After Burn Report- 2016

INVENTORY

Jolena gave Geoff the ice trailer padlock, her EC vest and remaining name tags. Carports are in Rocher’s studio space. Some items are at Geoff’s, Sophia’s and Rocher’s. Gateway will be renting a storage space to consolidate all the items.

AFTERBURN REVIEW (OVERALL)

Great burn overall, everybody did a great job, let’s move on to the departments

AFTERBURN REVIEW (BY DEPT)

– GATE

407 adults and 18 children attended. Overall went great, leads held the line on people arriving with no ticket not entering. Late arrivals policy needs to be better established so that no one has to sit at the gate after it has closed waiting for them. Eber has seen radio left at gate for emergency and late arrivals. Mac noted that ids were being checked well this year, good job.

– GREETER

Although very friendly greeting, education was lacking at Greeters this year. Did do a good job of talking about copperheads and parking. Did good with greeting kids by getting on their level.

– PARKING

Process was good. Buttercup figured out a good flow for getting people in and out, no car accidents, no one run over, no break ins (that weren’t sanctioned). Permits were confusing for car camping versus parking permit, had extras and were able to change on the spot. Car camping was a bit confusing, wanted to make sure if someone car camping turned on their car it didn’t exhaust into a tent. Shuttles needed parking permits to move within the burn. Golf carts weren’t really adequate for running to river due to terrain of road. Would’ve worked in more volunteer spots for 2-3 people per shift besides the leads to fully cover parking people, shuttling people, asking people to move cars. Room for improvement: need more volunteers out at parking spots to control how the parking fills in, or tape off lanes for parking. Lance has mentioned having more space cleared for parking. Buttercup and Kevin plus impromptu volunteers (KJ and Quasar) did a great job with our first year of parking.

– RANGER

Volunteers were an issue all weekend. A lot of volunteers were new to rangering. Our leads were new as well. Rangers were being used for infrastructure assistance which took resources from rangering. Glenn did a great job, but has asked to not be a lead next year. Had a volunteer ranger on their first shift not know the way to escalate an issue when it was needed. Need better education at the start of their shift. Need to more clearly define Ranger’s role, they are not gate or infrastructure. Roving rangers need to be better informed how to delegate an issue to different departments. Possible 3 point solution: better training/recruitment earlier in the year, training at gateway, scale event capacity according to volunteers. It can be intimidating to sign up for a Ranger shift since all Rangers are required to be possible perimeter during Burn. May have separate sign up genius for Perimeter for next year’s burn. Potential look up is to review Burning Man volunteer shifts for perimeter burning only (no other ranger duties).

– MEDIC

Did great job. Connie was great with many dehydration issues and another medical issue that required an ambulance. Another volunteer, Doug, did great supporting the FAST team at perimeter. Appreciated both our medic leads.

– PRINCIPLES

Minor incidents this year, much improved. Looking at expanding department and getting a few select people involved. Had one ejection from the property, went smoothly and was well documented. The Principles office will be posting their report soon. No one showed up to consent workshops. Jessie will be town crier next year to let people know when workshops happen.

– EARTH GUARDIANS

There was no final moop sweep of the land. The lost and found were left at Earth Guardians after the burn. Saw co-lead Bronx (Eddie) walking around picking up moop all weekend. Marcella was lead. Lots of volunteers did moop sweeps during event. Lost and found came home with Kelli.

– INFRASTRUCTURE

Sloan felt it went well but needed better delineation of responsibilities. Ticket sales need to be proportional to volunteer signups. Infrastructure needs to be on site Wednesday morning for carport setups.

– EFFIGY SUPPORT

Eber needs more volunteers for set and Sunday, things went smoothly. Burnt out one strand of rope lights, will need replaced. Have 3 good spools. First year of this department went great. It is really appreciated that FAST gets better support and cleanup of the effigy ashes on Sunday. Volunteer signups need to be routed to Eber next year as Effigy Support lead.

– FAST

Fluffers were great, had 3 at once. Alan felt he under utilized them. Will think how to use them better next year. Once effigy is stripped and handed off to FAST, would be great to have 2 people with him for effigy fueling/prepping for burn. Fuelers were great this year (Colin and KJ), Alan educated them prior to burn to help it flow smoothly. Ignition went quickly and well, drop was very controlled.

– FIRE PROCESSION

Procession went easy, sign up genius was easy, have the volunteers emails for next year. Did not have set place to take fuel after. Will have better established location for next year. Need to establish a fuel dump. Could do more training for safeties, specifically how to extinguish a torch. Should be part of pre-burn meeting, need to do live fire training. Sven is also holding fire workshops for performers and safeties to build a base of trained volunteers. Was very beautiful procession with good flow and timing.

– ART SUPPORT AND SURVEY

11 site projects completed total that were GAS funded. Radio use was good at start of event for Melonie to guide new artists, veteran artists usually have their placement figured out prior to the event. They are working on tweeks for contract and application. The GAS grant signs were excellent. Only one project approved for pre-funding decided not to attend when they found out the new location.

Need to look into tax write offs for people who donate money for art grants.

200+ art surveys completed. Good feedback. One of the hindrances to people bringing art was “Lack of Skills” that a lot of people checked. This could be worked through with the workshops that the community could lead. Reason for the survey was how to get more people bringing art to the burn and submitting for art grants. Percentage of people wanting to bring art to the burn was between 60-70%. Overwhelming majority felt art was important to the burn. Intend to publish survey results. Will try to make gate survey an annual thing with rotating topics. May be able to make part of ticket purchase process online. Will consider whether or not that is ideal for our community.

– ECS

Felt we had a great team especially considering we had to find a new location by April 1! Kelli is planning to EC again next year.

COMMUNITY BUILDING PROJECT

One was awarded to the Spice Pirates.

ICE SALES

Started with $150 petty cash, made $1464.25, needed $1510 to break even for ice trailer and cost of ice, minimal loss of $45.75. Jolena will manage ice sales next year and expand to 2 hours shifts instead.

AREAS TO IMPROVE FOR NEXT YEAR

Most were reviewed with departments.

Town crier could help inform when events are happening, Jessie has stepped up to lead the position. She did a test run at BDR. Need radio so theme camps can communicate when things are happening. Could get more people to volunteer with her.

WORKSHOP OPPORTUNITIES

Definitely want to encourage the community to host workshops. Do not want the community to feel that they need to ask permission from any leadership to do so.

VOLUNTEERS

Possible incentive to volunteer would be volunteer a number of hours guarantees you the option to buy a ticket to the next event.

FB PAGE MANAGEMENT

As of this meeting, Jolena will be stepping down from managing the facebook page and handing the reins to Kelli.

BOARD ELECTION

Board statements of qualifications are due Sunday, will have one week for vetting, after that there will be online voting (leads will vote in person at the meeting), final in person election will be in August at the Community Planning Meeting.

Next meeting 8/10/16 7p-8:30p at 4075a South Grand, St. Louis MO 63118