serve specific subsets of interests–the CC can do a better job of soliciting feedback. Would much rather have people show up (to CC meetings, or the WH events in general) and voice concerns, rather than picking for possible conflicts. If you go fishing for opinions, we need measurable goals for what we want, what kind of participation we want. Kiosk at TH? Social media doesn’t neccesarily contain the audience we’re interested in.
• The 200 people who show up at TH are no more representative than the 200 people who would fill out a survey. We (the CC) don’t have a history of doing this well, we struggle with social media and community engagement. We ask for topics and get a handful of people and the DaFTies who happen to be here anyways. Surveys and censuses are just another tool in the toolbox.
• Straw poll:
  • ”Does anyone feel like no surveys?” (none)
  • ”Should we do surveys targeted at specific problems?” (majority)
  • ”Are surveys too big brother”? (handful)
• Straw poll:
  • Is this something “we” should own and run (CC/the org)? (majority)
  • Should we bless someone in the comm? (majority)
• Should we rec to AAR that a member of the org should run the census, or should we seek a non org person? If we’re going to make a rec to have a census as the CC, do we want it to be official or unofficial?
• That’s a false distinction. If we’re tasking/blessing someone re survey, then they’re defacto part of the org. If the CC runs the survey and then someone who is running it, then it’s putting that person in a difficult situation.
• What’s the distinction–does the CC own the surveys regardless of who does them?
• Too abstract. CC has done survey in the past. Very targeted–what to do with the Effigy if we couldn’t burn it. Would have great issue with the CC doing a free form survey like that. Too abstract to adequately address whether or not we should do this.
• Don’t see a reason why the CC cannot hold things in confidence. Interactions with the community, people tell us things that we can hold in confidence. There are members who could be trusted to figure out which comments should be kicked over to the LLC and which shouldn’t.

MOTION: Within two weeks, list questions that we want answered. If we don’t come back with questions, we don’t have a survey. Post questions on CC list. MOTION PASSES

• If we’re going to do a survey, maybe limit it–people are more likely to give feedback if they have to do it less often. Kick it to the AFs first.

9:14 Break

9:25 Reconvene

Regionals Update (Clovis)

• ”The Gerlach regional is fixin’ to happen”
• Lots of international burns happened with success: Nordic, Nowhere, Montreal
• George and Shayne are having an online newb orientation
• BMORG is being charging entertainment tax for artists who were being their own entertainment.
• Could be NV state politics, the tax charge
• Myschievia, Freezerburn and Burnt Soup tix are going on sale soon

Capitalizing on Flipside Work Experience (Prost)

• Lots of people are talking about how what we do as an organization is valuable in the mundane world in terms of professional experience. Do we need guidelines for doing that? How do you list your FS experience as an AF, for example? Is it okay to list as AAR or Burning Flipside by name? On Linkedin, there are 37 people who claim work experience with AAR, 9 are LLC, the other 27 claim different titles–consultant is popular. “Conflict resolution specialist.” There’s a Burning Flipside group (on Linkedin) with 25 members. Do we want to provide any sort of guidelines to volunteers about how to list their experience on their resume or on Linkedin? Or provide guidelines to how you might translate FS titles into “real world” titles? Who do you represent, how do you get that work experience validated, who can back you up?

MOTION: Set up subcommittee to set up guidelines to come up with recommendations. SECONDED

• Supports subcommittee idea. Who’s the customer of the outputs? Is it the org or the community? Based on numbers listed, a very small number of people list FS as their work experience, but when I talk to people about what they get out of their FS experience, it’s opportunities and skills they can use in their other jobs. We’re missing an opportunity for communicating skills development that are readily applicable for helping people progress in their current jobs. We can connect work experience at FS to volunteer experience inside FS and connect that to progression in outside work.
• If subcommittee provides set of guidelines, would that be a valuable tool?
• Ping people who’ve translated FS resume into default resume for subcommittee membership
• Subcommittee needs to figure out who can sign for things and vouch for people
• AAR has written letters of recommendation for people.
• It’d be nice if AAR had a policy on what they will do, always do. Some companies want to verify dates, titles, eligibility for rehire, strongly recommend LLC not be generic “reference”. LLC needs to come up with a policy so people know what to expect if they list AAR as a reference. That part shouldn’t be up to a CC sub comm. It should be up to the LLC.
• Big gap between companies/HR/legal requirements about what you can reveal about your employees that people on the LLC might not know. Part of the basis is create your own reality–it’s an ever changing community organization. You say as individuals, will you vouch for me? Talk to each other about who’s going to vouch for each other.
• Am I allowed to discuss my role as an AF, I’m referred by a potential employer? How do I translate my job description to default terms?
• People are going to embellish their resumes, we should be talking to each other re: what is going to be said. Helping people translate that experience is a good thing to do.

MOTION: Create subcommittee to explore guidelines to presenting work experience. MOTION PASSES. Subcommittee: Beth, Kati, Monkey, Prost.

