Month: March 2012

Burning Man Leadership Summit

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Today in the JRS they announced that Burning Man was holding their annual Regional Contact meeting and Leadership Summit here in San Francisco. Your own ‘Toaster’ is attending and wants to know if you feel anything is relevant that needs attention from our community?

March 31st – April 2nd

You already have geographical regionals who are your points of contact with the Burning Man organization. But are there issues specific to the Queer Burner Community (LGBT+) that need to be addressed.

This question was asked at the Queer Burner Leadership Summit last week as to why the queer community would need any ‘special’ representation. The overwhelming response by all was safety. See the report on the QBLS for details.

We have the fortune of having a placement department that seems aware of this and is watching out for self-identified queer camps by grouping us in the Gayborhood.With the influx of new people do we need more protection? Who will represent that to BMHQ?

Regional Contacts & Burning Man

What is a Regional Contact? They are whose role is to help local Burners connect with each other, while bringing Burning Man principles and culture into their local communities [source]. 99% of them are based on geography while there is actually 1 inside a role playing game called 2nd Life.

At last week’s meeting many of the people in attendance had no idea about this facet of Burning Man; nor did they know about the Meta-Regionals. While Regional Contacts tie the communities to the Burning Man experience the Meta-Regionals in some way tie the R.C.’s together and to Burning Man.

Confused yet? San Francisco Burners might be confused because technically it is not clear of there is an R.C. for this area; though it seems like Jonsey Jones is the closes because he manages the San Francisco announce list.

Queer Regional(s)?

Each geographical region has on average 3 representatives, with many exceptions for remote groups, and one has 5!  When asked about getting a queer R.C. last year the feedback was cold.

For the Jiffy Lube incident a few years back one might have been helpful.

For the influx of new blood having queer men and women and other on this list should certainly be a plus.

It’s time for your thoughts.

QBLS MISSION

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March 16th/2012 marks the 1st day of a weekend long series where camp leaders, community leaders and people of action in the Queer Burner community are being asked too come together to learn from each other and share their knowledge. We plan on a whole day of interactive discussion groups through the day on the 17th.

To rally our culture inside a community inside a city of like minded (BRC) to strengthen our participation by uniting and overcoming challenges that might come our way. Uniting Queer Burners for their creative and proactive efforts in the BRC and beyond the trash fence.

While so many have stepped up and are making the long and short journey to be a part of the event some see limits instead of opportunity. It is with a lot of hope and optimism that some of these efforts will draw more people in to strengthen our mission and the people who are of the Queer Burner community.

Just because you are not going to Burning Man this year does not exclude you from the community as a participant. Being a Burner is more than a 8 day journey in the desert. And… if that all it is to you then none of this probably matters anyway.

The goal here is to build. Out of the ashes from Burning Man’s ticket fiasco we are working in creating some mechanism to sustain US. Adopting the 10 principles in our daily lives is one thing, applying them in it another, but uniting like minded people who are endeavoring to build on community is the real means.