2006 AFTERBURN REPORT (Part One): PRAISE 

The phrase voiced most often by the AfterBurn Report Committee was "BEST YEAR YET" about our facilities/infrastructure/amenities, and supported, overwhelmingly, by positive feedback from many Campmates, especially our Newbies.

ABR Committee Members:  HAGEY      TRIBUNAL
                                           IRISH         TRIBUNAL
                                           KIWI          TRIBUNAL
                                           Paula         Local BRIBH
                                           Xray           Local BRIBH

PLUS: VeryBadSanta, Fish, Brad, Insane Mike, and Jason the BusDriver.  Many other Campmates were consulted for their opinions and suggestions, also.
                                      
CAMP MEMBERSHIP  Great group of people, many countries represented, very little drama or conflict, diverse, friendly, our largest camp yet: at least 132 people, represented by 18 countries and 10 states.

HOSTEL AS STAGING AREA (BEST YET) No problems with neighbors, good traffic/parking control, overcrowding much less than before, great meals.  Eliminating the Rideshare Project made a big difference in easing overcrowding, as well as many Campmates getting offsite lodging.

TRANSPORT LOGISTICS (BEST YET) Everything got out there (and back) easier than ever before.  Adding the U-Haul moving van to our fleet was a Godsend. and staging the U-Haul and other haulers from the Gerlach Work Ranch worked well to ease chaos and congestion in Sparks.

SHADE STRUCTURE (BEST YET) Subject of the most praise. Rad looking, unique, inviting, stripper pole was a cool idea, observation deck was WAY cool, pretty, flags, music, intimate, carpet, couches.

ORGANIZATION (BEST YET)  Hats off to Irish and Kiwi. Having a volunteer coordinator was a great idea, too.

WEBSITE/BBS (BEST YET)

KITCHEN (BEST YET)  Plenty of cookware and utensils, sufficient cooking surfaces, having a sheltered dining room with tables and chairs was a terrific addition to our facilities and made it a lot easier to keep clean, sink made washing dishes a lot easier.

SHOWER (BEST YET)  Great design for evaporation and some privacy, less grey-water than ever before.

BIKES (BEST YET)  Larger inventory than ever before and fewest number of breakdowns ever.

CAMP BAR  Good concept (but the 2nd highest source of complaints).

CAMP SET-UP and LAYOUT (BEST YET)  Plenty of space for everything, looked inviting from the street, circular solar lights, cool banner at entrance.

GARBAGE AND RECYCLING (BEST YET) 

ROVING MUTANT PARTY WAGON  Totally awesome thing to have for our people on Sunday night, hats of to "Painless", the guy who hooked us up.

CAMP TEAR-DOWN and CLEANUP  Moop Report Good

COST  $50 was a bargain!

MISCELLANEOUS  Camp Group Photo a great idea.

SPECIAL THANKS TO IRISH, who came all the way from Ireland, way early (June 8th), and worked his ass off to make the BRIBH a success!

                                 ***AND***

SPECIAL THANKS TO KIWI, who came all the way from New Zealand, way early (June 15th), and worked his ass off to make the BRIBH a success!

Without their tireless efforts, enthusiasm, and devotion to "The Cause", and their willingness to sacrifice significant INCOME from being unemployed for such an extended period of time, it could not have been a Banner Year for the BRIBH!

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               AFTERBURN REPORT: PROBLEMS

There's still LOTS of room for improvement and lots of "tweaking" to do to get things perfect. We're not "World-Class" yet.  The biggest bitch was that 10% of the people do 90% of the work.  Hagey and Irish and Kiwi still have too much on their plates to handle and need more support.

CAMP MEMBERSHIP  A few people were sources of complaints about offending others, or failing to do their fair share of chores, or causing frictions within camp by inviting the wrong people into our camp.

HOSTEL AS STAGING AREA  Still too much chaos here.  Too many people sleeping here, partying late. 10% of the people doing 90% of the work, while the others sleep until noon.

TRANSPORT LOGISTICS  We got everything out and back, but just barely.  Trailers and U-Haul van were packed to the max.  Last-minute mechanical/electrical repairs was irritating.  Finding enough tow vehicles was a problem. Bikes are the biggest pain in the ass in every way.