• Offer AFs participation and will ping AF list.
• I’m happy to continue to provide recommendation letters until requests become a barrage. I don’t want to be too bureaucratic. If someone asks me to provide a reference–don’t make me lie for you. Is [the job you did for AAR]  relevant [to the job you’re applying for]? Are you comfortable asking me to be a reference for you?
• [To the LLC]: Take it up with your lawyer if you’re going to adopt a policy.
• Being able to put it on my resume is not why I volunteer. It’s a benefit, but it’s not why I do the thing or show up. It can help explain gaps in work history, and it’s the longest running thing I’ve got on my resume–”involved with safety teams since 2000” looks astounding on a resume and we don’t often get to do that–but that’s not why I volunteer.
• Corporations have official policies of no recommendations. On the side, though, you’ll probably find managers who are willing to vouch for you.
• What are the deliverable items we’re looking for out of the subcommittee? Want to be able to give helpful community guidance as an organizational gift to our volunteers? “we’ve thought about this, if you want to be able to put this on your resume….” Not a list of rules of what you can or can’t list, or this is the official way, but as a gift and a help, a resource to community and volunteers. Include placeholder for whatever LLC is wanting to say re policy surrounding it. Don’t want to phrase the thing as a carrot to encourage people to volunteer as a lead. One of the neat things about our work experience is that it’s incongruous with other people’s work history, and we provide people with opps on work that they might not otherwise get–some people don’t understand that they can use these things on a resume. How to translate the material.
• Let’s not limit it to lead positions (that the subcommittee gears its advice to). One of my campmates got a job chasing down weather balloon’s for Google’s global internet project based partially on his experience driving a truck for me when I was Transpo lead.
• There’s a diversity of experience and skills [you can get through FS] that people might not appreciate. If we had a roundup of the range of skills that you could list….

OLD BUSINESS

• CC Retreat
  • Fill out the Trello.

MOTION: Schedule CC retreat Nov 11-13th. MOTION PASSES.

ACTION ITEM: Clover and Pixie will do a poll re: places for retreat.

• Trello Access
  • A member of the org has asked to be able to view the CC Trello board, so that they can figure out if it will be useful for their part of the org. Are we okay with that?
  • There’s nothing particularly sensitive on the Trello, although it’d be nice if non-CC members had read-only access. If anyone from the org wanted to look at that board, it’s okay
  • Let’s have a start date and end date
  • We should know who’s on the board

NEXT MEETING: MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2016

TOPICS: PETs and OTC Meds (Adam), Townhall Agenda

FACILITATOR: Turtlebunnie

STACK: Pixie

SCRIBE: TBD

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, JULY 25, 2016

FACILITATOR: Monkey

STACK: Pixie

SCRIBE: Kati

ATTENDEES: Henry, Bonobo, Monkey, Blister, Pixie, Kat, Kati, Beth, Clover, Decibel, Clovis, Edie Cosmos

TOPICS: Planning the Next Respect Talk; Standardizing Dates for Town Halls; Date of Flipside; Land Search Survey

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION: At this time the CC does not recommend that the LLC change the date of Flipside. MOTION PASSED

MOTION: Fall Town Hall will be held, typically, the 4th weekend of September. MOTION PASSED

MOTION: Spring Town Hall will be held, typically, the 1st weekend in February. MOTION PASSED

MOTION: 1st CC meeting in June and November the Town Hall date will be confirmed. MOTION PASSED

7:55pm MEETING BEGINS

7:58pm LLC UPDATE (Blister)

• Volunteer coordinator has created a volunteer database/management system. Discussed last Tuesday.

7:54pm AF UPDATE

• 3 candidates will be interviewed for 2 positions.

7:55pm TOPIC: Planning the Next Respect Talk (Kat)

• Do we want to have the discussion before or after TownHall. What kind of time is needed? Do we do it as World Cafe round table or full lecture/discussion? Who was here last time (out of towners, new people?) Last discussion was well attended for short notice. Approximately 40 people — some out of towners, some people who had never been to CC? Is it better to be separate (different wknd) than TH so people aren’t burned out or is it good to have it close so people are available. Workshop style would be a learning platform of interaction to make it inviting to people who don’t want to be talked at, combined with better timing and promotion. In last, Kat began with talking and then there was a great deal of talking by participants in the room. If it is directly after TownHall, you’ve got people from out of town, as well as people who are excited about Flipside because they just finished TH. People can be encouraged that if you are interested in FLipside, this is also an important conversation to join in the community. People who are from out of town, who have shown interest, will be in town so can can participate in an event they’ve shown interest in attending. Whichever one we pick, let’s stick to it so that people know there will always be important discussion after TH. We always have parties & tailgating, let’s talk about something important to our community is conjunction with TH. In light of out of towners, can we address it in a way that they can take this back to their communities — a crash course in the topic so they can share it back home. This way we can focus on message growing into San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, or wherever so people don’t always feel pressure to be here. Second on the idea of important community conversation attached to TH — great opportunity for “newbie classes” such as Burner Charm School as well as bigger conversations.
• This conversation is also about the vocabulary so people will have the tools to begin the conversations of respect. If we break out in groups, we need to have 4-6 hours to thoroughly move from vocabulary to practice. Can we have food budget for a 4-6 hour course so people will be able to stay and be fueled? Is this a one part conversation or something broader that can be split into two groups. A deeper conversation about history of racism can certainly happen, but we can have a respect “beginning” conversation one or two more times first, as well.
• Idea: If there are a certain number of words, if we could display & use them for additional discussion and can be used periodically to simply read them in the meeting room. Other thought, is it possible to have something split out – 101 and 201 or 101 and World Cafe. If we do it over time, we can do the 101 and later in the day have a 201. Another thing that might be beneficial, is to have a 101 and then a set date for 202. Maybe before that, training for people who want to facilitate. That might be good to do in the morning, to have it within a World Cafe situation.
• Date for Respect Discussion: Sunday, 25th September
  • Noon: Discussion facilitators training
  • 1pm: Respect 101
  • 3pm: World cafe style discussion
  • 4pm: Respect 102
• Announcement on official channels: Announce Submission form will be channeled to Announce and Flames, Burning Flipside Facebook, Flipside website.

