Overview
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Timeline Between Now and Burningman
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Status Reports on Various Areas:
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Camping Policy
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Encourage themed activities
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Invite people known to us
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Limit the number we're providing central food &
water for
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Next Beach Burn
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Decision Making
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Tracey has been chosen as the camp coordinator.
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Encourage committee work for infrastructure tasks.
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Adopt discuss-then-vote style for things that need
public approval.
We are both far ahead of the game, and amazingly near to
the event itself. Here is a list of dates that we need to plan
against:
| 6/23 |
T-shirt order submitted (for special shirts) |
| 6/23 |
Pyramid Sides ordered |
| 6/30 |
Perimeter Markings ordered |
| 7/7 |
Temporary Tattoos ordered |
| 7/7 |
Bus Tent Camo Netting ordered |
| 7/21 |
Lab Coats ordered |
| 7/21 |
Stickers ordered |
| 8/16 |
All cargo packed, inventoried, ready for loading |
| 8/18 |
Load cargo onto semi trailer |
| 8/22-23 |
Crack team leaves for the Playa |
| 8/24-25 |
Semi trailer arrives in Gerlach |
| 8/26 |
Most of the flock leaves for the Playa |
| 8/27 |
Most of the flock arrives |
| 9/4 |
Cleanup complete. Most of the flock departs |
| 9/5 |
Trailer picked up, trailer team departs |
People Transport | Cargo Transport |
Power |
Inventory & Storage | Pyramid | Yoga Tent |
Bus Tent | Shower |
Comfort | Construction Plan | Communication |
Bus | Camp Population
| Food | Water | Dishes |
Trash | Camp Layout | Art
& Decorations | Props
| Lighting | EL Wire |
Music | Video | Helix |
T-shirts | Lab Coats
| Drug Testing | First Aid
Status: People Transport
Owner: Heather
Most recent estimate is 30-40 people interested in mass transit.
The bus can take 16 at most. Heather is investigating chartering a
greyhound or the Green Tortoise. Will investigate other means if that
doesn't pan out.
Dave L will continue to provide the list of people who need transport,
and will coordinate folks looking for rides, carpools, and convoy with each
other.
Status: Cargo Transport
Owner: Mark, Steph
We have the option of sending down a 44' semi trailer with our
stuff. The trailer would leave Seattle on Friday the 18th (2 weeks
before the burn), arrive in Gerlach on Thursday the 24th or Friday the 25th
(1 week before the burn), and be picked up again on Tuesday September 5th (3
days after the burn).
We would guide the truck from Gerlach to our camp and vice versa.
We may need a ticket for the truck driver, or we may rely on Mark's Blue-Dot
Ranger status to get in/out of the event.
Cost is $3400. Steph is continuing to call about better deals.
Last year, rental of a 24' truck + gas came to ~$1200. This year we
would need 2 such vehicles to haul our stuff, or the semi.
Issues:
- We cannot transport flammables or explosives in the semi, so we will
still need another vehicle of some sort.
- We cannot move the trailer once it's in place, so placement is key.
- The company logo on the side will need to be defaced.
- There is no powered lift on the end of the trailer. How do we
load and unload cargo?
Proposals:
- Pick up a small truck in Reno to use for hauling fuel, running pick-up
trips, etc..
- If gear does not fit in the semi, we will just go ahead and rent an
additional cargo truck on short notice.
Owner: Mark, Mez
Current plan is to rent a 25KW diesel generator and tow it to the
event. Likely we will rent it in Reno and tow it behind the vehicle we
pick up there for fuel and light cargo transport.
Cost: Unknown
Sound Issues: Most likely we will build baffles. There is
some chance that we will rent a filmsite generator which is super-quite.
Mez is consolidating total power needs as part of stuff planning.
Leo and Mark already know of 8KW of need.
Owner: Brenda, Ethan, Nancy, Kat, Mez
Inventory System has both a high-tech
catalog and a low-tech
labeling system.
Inventory is currently blocked behind container acquisition (ethan) and
stuff planning (mez). Ethan will order containers in the next 2
days.
