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Camp Stella Dues 2013

Here’s the dues breakdown for 2013:

$75 – before March 15

$100 – on 3/15

$125 – on 4/15

$150 – on 5/15

$175 – on 6/15

$200 – on 7/15

$250 – on 8/15

Hello from “Sugar Bunny”

Hello all,

Sugarbunny here (aka Matthew).  Wanted to make a brief post to introduce myself and welcome all of those who are interested in camping with Stella this year.  We have had one planning meeting so far (minutes to be posted soon) just to get the ball rolling and will be planning another real soon.  Please feel free contact me or “Alterna-Daddy” (aka Tom) with any questions or comments.

Cannot wait to get back “home”

 

2012 Planning Meeting

Hey everyone,   First off, Matt and I want to say what an honor it is to be asked to cary the torch for Stella this year – we’re very excited about sharing this adventure with all of you. In line with that, we would like to have our first planning meeting for Stella this coming Monday, March 12th, at 7pm at my house. We welcome all who want to lend a hand, all who want to join Stella, and all who are thinking of possible joining Stella – the more the merrier! We’ll be discussing fundraising, what our (the group) vision for Stella is this year, and any other pertinent topics that come up. Hope to see as many of you there as possible! My address is 33 Elgin Park #10 (near Valencia/Duboce,my street runs btwn Duboce and Market). Thanks! Tom

Camp Layout

The Plan

Please keep in mind this is only a plan.  I’ve recently made a few minor tweaks to our design based on updated information on wind and sunrise direction.  The assumption is  that we will be placed on the same side of the street that we are usually on.

I’ve also switched the position of the RVs to account for a schedule change (Peter’s RV is coming up earlier).

Those of us that are arriving early will do our best to make it easy for you to find your spot.

Again, this is only a plan.  Please be willing to be flexible.

First on the Scene: Daddy Don

Daddy Don is already on the playa with a camp that is  20′-23′ feet wide and 30′-35′ feet deep.  His camp starts about 30′ in.

Sunday “Early Arrivals”

• Kevin – You are right on the street, as requested.
• Sean & Mark – Please park the RV about 4′ from our neighbors camp to allow for pedestrian and bicycle access to the interior of our camp.  You should be approximately 12′ from the road.  Assuming that the generator exhaust is released on the driver side, please park with your nose to the street so that exhaust doesn’t fill the Family Tent area.
• Mojo – Your camp should be no closer then 20′ from our neighbors to the side.  And the front of your tent should start around 25′ from our back border.  Until Sprout gets in on Sunday night, please don’t set up your shade structure much more than 4′ in front of your tent.  We can help you move it further forward on Tuesday if you like.
• Kraig – I’m not really sure when you’ll arrive but please set up your tent right behind Daddy Don’s tent along the border of our neighbor to the left.
• Sanddog – Your tent will fit snugly on the left side of Mojo’s tent.
• Camp Stella Truck – 30′ from the road.  Approximately 15′ from our border on the right.
• Jefferson & Emo – Our tent is just behind the Stella Truck.

Sunday Midnight Madness

Within a few hours of midnight we will expect to welcome Alex, Tom, and Matthew.  Look for solar garden lights which will mark your spot.  Mojo will already be set up on your left.  Then from left to right we have Tom, Matthew and Alex.  Alex, Sprout will be your neighbor to the right by the end of today.

Alexis and Tabitha may also be arriving in the first few hours of Monday morning if Tabitha is unable to score an early pass.  Alexis and Tabitha, please look for solar lights to illuminate your spot.  You will be about 30′ back off the road.  Also, keep in mind that a ramp will sometimes extend out of the back of the Camp Stella gear truck.  If you set up as illustrated, you should have protection from morning light.

Monday morning after breakfast, we’ll set up our meeting tent, the Family Tent, our communal kitchen and our privacy shower.

Monday Afternoon – Billy Bob and Crew

Monday afternoon Billy Bob, Charles and Cup Cake will join us.  Billy Bob is bringing the bike racks he made so we’ll set those up after his crew arrives.  This is the largest RV and is positioned here for maximum wind protection of the “Family Tent.”  Billy Bob, please park facing the meeting tent so that your generator exhaust exits on the street side rather than into the family tent area.

Monday Night is Sprout Night!

Sprout, please enter the camp between Kevin’s tent on the far left and our meeting tents.  As you drive into the camp, the meeting tents will be on your right, followed by Alexis and Tabitha’s SUV.  Take a right and drive all the way to the far corner of the camp.  Park your Jeep as shown for morning sun protection or on the right side for wind protection.