8:27pm TOPIC: Standardizing Dates for Town Halls (Adam)

• It is nice to have it mutable to account for special occasions of one-off needs.
• Having a set date makes all of the other planning easier so we can always plan on that date in advance.
• Set a firm date, with three (arbitrary number) exceptions that it can be moved for.
• LLC likes to say “rules or dumb, but rules of thumb are not.”
• If we would successfully post dates for the year would there be less conflict, especially if the dates were stuck with for the meetings/events. There are so many regional events that establishing a date will allow others to plan around the bigger events. Houston March, San Antonio likely in April, Freezerburn in January, so TownHall in February fits in well. Also, there is a Texas burn organizers calendar so everyone can see what dates are filled. Seems like a rule of thumb is the direction we are moving, but is this the meeting where we are discussing if we have a rule of thumb or where we actually set a date FOR the rule of thumb? If this is about the community, it is something that the rule of thumb should be flexible for other events in the community, but regularity allows the ability for community to join the event — almost like a New Year’s. If we are going to have a mutable date, we need to be able to announce that by a certain date, say three months out, the date will not be changed.

MOTION: To halt the discussion of TownHall date until the date of Flipside conversation is completed. MOTION PASSED.

8:45pm REGIONALS UPDATE (Clovis)

• Burning Man is happening. Oblivium just happened. Myscheivia is going to happen. Freezer burn has a theme, “Frost in Space”, Engulf in NOLA (10/13-10/16).
• RC update: There is an online newbie burner orientation for Burning Man hosted by George and Cheyne. https://www.facebook.com/events/1076763955746778/?active_tab=posts

8:48pm TOPIC: Date of Flipside (Monkey)

• This conversation is for a couple reasons: We haven’t talked about it in a long time so do we keep the sacred cow of the date or sacrifice the date.
• There are several things that make it easier or harder, the biggest of which is weather. The rainiest month is May, followed by June and October for Austin, Houston, and Dallas. On our land, the historically highest weeks of rain are the two weeks pre-Flipside. This year (2016) was above average rainfall, but not by much, only approximately 20%. We’ve had several el nina, so these years have been drier than historical average.
• Some participants have only experienced Flipside in the mainly conditions so it is what they know. But then a suggestion of new location came up so there is an excitement that maybe a new location would allow different weather, which leads to a different date might improve the event as well. We should consider changing it so the weather challenge doesn’t make people give up on the event.
• The delineating mark for the rain in those months is 98the meridian, 2 1/2 inches to our 5.
• Maybe venue is part of the deal, you have the parallel, but we have a water feature and a water feature has been historically significant — though it can be too full or too low.
• The three day weekend is important to many because people can get the extra time off, especially many hard-core volunteers, so if we changed the date, we may have to consider shortening the event.
• As long as I’ve been going, there has been wet, there has been dry. The date allows for college kids getting out, which might be third of our population, but families take kids out of school to go.
• Some details that have been picked up when community members have talked about the date: Holidays are nice for three-day weekend. Memorial day: Many professional artists have to work Memorial Day because it is one of three weekends in which they make a lot of their incomes. A lot of people want holiday weekends, so it’s difficult for many to take Memorial Day because lots of people have already taken that time. As far as class, people who have the disposable income and time can often take it, but those who have less disposable income and time can’t go, often holiday or otherwise, but often less likely on holiday wknd.
• Regarding the water, the first years at new land has always been gorgeous, then the water progressively gets less appealing. Onto scheduling, we can’t have a comfortable event in Texas May, June, July. December and February aren’t good months. But there are no sacred cows, so we have seven months, but not sure April is a good month because that rainy season moves.
• A good portion of why DaFT was okay for 2016 is because the effigy was designed such that no machinery was needed to build the effigy because the lead knew the weather could be a factor.
• Many issues are peculiar to date and location. When we do land search, which we should always be doing, we will be looking with a much beadier eye for history of weather and location. The process of moving location is not as big of a factor as the checkboxes for the date, it would be a pain for a couple years, but not too bad.
• Is there a date that would be suggested? Early July has a heat index that is similar to mid-May. The best May is about the same as best July, but the best May is way better than the worst July. Rain plan however, is much easier for July. The cost of needing the right things for rain is much more cost prohibitive than getting the right things for the heat. “Magical date” is middle of July.
• My main comment is contentious: This is a classist event regardless of the date, so it makes more sense to focus on developing new land relationships than to change the date, because the land is vital to the event.
• I don’t think we have to be so concerned about creating the perfect burn experience.
• This is a privileged event with a high barrier for entry, but this is also a transformational event that forces participants to adapt and react. Are we being masochistic with this land that seems to keep trying to purge us. But that is part of why I like going to burns, because it challenges me and I see what I can push through.
• The weather for Flipside has always been fickle.
• To LLC, is there a land search? What is actually going on for the land search?
• Scott Sexton is leading the research for land search. If you are interested in helping – calling counties, maybe traveling to possible sites – contact him. He is creating a survey to ask the community about ideas for land search. landsearch@burningflipside.com
• Any changes that are beginning discussion now would not manifest into a new property for 12-18 months. A location change is a long-term action.

MOTION: After a long discussion about the date of Flipside with respect to the weather, at this time the CC does not recommend that the LLC change the date of Flipside. The CC supports the organization’s ongoing quest for new land. MOTION PASSED.

9:57pm Return to TOPIC: Standardizing Dates for Town Halls

MOTION: Fall Town Hall will be held, typically, the 4th weekend of September. MOTION PASSED.

MOTION: Spring Town Hall will be held, typically, the 1st weekend in February. MOTION PASSED.

MOTION: 1st CC meeting in June and November the Town Hall date will be confirmed. MOTION PASSED.

10:05pm TOPIC: Land Search Survey

• Does putting the land survey out to the community make it appear to be a democratic when the decision has to be made from many considerations when the decision can’t be fully democratic. Some considerations include, for example, distance from Austin versus Houston (2 to 4 hours, potentially); geographical considerations; weather patterns.
• Just moving the event 1/2 mile could potentially completely shift the safety issues on the current land. We’d still have the weather, but safety would be improved. Location – E,N,W,S – is it convenient, how does it serve our community best.
• The survey is going to be ultimately useful just to see how the community feels. There is not really a negative to having the community input on a decision.
• Some people really like the idea of traveling further from their current reality to experience something different.
• This survey lets us rely on the community to help provide ideas for possible land solutions.
• Is there anything in particular that we need to tell Scott in regard to the survey?
• There is a lot more on the survey than just the location. Shade, water, navigability, etc. So the LLC is definitely going to look at the survey to consider what the community wants in the land.