Owner: Leo, Mark, Kirby, Mez, Eric, Stuart, Euphoria, Jane,
Ryan, Dave, Mason
We did a quick poll to find out people's degree of enthusiasm for the
Pyramid. Many people expressed enthusiasm and no one objected to the
pyramid's existence.
Specific Concerns:
- Cost - as the plan comes together we will total the bill and
report.
- Technical Feasibility -
- We have a plan underway currently which we believe is roughly
feasible.
- We will be using motorized winches, high-load cargo straps,
motorized augurs, metal wire, anemometers, possibly surveying gear,
and either parachute silk or sail canvas to erect the pyramid.
- Leo owns posting a more detailed plan to get feedback on.
- Human Resource Allocation - Erecting and decorating the pyramid
will be a major undertaking. We need commitment from people to
pitch in to make this successful.
- Space Utilization - Exactly how we use the space is TBD,
however, the following are current thoughts:
- A DJ'ed dance space.
- Projecting light and video onto the sides. (Note that the
projectors are currently planned to be used in Comfort)
- Various art projects: mannequins, giant Rorschach tests,
transhuman tech gallery, etc..
- Overflow from comfort.
- Opening it up to proposals from other camps.
- The space was dead anyway! Now at least it's shady and
attractive.
- Dry Run - There was widespread agreement that we need a dry run
of erecting the pyramid before we try it out at Burning Man. Leo
will drive.
Status: Yoga Tent
Owner: Bev, Nancy, Lena, Euphoria, Heidi
The Yoga Tent has been named the Chi Spot.
Carpet has been procured. Yoga mats are on order. Nancy is
driving blocks. Fabric for making Yoga pillows has also been
procured. Heidi is making the main sign for the tent. Bev
will acquire the Costco tents for the structure.
Signs listing what is and is not appropriate in the Yoga Tent will
be created.
Euphoria is driving creation of an Altar for worship in the tent.
Owner: Stuart, Leo, Kirby, Lena, Mez
Still need to buy materials.
Question: Build the tent off of the bus, or off of the semi
trailer? Stuart to decide.
Question: Use solid material or use camo netting?
Stuart to decide.
Stuart will work with Lena to factor Bust Tent into overall layout
planning and decide on using the semi trailer vs. the bus.
Owner: Mez, Heather, Molly, Euphoria, Monica, Sev, Dave, Tracey
Showering Policy:
- The shower structure will be in a fairly private part of our camp.
- Usage will be for any mezbian and by invitation to people we meet.
- We will not put any "keep out" or other restrictive
signs on the shower.
Implementation:
- Mez will drive as part of overall construction planning.
- Will probably use fallow tent parts, as per last year.
- Will have a floor.
- May have a propane water heater courtesy of Steph.
Owner: Mez
Tent Sides:
- Mez will purchase commercial sides for comfort in the next two weeks.
- Art Committee owns decorating the sides.
Owner: Mez, Kirby, Dave, Tracey, Leo, Mark
Mez owns producing a Construction Plan that will specify:
- Instructions for building all structures.
- Order in which to do thinks.
- Reminders of important steps.
- Instructions for furnishing structures.
The overall plan is to allow parallel construction of as many
structures as possible. Each crew of people will have a foreperson
who has experience building that structure, and the instructions on how to
build the structure.
Everyone is assumed to be grunt labor!
- Mez will also call out a list of "Non Heavy" tasks for those
who grunt less.
Owner: Brenda
Brenda has received the FRS radio which is hopefully hackable to talk
GMRS. She will be contacting the person who knows the appropriate
hack. In the next two weeks we will know whether or not it's feasible
to move the church to GMRS while sticking with relatively cheap radios.
There has also been discussion of getting someone in Seattle to
administer the Ham operator test. Brenda will work on this
after other projects.
Status: Bus
Owner: Brenda, Leo
Bus painting is almost done! Remaining work:
- The front and back sections of the bus need to be redone due to use of
a water-based primer on steel.
- We may still do a silver wash over the existing paint.