We will set up the big evap pond and tandem exhibition shower structure on Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday Night – Peter & Patrick Night

Peter, please enter the camp between Kevin’s tent on the far left and our meeting tents.  As you drive into the camp, the meeting tents will be on your right, followed by Alexis and Tabitha’s SUV.  Take a right after the SUV and park between the long evap pond and Jeferson and Emory’s tent.  This puts you close to your RV and will provide Jefferson and Emo with a little morning sun protection.  Thank you!  And welcome home.

Nice Work 2010 Stella!

Moop impact is measured by the time and effort spent by the crew in a particular location within the Black Rock City grid and is assigned the color code of Green, Yellow, and Red.

In a Red Impact Area the line sweep moves very slow, sometimes to a dead stop.
In a Yellow Impact Area the line sweep moves moderate stop and go pace.
Green Impact Area, the line moves fairly quickly. Moop is often still found, but not enough to break our stride.

The speed and progression of the Line is monitored by the Line Bosses and recorded by the Moop Scribes using GPS technology, computer tablets, and photos.  The data is compiled and translated into the Moop Map on a daily basis.

Playa Restoration’s primary goal is to Leave No Trace to the best of our ability and passing the BLM Site Inspection of Black Rock City within the 1-month deadline after the event’s end.

Camp Stella’s 2010 score: 100% Green

And the winner is…

The lucky winner of the Ride of Passage is Camp Stella’s own Sean Davison.

We sold a total of 300 tickets from 11 states, Canada and the UK.  Total revenue generated was $1,250.  This will go towards renting our camp truck, paying for our year-round storage facility, and camp infrastructure.  Thank you to everyone who bought tickets.

Seans victory is bitter sweet.  We’re crestfallen that you didn’t win.  We were rooting for you all along.  But we’re also very pleased that the bike went to a virgin burner who has been a stellar team player.  Sean has been very active with the camp ferreting out supplies, pitching in where ever he can.  He has already been a great example of many of the Burning Man principles including: Gifting, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, and Participation.

Sean increased his odds buy buying 15 tickets.

The drawing was held on Friday, July 29th with Sanddog, Jefferson and Tom witnessing.  We used randompicker.com to select the winner.

Special thanks goes out to Mojo for promoting the event, Sanddog for doing the administrative work, and to Ube Urban who gave us a killer deal on the custom paint.  Enjoy the ride Sean!

Work Day

 

 

 

On Sunday, July 31st, Todd, Mojo, Sean, Mark, Peter, Patrick and Sprout spent 3 hours at our storage facility in Potrero Hill to take an inventory of our supplies and practice setting up our tents and shower structures.

We will be putting these two 10′ X 20′ tents together to create a 20′ X 20′ meeting space and Quinceanera ballroom.  We labeled poles and drew diagrams to make on-playa assembly fast and easy.

We tweaked our shower structures and measured how big our evap pond tarps need to be.

• Privacy Shower:  11′ X 11′ tarp
• Tandem Exhibition Shower 10′ (or more) X 20′ (or less)

Next steps:

1. Jefferson will be taking the canvas shower curtain to the tailor to have a snap repaired.  He’s going to repair our glowing sign.  And he’s going to have two new reinforcement braces made for the Tandem Exhibition shower.
2. Sean and Patrick are going to replace all of the rechargeable batteries (save the receipt guys) in our solar powered garden lights which will be placed around our camp.
3. Mojo is having a replacement pole cut for the the missing pole in one of our tents (pictured above).  He also got pliable wire to secure the tan tent.
4. Sprout is going to look for a new and improved platform that we can stand on in the shower.

A few of us will meet at the storage facility one last time so to drop off:

Solar lights, Bike of the Playa, repaired sign, repaired shower curtain, shower braces, new barrel beverage cooler.

If anyone has a few bricks, I think we could use ’em.  And we could always use some new carpets.  If you have a table to that we can share, please bring it.  No need to bring chairs.  We have tons of chairs.  And tennis balls are great for putting over rebar.  We can never have too many of those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home: Engagement near 7:30

Home sweet home.  Engagement near 7:30.

This will mark the 5th year that Camp Stella is located just off of 7:30.  The closest we’ve ever been to the Esplanade is B.  Last year we were at D.  So this year we are one block further in.

We never know our exact location until we arrive on the Playa.  All we know for sure is that we are on not on the corner and that our street frontage is on Engagement near 7:30.  We will be located somewhere in one of the pink boxes indicated on the map above.

We were giving our usual 1,000 square feet (100′ street frontage X 100′ deep).  If we hit our capacity of 30 members, we will be camp Tetris.  If we don’t grow any larger than we are right now, we’ll be Camp Cozy.

Also sharing a 7:30 and Engagement address are:

• Camp Beaverton
• Celestial Bodies (Event though this is a bar, these guys are really supportive of us and always have non-alcoholic beverages hand for Stellites)
• Paradise Motel

Nearby at 7:30 and D is Retrofrolic.