10:15 pm CC OLD BUSINESS

• Doodle for CC retreat if you have not completed it, do complete. Currently, 11-13 November is the best.
• Decision on date at next CC Meeting.

10:27pm End of Meeting

Next meeting: Monday, August 8, 2016

Topics: Survey & Consensus (Clover); Flipside as work experience (Prost)

FACILITATOR: Monkey

STACK: Beth

SCRIBE: ???

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2016

FACILITATOR: Clover

STACK: Hawk

SCRIBE: Chim-Chim

ATTENDEES: Hezzy, Vonn, Tornado, Clover, Adam, Problem, Babbage, Henry, Dahling, Chim-Chim, Clover, Prost, Izzy, Kat, Turtlebunnie, Bonobo, Clovis

TOPIC: CC Calendaring (Topics, Dates); Town Hall

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION: Start the Combustion Chamber nomination process with the intention to take at least 1 new member; MOTION PASSED

SELECTED Town Hall Producer: Henry

ACTION ITEM: Create Doodle poll (Clover)

7:50pm MEETING BEGINS

7:52pm LLC UPDATE (Problem)

• Volunteer appreciation party occurred recently
• AAR/AF debrief meeting occurred the following day; Some AFs stepping down this year

7:54pm AREA FACILITATOR UPDATE (Dahling)

• Mini re-org meeting coming up once new AFs are in place
• Leads selection to be scheduled sooner than later

7:55pm TOPIC: CC Calendaring

• July 25
  • Respect Talk Planning (Kat)
  • Standard Dates for Town Halls (Adam)
  • Date of Flipside (Monkey)
• August 8
  • Capitalizing on Flipside Work Experience (Prost)
  • Surveys & Censuses (Clover)
• August 22
  • Communicating Open Positions (Cooper/Izzi)
  • Town Hall Planning
• September 12
  • Town Hall Walkthrough
  • Volunteer Recruitment & Retention (Henry)
  • Flipside Volunteer System Requirements (Izzi)
• September 26
  • PETS, OTC Medicine and Self-Reliance (Adam)
  • Respect Reflection
  • Town Hall Post-Mortem
• October 17
  • Revisiting the Three Principles (Prost) 10/17
• October 24
  • Accountability (TurtleBunnie)
  • Recycling (Adam)
• November 7
  • What/When/Where Guide (Clover)
  • Mentoring for Leadership (Turtlebunnie)
• November 21 – Canceled due to holiday week
• December 5
  • Paid/Comp Staff (Monkey)
• December 12
  • CC Mixer
• January 9
  • Calendaring

8:53pm REGIONALS UPDATE (Clovis)

• Burning Man is fighting fiscal charges from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); Turnover in BLM mgmt; Would like to see justification of costs
• Oblivium is coming up
• Beachside was hot: 5500 lbs of trash picked up on beach
• Lots of art projects going out to Burning Man

8:58pm CC BUSINESS

• TOWN HALL PREP
  • Identify producer: Henry
  • Town Hall date: 9/21
  • Look into ways to cool down the warehouse better
  • Coordinate info from CC; Develop agenda
• CC MEMBERSHIP
  • LISTS: CC list; Closed CC list
  • Current CC: 20 ppl; Should pressure ppl to step down; Do we need energy for more ppl?;
  • Our lack of inaction could be a reflection of the older members, but new members may not know what’s going on; There needs to be a balance; Would like to know who is stepping up or down; One AAR member is at least stepping down (Princess)
  • Is there anyone we know who should be brought up?
  • Handle prior to the retreat; Put out feels for anyone interested in joining CC;
  • Ask on list/personal conversation for those who haven’t been showing up to meetings; Keep informal; If it’s decided someone needs to step down, we’ll have that conversation
  • Year off, sabbatical, or step up—Put call out to list for active cc members to assert their intentions
  • In the past, have someone reach out

MOTION: Start the process with the intention to take at least 1 new member

• Don’t constrain; Make enough space to take in a person we like; To interview with intention to onboard

MOTION PASSED

• CC will get together; Announce on website
• CC RETREAT DATE
  • ACTION ITEM: Create Doodle poll (Clover); October/November tentative date

Final note: This is Chim-Chim’s final meeting as scribe (due to relocation)

Next meeting: Monday, July 25, 2016

Topic: Respect Talk Planning (Kat); Standard Dates for Town Halls (Adam); Date of Flipside (Monkey)

FACILITATOR: Monkey

STACK:

SCRIBE:

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2016

FACILITATOR:  Prost

STACK:  Turtlebunnie

SCRIBE:  Chim-Chim

ATTENDEES:  Prost, Clover, Commander Awesomepants, Cooper, Problem, Blister, Rabbitt, Rabbitfoot, Babbage, Izzi, Henry, Turtlebunnie, Hawk, Breezy, Wrinn, Decibel, Pixie, Monkey, Psyche, Crash

TOPICS:  Review of Flipside; Event length

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION: Fall TH—raise awareness to add artist resources as topic for Fall TH; MOTION PASSED

7:49pm MEETING BEGINS

7:52pm LLC UPDATE (Blister)