Leo showed samples of silver wash. Group consensus was that the
lightest wash looked best, and that the paint looked great (maybe better)
with no wash at all.
Question:
- Should we repaint the bus bumpers?
- Are we doing any additional work on the bus this summer?
Owner: Dave L
Current Population:
- We have requests from up to 85 people to camp with us.
- 48 of those are pretty firm.
Dave Owns:
- Tracking need for transport, food, and water for all potential
attendees.
- Coordinating folks not getting these resources from us, but from other
campers. (e.g., hooking people with rides up with people who have
space.)
- Publishing this list to everyone who needs it.
Current Policy:
- Camping with MezLabs is by invitation only.
- We encourage inviting people who current members know and vouch for.
- We encourage running potential invitees by meta-committee before doing
so.
- For strangers, we encourage them to come to our events and get to know
us before considering an invitation.
- For significant sized groups (more than a few people) we recommend
that the group do some themed activity, whether or not they camp on our
space.
- We do not want our space to be a camping suburb. We are aiming
for a high degree of interactivity.
Village:
- We are treating the possibility of being a village as an
implementation detail.
- Alternatives include simply requesting more space and allowing
sub-camps to exist there.
Owner: Heather, Tiberio, Mason
Current Status:
- Basic idea is a hot dinner every day, with food available for
individuals to use in making breakfast and lunch.
- Real planning will not start for a month.
- Heather would like to feed no more than 30 people from the communal
kitchen.
- Sadly, we may already have more than this number who expect to be fed
from the communal kitchen.
Owner: Nancy, Mason
Current Status:
- We are leaning towards hauling water down rather than having water
delivered.
- Nancy and Mason are still investigating various options.
- Eric and Mark both have input on water availability in Reno and will
get in touch with Nancy and Mason.
Owner: Euphoria
Current Status:
- Euphoria will own acquisition of silverware as well.
- Will get numbers on how many to prepare for from Dave and Heather.
Owner: Brenda, Mark, Leo
Current Status:
- Trash bin creation requires welding.
- Mark and Leo will buy welder this week.
Status: Camp Layout
Owner: Lena, Euphoria
Current Status:
- Lena will solicit requirements from folks on meta-committee.
- She will then present various options to us in the next few weeks.
- We will probably need contingency plans based on where we end up and
who is camping near us.
- Need to be especially careful with the semi trailer, as it cannot be
moved after placement.
- Layout will be a major topic of the next major meeting.
Status: Art & Decoration
Owner: Lena
Current Status:
- Signs from last year are being updated to say
"MezLabs".
- Need a new snappy slogan for the bottom.
- People should email Lena with additional sign requirements.
- Plan is to build a giant arch in three sections as the camp
entrance.
New Committee!
Owner: Mez, Ian, Mason, Lena, Euphoria, Heather, Mark, Jane,
Laura, Bev, Kirby, Stuart, Tracey
Current Status:
- The props committee will own creating some funky shit to make our camp
cool, yo.
Owner: Heather, Lena, Leo, Mason, Jane, Mark, Mez
Perimeter Markings and Paths:
We are evaluating a few options:
- LEDs on poles
- Optical Fiber (looking pretty pricey)
- EL Wire (about $1/ foot)
- Rope Light (about $.40/foot) We believe rope light can be
dipped in lighting gel to make colors.
- Christmas Lights (about $.20/foot)
Other Lighting:
- Does this committee own other lighting issues?
- Need to understand how we light Comfort and the Pyramid.
- Current thoughts: Project bright colored lights from the inside
of the pyramid. Change colors nightly.
Status: EL Wire
Owner: Mason
Current Status:
- 2000' of EL Wire is currently en route to us. About 1000'
is currently allocated to Art Committee projects.
- We have drivers but no sequencers.
- Our EL Wire contact is looking into sequencers. If we find any,
we'll buy them.
Owner: Ethan, Rob, Kirby, Mez, Leo, Donna, Mason
Current Status:
- We will be able to project VHS, DVD, or computer video.
- Z is still looking at what projector to buy.
- Would be nice to be able to project onto pyramid sides as well.