SHADE STRUCTURE  People sleeping on couches, messy, no garbage cans within, need better lighting at night, music was often too loud or inappropriate

ORGANIZATION  10% of the people do 90% of the work.  Not enough clear-cut delegating of roles and chores.  Too much micro-management by Hagey.  Saturday and Sunday arrivals in camp taking off right away, without pitching in to help with set-up.  No clear-cut policies for what Campmates should to do upon arrival to camp, no clear-cut policy for Drop-In Campmates.  Tremendous stress and exhaustion upon a few key people.  We need MORE Advance Worker Bees who can be here by the middle of August to take a load off The Tribunal.

WEBSITE/BBS  No problems with the website itself, but the BBS has problems.  Spammers. Registration Confusion. Registration and Introduction Directions not followed precisely. People failing to monitor BBS for Updates. Last-minute PANIC trying to get enough information from everyone to meet a crucial deadline for getting people on the Friday Crew and Early-Entry lists.
     
KITCHEN  Sink was located in direct sun and got too hot, needs a faucet, too dark at night.  Not enough help keeping it clean and tidy.  Still a bit too much dust penetration into dining room and cooking area.  Constantly running out of ice.  Not enough garbage cans/liners.  No lights inside trailer.  Sink waste-water system needs improvement.

SHOWER  Location was poor. Too little breeze and sunshine to accelerate evaporation.  Too much greywater still.  No seating or place to hang clothes. Dirty.

BIKES  Nobody making repairs.  Reloading bikes in an organized fashion for Camp Tear-Down Crew on Monday was hampered by people still using them.  Many people hogging bikes as their own.

CAMP BAR  Source of MOST complaints!  Messy, noisy, some obnoxious people, excessive/abusive levels of intoxication, danger of being busted for under-age drinking.

CAMP SET-UP and LAYOUT  We needed more designated entrance paths from the other streets, and more Set-Up HELP.

GARBAGE AND RECYCLING  Still not enough cans/liners, still not enough cooperation by campmates, not enough crushing of plastic water containers.  Not enough burning. Garbage Trailer was MAXED out and lots of garbage returned to town on other trailers and in the U-Haul van.

ROVING MUTANT PARTY WAGON   Too bad we didn't know about this EARLIER, huh?

CAMP TEAR-DOWN and CLEANUP  Not enough HELP.  Too much effort required from the same people who did Set-Up, and were already exhausted.  Too much last-minute partying instead of helping.  Not enough burning of trash.  Not enough crushing of plastic containers.  Hard to re-load bikes when many of them were being used at the time.  Bikes were the biggest pain in the ass in every way.  No clear-cut procedures for Tear-Down.  Our stuff came back to town in sad shape. Trash trailer was MAXED out.  Back in Sparks, not enough help getting things cleaned and re-organized.  Post-Burn chaos in Sparks.  Hostel was a mess.

COST  $6,000 IN and $11,000 OUT = $5,000 in the HOLE, sitting on Hagey's credit card, and drawing interest.  Some Camp Fees still unpaid.  Biggest expenses were the U-Haul van and our new shade structure, followed by kitchen improvements, shower facility, then a gazillion other smaller things.

MISCELLANEOUS  Fire pit could not be used all of the time, because wind was blowing embers. Tough getting people present and on time for Camp Meetings and the Agendas for those meetings was poorly planned.  Camp group photo missing MANY people (60 out of135).  No clear-cut Departure procedures.

EFFECT UPON HAGEY  (WORST YET)  By the time I got to camp on Tuesday, I was utterly exhausted, both physically and emotionally.  I tried to hide it as best as I could, but I spent more time spent sleeping in my RV than ever before, and less time on the Playa than ever before.  Exhausted, depressed, and dysfunctional all of September, wondering how I can continue to run the BRIBH, financially, physically, and emotionally, and then spending a great deal of October, by myself most of the time, getting everything clean and re-organized again. 

EFFECT UPON KIWI  Burnt to a crisp, also!
                                  Unemployed for MONTHS.

EFFECT UPON IRISH  Burnt to a crisp, also!
                                   Unemployed for MONTHS


For 2007, we really gotta work on a more even distribution of the workload and involve EVERYONE, to some extent, in the project, and raise the Camp Membership Fee just enough to get us back in the black.

The Tribunal did 80% of the work.
Five or six others did 50% of the remainder.
That left 10% of the work to be done by others.

Then, regarding that last 10% of the pie:

 90% of it was done by 10% of the rest of the people.

AFTER BURN REPORT 2004

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