• 2,783 tickets sold; 2,547 past gate; no show 6%; one ambulance run to hospital and one participant who went to hospital in a personally operated vehicle—both returned to the event; had 1 law enforcement incident involved inside gate, but no arrests; no gate crasher incidents reported; Event went smoothly despite rain; Most ppl came prepared; Traffic managed; Landowner did not recover any stuck vehicles; All done internally; No major incidents; Recycling unstaffed on Monday; Understaffed for picking up; Load in day after cleanup understaffed; site sign-off said few camps were yellow if were to moop map; For more info, contact Blister
• Tix sold in initial release: under 2,500
• Sat-Mon: Recycling; Are we going to have recycling next year? It’s a Flipside department; Cut down on operation? Recycling not seen anywhere outside BRC
• Looking to recruit at least one new AF for 2017

8:04pm ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Leads appreciation Saturday
• AF meeting Sunday

AF UPDATE (Wrinn)

• AFs remind Leads to clean up and put stuff away
• CC can let ppl know if they have anything at warehouse, needs to get taken home; Expiration date; Pile by overhead doors; Community pickup day

8:06pm REGIONAL UPDATE (St. Tiki)

• Burning Man Europe, targeting 1000 ppl; the event itself will be called “Where the Sheep Sleep”; organized by “Burning Man Netherlands”
• Lakes of Fire drowning
• San Antonio mixer last Friday night; Looking for proposed location within 45mins of San Antonio; Instead of placement camps, will be genres/areas for ppl to choose; Forming LLC; Do fundraising; 250 ppl for first Burn
• Mid-Burn 6,000; AfricaBurn 10,000
• Beachside in 3 weeks
• Burnt Soup is getting ramped up
• Potential timing for San Antonio (December) looking at private campground
• Fly Ranch (near BRC), which BMORG just bought, is 3,800 acres—desire to have some type of cool Burner retreat
• Implication of housing at Fly Ranch (j/k)

8:21pm TOPIC: Flipside Review

• Liked the City mail; Glad to see Kit sell straw; Seemed like volunteerism was working pretty well for recycling; Concerns: 2nd phase ticket process was kludgy
• What a difference a year makes; Not a big problem with fireworks this year
• Volunteer Assistance Squad may need tweaking
• Traffic flow was much better this year
• 2nd round tickets: Consider tickets online; Advantage—do everything like everybody else does; When you do, you get free stuff; When there is reason to choose to do differently, that’s great; Not ticket process, but process to sell the additional 238 tickets
• AAR has ability to sell tix after window; Critical volunteer tix; Manual process
• Kludgy means cumbersome
• Adaptations to city layout went smoothly; Poorly-raining, muddy; Wasn’t last year; Camps moved around; Plus slightly cooler
• Liked figure 8; Straw works wonders!
• Camps better prepared; A lot left earlier on Monday; Affected us with no late volunteers; Towing was not an imposition; Cleanup—limited number of volunteers post-event
• Tix: Put effort in tix that no one really sees
• Site Ops: This year was best; Had half new leads; Volunteer towing good; Pickup weekend;
• MOOP map coming out this year: Statistical type MOOP map
• 2 things seen: ticketing different; no higher tier; One big burn instead of multiple nights of burns; no exit survey; Org doesn’t give art grants—someone else does it; up to ppl to bring art they want to burn
• Idea of having new department for towing
• Setup of safety HQ was off
• Email Wrinn for recycling ideas/opinions; Not against towing, but problem is liability

8:54pm TOPIC: Event Length

• Move to start on Wednesday?
• Lengthier event = consider changing dates
• Event length: Signaling art/scope of art; for five day event, most don’t take more than one day to setup; If looking for non-sponsored project, hard-pressed to do in a day; If you want ppl to do art on that level, 5 days is not enough; Big advantages to both of them
• Tried to have longer event at one point; Sound complaints before Sound Marshall was there; Scaled down; not setup when focused on party; big difference Tues to Tues operationally when dealing with clients on Wednesday; If open for 10 days, ppl will be partying for 10 days; All art is self-funded; 2 days longer would be horrible for staff
• Main burn Saturday; Temple Burn Sunday
• May be able to do if at 5,000 ppl; Balance between amount of ability to support it/more money, but important thing about extending event is whether or not we want to have Flipside as ability to build great things; Volunteers; more, stupid, longer
• If longer, look at safety teams
• Suggestion: Determine number in each camp; Bigger camps more likely to build bigger things; need extra day; add another day to early entry for those
• Day early; Don’t strive for full week; baby steps if on list
• Volunteer count?
• Use weekend before, have campers bring stuff early; Weather concern; Open
• Most theme camps ready by time of event; early entry is awkward with privilege; labor-intensive; early entry an issue regarding questions
• More of the ppl than the time; Stats are random
• Expanding early entry is a reasonable experiment; Safety teams would have to happen earlier; Insurance gets expensive when event is extended
• Wednesday early entry not so much an issue
• If we extend early entry, do you deserve it? Weekend before is good; Weatherproof art project
• 80% ppl check box for early entry
• Emphasis on communicating needs; VR training?
• How much safety volunteer base must we have? Setup
• Are we contributing to volunteer burnout?
• Early entry is meant for working; Even if you are a significant other, you are expected to be doing something; Contributing to volunteer burnout is watching those get early entry and sit and drink beer and do nothing
• Week before dropoff? Ppl are liable for their own stuff; Needs to be left there in such a way that space appears unoccupied for insurance purposes
• You get early entry through volunteering; You do not volunteer to get early entry; Having been on DAFT crew—became us vs them mentality; In addition to dropping art off on Saturday, org drops off art on Saturday; Truck was half-full at most

MOTION: Fall TH—raise awareness to add artist resources as topic for Fall TH; MOTION PASSED

10:04pm OLD BUSINESS

• Process in handbook
• Picture day: July 11
• Discussing mixer and add periodic mixer; Do one in September
• If you left mixer with ideas with topics, discuss after meeting, ready for next mixer