Owner: Rob
No status this week.
Many DJs have expressed interest in spinning at our place and possibly
camping with us.
Owner: Mark
Current Status:
- The DNA Double Helix Jacob's Ladder is under way.
- Current plan calls for putting it atop the tower.
- Safety is a major concern.
Safety:
- There will be many signs discouraging people from approaching the
buglight, er, Jacob's Ladder.
- There will be active countermeasures deployed at various points along
the tower.
- We will ensure that the Jacob's Ladder does not send a lethal shock
down the body of the scaffolding.
Owner: Lena, Nancy, Mez
Current Status:
- Special orders for t-shirts need to be made within a week!
- Lena will come up with ideas, have a short open comment period, and
then make the call or hold a vote.
- Our t-shirt provider is JM Productions. Mez will get contact
info to Lena.
- T-shirts may have something funky on the front and mezlabsred2 on the
back.
- Mez will drive ordering more Divine Being t-shirts.
- Exact numbers of t-shirts are unknown.
Status: Lab Coats
Owner: Tracey
Current Status:
- Lab coat orders will go in soon.
- Logo will be mezlabsred2.
- Custom embroidery is available for all who answer Lena's mail.
- We are also purchasing a few spare lab coats with logo but no custom
embroidery.
- We are also purchasing 10 hospital gowns.
Status: Drug Testing
Owner: Tracey, Mez
Current Status:
- We will be providing MDMA testing in conjunction with some members of
DanceSafe (Tracy and NaFun).
- We will be providing drug safety literature, hopefully in the form of
giant blown up signs.
- We will be providing pictures of DanceSafe tested "E" for
people to puruse.
- Mez brought back testing kits for other substances from
Amsterdam. We will evaluate.
- We need to find out how testing kits are affected by heat.
Owner: Laura, Mark, Sev
Current Status:
- Laura is now in charge (Avi cannot make it to BM this year).
Current Policy:
- Camping with MezLabs is by invitation only.
- We encourage inviting people who current members know and vouch for.
- We encourage running potential invitees by meta-committee before doing
so.
- For strangers, we encourage them to come to our events and get to know
us before considering an invitation.
- For significant sized groups (more than a few people) we recommend
that the group do some themed activity, whether or not they camp on our
space.
- We do not want our space to be a camping suburb. We are aiming
for a high degree of interactivity.
Next Beach Burn
Proposal:
- The next Burn will be on SeaFair weekend (we believe this is August
5th).
- It will be held at Golden Gardens.
Alternatives:
- Anyone with an alternate suggestion has until 5/28 to make it, and
provide specifics on location, distance, how late we can stay there,
etc...
Tracey is now the Camp Coordinator. Her responsibilities
are:
- Understand, manage, and communicate the schedule from now to Burning
Man.
- Keep people informed of their deadlines.
- Help people get things done by deadline by finding them other
resources.
- Ensure that information is communicated to people who need it.
- Ensure that dependencies between projects are understood and are
fulfilled.
- Spot and point out redundancies.
- Know who is responsible for what, and direct queries to the right
places.
- Relieve stress.
- Punish evildoers, in a non-stressful way. :)
Committees, Sub-committees, and Voting
We discussed this for a while. Our conclusions were:
- Infrastructure work can largely be dealt with by subcommittees.
- Issues with large theme or personal impact should be run by
meta-committee as a whole.
- We like the discuss-then-vote model. Specifically this
would mean:
- A person or committee raises an issue.
- That person or committee may set a time limit for discussion from
the get go.
- They may also suggest several alternatives.
- People discuss and make alternate suggestions until the time
limit.
- Then, if necessary, an online vote is held to choose among the
alternatives.
- Alternately, the proposer may choose to take the feedback and come
back later with alternate proposals.
- Committees need to:
- Give regular updates on their status to
meta-committee. We will use the regular meeting as a forcing
function for this.
- Include those who ask to be included on the committee and
in relevant discussion.
Next Meeting
- Our Next Meeting is in 3 weeks!
- We will specifically take time out to discuss camp layout.
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