Mudskippers Cafe (formerly Unchartered Terretories) and Comfort & Joy are just a few blocks away at 7:00.

This location should put us close to Porta-a-potties and pretty close to Artica (for ice).

Last Chance to get your tickets to Ride

Camp Stella will personally deliver this magical Playa Bike to one lucky Burner – on the playa!

Celebrated San Francisco artist Ube Urban was commissioned to paint this delux comfort cruiser. This masterpiece includes a subtle swirl of sparkling sea foam and desert sky blue dusted with glittering gold. Hand lettered details tie into the candy red rims and grips.

Other accessories include a bell, a removable basket (big enough for two bags of ice), a deluxe kickstand, and LED light tubes.

The “Ride of Passage” Giftee will be contacted on Thursday, July 28th. Good luck!

Make a donation of $10 to Camp Stella for two virtual tickets. 5 for $20.

http://stella.storenvy.com/collections/27660-all-products

Gate Expectations

Photo used without permission.

Here’s a link to some important tips on what to expect at the Gate when arriving at Black Rock City and how to make the process go as smoothly as possible for you – now with interactive FAQ and a diagram illustrating Exodus “pulsing”

http://gate.burningman.com/faq-gate

Camp Stella Packing List

Jefferson packing the Camp Stella Cargo Van in 2007.

By popular demand, here are the famous Camp Stella packing lists.

Simple_List

Full_List

Day_Bag

Clicking on each link will take you to a new post that will allow you to download the file.

July Planning Meeting

July 6, 2011 7:00-8:00 PM

Attended by:   Jefferson, Peter, Sean, Peter2, Mark, Patrick, Todd, Emo, Kevin, Matthew, Sprout, Mojo.

Dues Paid members:  15  (with an additional 6 verbal commitments).

FINANCES

Current balance: $1,600

Rummage sale brought in $154.

Ride of Passage:  Our ride of passage fundraiser has brought in $670 to date.  Our target was $2,000.

• Mojo is in the process of sending emails to every single theme camp.
• Sprout, Mojo and Matt will try taking the bike out to the corner of 18th and Castro to pedals some tickets next Saturday the 16th.
• Somebody volunteered to post the an ad on Craigslist.  Who was that?  Sean? Patrick?  Mojo?

UPLOAD

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

Todd will need 4 hands to help with Upload.  This is a busy time for everybody so anybody that can volunteer will be really appreciated.  We will meet at our storage facility to load up our Stella truck.

PLAIN ORDINARY WHOOPIE PARTY

Emo gave us an update on his plans for the Plain Ordinary Whoopie Party.

• We need a thrift store battery operated boom box to play music.  Pretty sure Sean volunteered to look out for this.  Emo has sourced traditional Quincenerra music.
• We’ll be making a balloon arch to walk through (backwards?).
• Each member of Stella is asked to bring a case of beverages for the party.  Party goers consumed 200 Red Bulls at last year’s POWP.
• Emo will be seeking volunteers to bring chips, salsa, guacamole (Kevin), and cookies.
• Emo is looking into sourcing a powdered Agua Fresco drink mix.
• He will be printing traditional Quincenerras invitations.
• Members of Stella are asked to consider wearing a costume (frilly ruffly dress or cheesy tuxedos were two suggestions).

Emory will start preparations on Thursday morning.  Then, directly following the 3:00 AA meeting, members of Stella are invited to lend a hand in setting up, decorating and preparing for the party.  As a group, we’ll head out to the Billion Bunny March and return to host the party which starts officially at 8:00 PM.

MEETING BEVERAGE COORDINATOR

This is the person that ensures that we have cold beverages available at each meeting.  This involves a couple of ice runs throughout the week, adding drink mix to ice water.  Peter volunteered for this position.  Thanks Peter!  Stella will reimburse you for ice.

Mojo has signed up to buy a replacement cooler for the one that busted.  We will have two coolers for meeting beverages.  Thanks Mojo!

WORK DAY

Sunday, July 31, 1:00 PM.  Meet at the parking lot of our storage facility.

We will do a dry run setting up our meeting tents.  We know that we have one missing pole so we are planning to take a similar pole to a hardware store to find a match that we can use in it’s place.

This will also be a time for us to take one last inventory, set up our shower structures and measure the area needed for our evap pond tarps.

On Saturday Sean has volunteered to take the solar power garden lights and replace the batteries.  He will pick up the lights at Work Day and take them home to do the replacement.  Sean, please buy the rechargeable batteries that you need and seek reimbursement from Todd.

Jefferson volunteered to take home the Camp Stella sign and repair it.