NEXT MEETING:  Monday, July 11, 2016

FACILITATOR:  Clover

STACK:  Pixie

SCRIBE:  Chim-Chim

TOPICS:  Calendaring up to December; Town Hall prep; CC membership; Date for CC retreat (Setup for October/November); Picture day

10:13pm MEETING ADJOURNED

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2016

FACILITATOR: Cooper

STACK: Breezy

SCRIBE: Chim-Chim

ATTENDEES: Adam, Princess, Problem, Izzi, Turtlebunnie, Maria, Whim, Chim-Chim, Clover, Breezy, Dahling, Hawk, Clovis, Private Bear, Kat, Monkey, Wrinn, Commander Awesomepants, Notfunnyatall, Cooper, Pixie, Prost, Henry, Rose, Xander, Bonobo, Samantha

TOPICS: Volunteer Panic (Dahling); Leave No Trace (Wrinn)

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

MOTION: CC recommends to LLC to either change the names for Earth Guardians or Guardians; BLOCKED

7:42pm AAR/LLC UPDATE

• Warehouse is not a donation site for furniture; Do not leave furniture; Contact warehouse manager before dropping off
• Preliminary map will be available May 1st; Gate crew will go over dry run
• AFs will have discussion for Leads All Hands this week

AF UPDATE

• There will be a discussion over volunteering at the work weekend coming up
• Safetyside went well. Ended early for flood warning
• Leads All Hands this week
• There is more work to be done at work weekend
• There will be a new traffic pattern; A figure-8 around effigy

7:57pm TOPIC: Volunteer Panic (Dahling)

• 70% staffed minus Safety teams
• Ice is almost full
• Sanctuary is full
• Biggest area needed is Parking and Guardians
• Volunteer assistant Squad 60% full; Job description: Taxi service for volunteers; On-site volunteer recruitment; Tech stuff
• Earth Guardians needs help
• Need ppl for after Tuesday to load trucks for Recycling
• Shaven Apes needs more ppl
• Last day help with DAFT
• Volunteer roulette online

8:03pm REGIONAL UPDATE (Clovis)

• Applied for status for this year
• Lots of regionals coming up; Soak, Mid-Burn, Saguaro Man, AfricaBurn

8:05pm TOPIC: Leave No Trace (Wrinn)

• Reasons: Before FS, read threads from BM, and the hypocrisy of pollution; After FS, we didn’t do the best job cleaning up; Unsafe; Grass too high; What are our feelings on LNT? Tactics—cigarette butts; Should we expend an effort; Intangible—Carbon emissions; Have an accountability principle; How accountable does community want us to be?
• We do leave carbon; After every burn, plant trees; Using generators and burning effigies; Planting a tree wouldn’t hurt the environment; LNT also involves not messing with animals; Someone took an animal off land last year; Call game warden before taking an animal home to rehab if you feel the animal is in danger
• Whatever you take out there, you take home
• Did we handle aftermath of Floodside effectively? We didn’t harm reputation with landowner; We have high standards and he appreciates that
• Less carbon-neutral weekend, then no trace; How did it shift to carbon-neutral week? Discussion over principles; Is this a formal goal for the organization? What level are we looking for?
• Ideas: Camps coordinating on carbon diesel engines; Solar—ppl who know about solar rigs, and a workshop would be cool to build for camp; Do around mid-winter; IF ONLY WE HAD A WORKSHOP HERE :p
• Cleaned up things from other events; Twinkles to Shortcake!
• Carbon footprints: Challenge theme camps to think about own carbon footprint; Approach is smaller and more manageable
• Do you want ticket money spent on planting trees? Tree folks has a calculator
• Single box with marine battery and inverter; Battery is solar-charged; More ac/dc power for lighting; It’s doable and can be scaled up to theme-sized unit; Can have workshop
• Making event carbon-neutral: Don’t know how to have event if we cant drive out there; Can work on efficiency; Limit to how carbon neutral we can be; More of a long-term, incremental thing
• Even in the best of years—talk about education—there is moop left behind; Question—What do we do for those who don’t get education
• LNT is internally inconsistent idea: Can’t possibly be clear and consistent; We leave footprints; Disturb plants; Release emissions into trees; Chemtrails over effigy; Fair amount of heat into soil; We make changes to things; Can’t go there at all on a work weekend without making any changes; What we are talking about is—We have decided as a community that LNT is important to us, so what do we want to say; It’s something some ppl do sometimes and some don’t; Only going to get a community consensus
• Part of question is HOW? Against using ticket money on LNT; Love idea of empowering each other; If ppl arguing about being carbon-neutral event; In exchange to not living with so many rules, we have to live up to a higher standard
• Would not recommend spending money on resources; We don’t fund art
• Being better to not have things handed down from on high; Individual convos help
• Having donation checkbox to help plant trees; Choose to leave more or less; Not saying using ticket money should be used
• Recycling: Strain on volunteers, and lots of work; How does recycling fits into LNT philosophy; Ppl who come from out of town; Recycle Camp?
• Checkboxes: Checkbox for art goes to org within community; We don’t have a separate org in the burnerverse to do that; Now we’re burdened with who’s the best org to give it to; Can discuss standards
• Bring up to CC whether we should to continue Recycling; Didn’t have enough resources as a camp, so it went full-on
• Some resources go to LNT, but at what level?
• Half the goal is to convert assholes by talking to ppl, or publicly shaming on FB
• Volunteers for Recycling show it’s a community-supportive event
• How do we empower each other individually; Stressing how serious LNT is
• Answer—whatever the AF feels is an acceptable amount of work; As long as community can agree operational ppl are accountable for what is acceptable; WHATEVER WRINN THINKS IS ACCEPTABLE
• Education is still the main thing
• Leave No Trace existed before Burning Man; Individual/Camp/Community principle that we don’t need to kill our volunteers with
• Pro-tip: Contractor bags labeled with red or green
• LNT: Leave it better
• When we get feedback as to how we did, we can be communicators in being source of education; Earth Guardians is low on volunteers
• Every year we do great; Try to top ourselves every year; Try to evolve, eventually bring carbon;

