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.