FAMILY DINNER

We will need a volunteer to coordinate Family Dinner.  More on this later…

BEAUTIFICATION DIRECTOR

Every camp is required to have one person responsible for MOOP (trash) management.  At Stella, we each do our best to be responsible for our own trash.  However, we all sometimes need gentle and loving reminders to keep up the good work.  When trash starts to become a problem, we may need a tough love reminder, as a group.  On Sunday, the Beautification Director ensures that we scour our camp area in a grid formation.  We are responsible for cleaning up our own trash and for the trash that blows into our camp.  And as a reminder, each member of Black Rock City is asked by the Borg to plan to spend at least one hour cleaning up the city, outside of our camp.

We will be looking for a volunteer who can be gentle and tender but will dish it out when necessary.   In rare cases,  diplomatic skills have come in handy with our neighbors.  We will have a good sized camp this year so this role is important.

CAMP LAYOUT

Group concience was that we develop a layout prior to heading out to the Playa.  We will count on Daddy Don to arrive on the scene first to anchor and protect our space until the first vehicles arrive to protect our borders.  We will try to shelter the “Family Tent” with RVs and our truck – but in a way that we can enjoy watching the parade of Burners strut down the street.  We have decided to put both meeting tents together to create a 20X20 meeting tent space.

We have plenty of chairs but are requesting that members bring tables.

Jefferson will be issuing a footprint role call once our space has been assigned.  At that time, please forward special requests.

First Planning Meeting Minutes

Camp Stella is getting an early start this year with an unprecedented January planning meeting.  On Wednesday, 1/26/11 six of us met at the home of Sanddog.

• Jefferson
• Emo
• Jamie (Sprout)
• John (Mojo)
• Todd (Sanddog)
• Will

The main topic of this meeting was MONEY.

WHERE WE’RE AT

• Current balance:  $0.00.
• Treasurer:  Position open
• Sprout (and soon Todd) has been gifting storage space to Camp Stella for months.

OUR ASPIRATIONS

We are hoping to raise money quickly so that the Camp can take over financial responsibility of the storage facility.

In fact, we have set a goal to raise enough money to pay for the storage facility from now through Burning Man and through, at least, the spring of next year.  Our “reach goal” is to raise enough to pay for storage through the following Burning Man.

We are also planning to have around $1,500 in transportation expenses.  So considering expected miscellaneous expenses, our first pass at a budget is $5,000.00 + storage for September through next spring.

DUES

We determined the following dues structure:

• $75 from now until the Ides of March
• $100 on March 15th
• $125 on April 15th
• $150 on May 15th
• $175 on June 15th
• $200 on July 15th

FUNDRAISING IDEAS

One of the most feasible and exciting ideas that came out of the meeting was the concept of developing…

The Ultimate Burning Man Bike online raffle.

Here’s how it would work:  We would obtain a bike to be elaborately decorated.  It would essentially be a Burning Man dream bike appointed with lights, bells, maybe a basket, and decorated lavishly.  The winner will claim the bike on the playa at Camp Stella.

Raffel tickets would be sold to Burners around the world online 24/hours a day.  We are thinking that this may be an attractive raffle for Burners traveling from afar.

We also talked about developing other items to sell online.  Some of the items we discussed included a Survival Kit, stickers, and magnets, among others.

Also being planned is a rummage sale (perhaps at the Castro Country Club) and a fundraising event such as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style movie night with celebrity drag queens adding commentary throughout the movie.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The next meeting will be Thursday, February 17th.  We’ll continue the discussion about fundraising and begin a dialog about outreach.

First Planning Meeting of the Year!

Please join us at our 1st Planning Meeting of the year.

We’ll recap last year and begin organizing another brilliant year for Stella.

7:30 – 8:30 PM
Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Sanddog’s House
560 Castro St. Apt. No. 4
San Francisco, California

Everyone is welcome.

Detroit Rock City

This is Sprout (aka Jamie) – the pack leader this year. Now is the time to voice your interest in becoming a member of Camp Stella for this year’s Burn!

We have a yahoo group which is the primary place where all of the planning action and group decisions go down.

I’ve experienced the Burn with Camp Stella in 2006, 2007 and 2009 and have loved it each time. Home basing at the clean and sober camp gives me roots and a sense of security, I guess, so I am free to roam wherever, whenever and always have a blast! Its a home I always want to go to.

We have open daily AA meetings Tuesday through Saturday at 3:00 PM.

We received the same rockin’ placement as last year – 7:30 and D(etroit), with 100 x 100 space. Look for the pink triangle on the map below.

Camp Stella Placement

Click on the map to go to get to more info about the city layout at the Burning Man website.

Even if you don’t plan to camp with Stella, we welcome you contributions. You can join our Yahoo! Group or email Sprout at jamie_gallagher (at) att.net.