MOTION: CC recommends to LLC to either change the names for Earth Guardians or Guardians; (Restoration); BLOCKED; LLC doesn’t tell departments to change their names

9:13pm OLD BUSINESS

• Change TH date again? TH date to be in a super position of states;
• Respect discussion: Unofficial; Posted on-site on sign;
• Scribe nominations: Mer’s responsibility to find Scribe? Who vets? Names given, then interviewed; Put community call-out; Message in handbook?
• Pictures: To be taken at mixer; All CC members invited; Clovis will take AI
• Mixer: Next meeting, May 9; Informal as fuck; Bring enough for yourself to drink; Listen to what you guys want to talk about; Bring your favorite beverage; Burning Topics; If you can’t make it to the mixer, if you see us at Flipside, talk to us; Need sticky notes; Name tags for CC members; Wear orange cones on our heads
• Burners without Borders (BWB): Success; 4 groups in total hauled out 20ft dumpster; Full moon tide brought up waste; Listed on Rideshare; Considered an official event

NEXT MEETING: Monday, June 20, 2016

FACILITATOR: Prost

STACK: Turtlebunnie

SCRIBE: Chim-Chim

9:25pm MEETING ADJOURNED

COMBUSTION CHAMBER MEETING

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2016

FACILITATOR: Cooper

STACK: Decibel

SCRIBE: Chim-Chim

ATTENDEES (21): Tasha, Pippa, Cooper, Princess, Problem, Kat, Thomas, Chim-Chim, Adam, Monkey, Turtlebunnie, Breezy, Beth, Prost, Decibel, Notfunnyatall, Clovis, Wrinn, Bonobo, Breezy, Henry

TOPICS: Fireworks (Prost); Social Media (Monkey)

RESOLUTIONS AND ACTION ITEMS

ACTION ITEM (Prost): Put into the Flipside Flame: You can buy fireworks; No you cant take it to Flipside; It’s everybody’s responsibility; Prost will write a blurb

MOTION: Suggest that the Social Media team review the original Social Media Plan; MOTION PASSES

MOTION: Move Fall Town Hall to Sept. 24; MOTION PASSES

ACTION ITEM (Cooper): Contact Mer and request to start Scribe nominations process

ACTION ITEM (Kat & Beth): Kat will make FB event page and post on website for the CC Mixer; 7:42pm; Beth will post event

7:52pm MEETING BEGINS

7:58pm AAR/LLC UPDATE (Adam, Thomas, Problem, Princess)

• Contract signed—WE HAVE LAND!!!
• Safetyside is this weekend; Bad news—IT’S GONNA RAIN!
• Global Leadership Conference occurred last week
• Met with AFs; Everything proceeding as planned
• Scheduling Fall Town Hall: Set for October 1; Discuss in OLD BUSINESS

8:05pm REGIONAL UPDATE (Clovis)

• GLC
• Cheyne McClaskey meta regional contacts admin;
• Everyman stepped down (previous admin)
• Meta-regional representative for Austin: Scott Claskey
• Schedule time to get together and discuss GLC; Wrinn, Russell, FTC, Serious, Jimmie
• Serious, Ghost did panel

8:11pm AREA FACILITATOR UPDATE (Clovis)

• Had work weekend this past weekend; Additional 13 loads at site; Placed 7-8; Filled potholes; Found more infrastructure that had floated downstream (mesh green flooring); Cleaned up along 428 outside (6 bags of trash; Pallets); Lots learned how to use a bobcat; Main field was plowed six times and cleaned; Lots of screws, towels, keys found in cleaning process
• Safetyside this weekend; Orders are in for everything

8:16pm TOPIC: Fireworks (Prost)

• Why LLC loathes fireworks so much; Fireworks policy in SG is clear; They are PROHIBITED; Reason to bring this up—fireworks sales laws in Texas have changed; You can now buy fireworks; for Memorial Day; On a county-by-county basis; Must approve each vendor selling; Now have situation where someone driving to Flipside may see the sights of fireworks stands
• Survival Guide states it is also grounds for ejection; Cannot get insurance if ppl setting off fireworks; Don’t have Flipside if ppl set fireworks off; Motion to keep it the same
• How to communicate it to the community, and what’s our last line of defense in the event, and what are we gonna do in this situation
• Last line of defense: Gate; Can ask Gate to ask about fireworks; Once in the event, it’s harder to deal with those who have fireworks
• NO fireworks sign? NO. Also, need NO firearms sign; Start telling people (operational issue)
• Fireworks policy is reaffirmed; If insurance situation changes, re-discuss

ACTION ITEM: Put into the Flipside Flame: You can buy fireworks; No you cant take it to Flipside; It’s everybody’s responsibility; Prost will write a blurb

8:28pm TOPIC: Social media (Monkey)

• Have Social Media Lead (St. Tiki); How we address social media; 2 categories; 1) How we as an org use social media, whether we are using the right things, and doing it in the best way; 2) Whether or not it is responsibility of org to take on maintaining communities social media
  • 1) Do we Tweet, yo?
  • 2) Flipizens page?
• Majority are on Burning Flipside Flipizens group page; Community created/Community-run group; Should org take hand in moderating community for group
• Assessment of current social media we use: There is competing problem with #1; When we started social media thing, there have been a couple of starts and didn’t know exactly what to say; People need to know there is a burningflipside.com website; Don’t pay FB; As a point of information on this convo, may need to be discuss; Original plan—put images, news blurbs, etc into fb page that direct back to website; Ppl look and share those posts; Whoever is subscribed to page will upvote the visibility/reach of message; Have some traction; Gets more fun on #2 side; Official plan—let ppl REACH
• Twitter is something we’ve had for several years;
• Who are we most concerned about reaching? 2 groups: Detailed/complex info to veteran/highly engaged ppl; Or, less-engaged ppl, or, new ppl? Require entirely set of focus; FB is excellent spot to reach ppl you don’t necessarily know at all; Which area of social media are we most worried we are not doing well?
• Communication is a two-way streak; Have official Flipside page; People are asking that they should be asking organization on Flipizens group
• You have to know the system in order to game the system
• Using Instagram and Kickk; Getting ahead of social media thing
• Kate Ludlow and St. Michelle do good job of pointing ppl in the right direction
• Although we should do more outreach, we have to come up with the message; Message matters, or maybe it doesn’t; Always have had barrier to entry to get into Flipside
• Recruiting not so much the issue, but it is establishing/creating dynamic culture with certain expectations; Need effective strategy; Medium is the message; Need something more deliberate
• Need prescence; Getting ppl to pay attention to you is expensive; It’s always been repetition; Cost of medium has become cheaper, but doesn’t necessarily mean overall communication costs; Traditional advertising doesn’t work anymore; Have to craft content to get ppl to hear it; It’s EXPENSIVE; Going to cost us many volunteers
• Expensive in tickets; Best that could be done would be 40% reach; Kickk has similar stuff now; Group posts are the only thing that don’t have limits
• Reluctant to put resources into doing social media; Has to be measurable; Must know message/goals
• We should declare FB a secret society, and we’ll be fine; Make it harder to go to Flipside; What we want from social media is EDJUMICATION; Put a strategy together
• Not trying to grow brand, but grow culture/volunteer base, and this is how we should use social media; As CC body, need to figure out how we use social media

• 2nd DISCUSSION: Community-Branding vs Whether we care about our brand; Poll—How many ppl believe we have a severe weakness that needs to be addressed in regards to social media? One and a half voted; Flipside the org has a weakness regarding official messaging; Now, four votes!

MOTION: To bring to the attention of social media and communications that cc believes there are weaknesses in strategies; BLOCKED (2x)

• Social media is trying to be improved; Should revisit original social media plan five years ago to meet the needs of 2016; CC suggesting that organization revisiting five-year plan…; Communications—George said, let’s do social media; Time to revisit operationally; We’re allowing them to re-visit their fucking policy

MOTION (Revised): Recommend that the Social Media team review the original Social Media Plan; MOTION PASSES

• 2ND DISCUSSION (again): Burning Flipside Flipizens on Facebook; Question—nature of community-building as it relates to our social media use; Issues—It’s useless, misleading, mean, full of jerks, trolls, problematic assholes; Our community is not that different from other communities; Discuss taking hand in community management
• Scope of community management: Actions that admins on page would do to maintain community space; Scope is within Facebook page; Managing what happens in that sand
• Flipizens are regional Burn that are snarky
• Don’t want org to take responsibility on convos on FB; We would have to police with level of rigor; Can’t have contingency plan for every detailed situation; Must be prepared; Not only Flipside-related group
• How can we form opinion when we need to revisit strategy? Starting point—What do we want to accomplish with social media
• Issues: Misinformation, trolls, lies—don’t care; Biggest concern—When someone misses the point, and we nudge them back in the right direction to the point of where screenshots are reposted after conversation was deleted; If there’s not a certain amount of moderation or self-moderation on part of flipizens, then trolls win empirically; community suffers as result; Spills over into real community as proxy; What do we do? We are nicer at Flipside than we are online;
• Important to not be in role where we are limiting self-expression no matter how unpleasant that may be; What do we need now? We have to let it play out
• Policing the page is difficult
• Question—Are the bastards winning? Are we looking at Flipizens where it’s not good anymore? Are we talking about shitheads taking over? It’s not worse than what it was; Is it causing direct problems? Ppl have left community; Ppl who could’ve been—Majority say it’s not worth trying to look at the Flipizens page; What can we do? Why should we try to fix it? Yes, there are things happening that cause ppl to leave community; General feeling that it is not a positive part of community; There is no fixing that because it’s not meant to be fixed; It was created for a certain reason; Historically set up by a person—Has anyone told him? Because of personalities involved, it’s suggested that he deleted it; Point is, it can be re-done. Mailing lists are mailing lists, and we get to have them
• Discussion over codes of conduct in other web forums

9:59pm OLD BUSINESS

• TOWN HALL DATE
  • Oct. 1 conflict; several CC and AAR members have a conflict on Oct. 1 that would limit or prevent their Town Hall participation that day

MOTION: Move to Sept. 24, as previous discussion has focused the date to one of either Oct 1 or Sept 24, on the (not serious) condition that Kate Ludlow MCs the event; MOTION PASSES

• RESPECT
  • Chat session during burn at Spin Camp; Unofficial Flipside event
  • Open to those who missed last discussion
• SCRIBE NOMINATIONS
  • Need to start scribe nomination process

ACTION ITEM: (Cooper) contact Mer and request to start Scribe nominations process

• PICTURE DATE
  • On Doodle; Patrick has volunteered to take pictures; Taking pics before Flipside means ppl can know who ppl are; Best day thus far is Monday, April 25th, 10pm; 4 ppl who are happy with their picture; Does not cover most of the AFs

• Q&A MIXER
  • May 9th: Get topics; tell community so ppl can show up

ACTION ITEM: (Kat & Beth): Kat will make FB event page and post on website; CC mixer (meeting); 7:42pm; Beth will post event

NEXT MEETING: MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2016

TOPICS: Leave No Trace (LNT), Volunteer panic

FACILITATOR: Cooper

STACK: Breezy

SCRIBE: Chim-Chim

10:24pm MEETING ADJOURNED