This is a record of Burn After Meeting 2023.

Contents:

• Burn After Meeting 2023 Public Information Report
• Program

Burn After Meeting 2023 Public Information Report

Facts & Figures

Burn After Meeting 2023 was held Nov 4–5 at the Sonesta Hotel in downtown Denver CO USA. A total of 73 people attended, representing 15 regional-burn orgs, also including a few unaffiliated people and people from BMORG.

The schedule consisted of 4 time slots per day, 90 minutes per session, with 3 sessions in parallel, apart from one time slot where there were only 2 sessions.

One room was set up for roundtable discussions: instead of a presenter speaking to an audience, there was a facilitator for a lightly-structured peer discussion.

In addition to a reception area between the function rooms, there was a room set aside as the “lounge.” This had four ten-top tables, and was a place where people could retreat for some quiet, or hold mini-talks.

Planning

I got the idea to hold a conference in the same spirit as Burning Man’s Global Leadership Conference in late 2022, during an interview with prospective Burning Flipside board members. Sitting around a table drinking beer, we reminisced about what a great thing the GLC was—many of those present had been to the GLC at some point. I was already preparing to resign from Flipside’s board at this point, and when I got home from that meeting, I said to myself “I’m going to have some free time. I’ll reboot the GLC.” I had been the prime mover on a conference planning committee years before, and had been peripherally involved in planning a few others.

I began researching potential venues. My criteria were

• A city in a relatively central part of the USA,
• With a hub airport,
• In a state where abortion is legal.

Through my work on InterBECs, I already knew that November was a quiet month on the burner calendar. Late November and all of December would be out, so I quickly settled on the first weekend in November as the target date. It’s impossible to pick a date that’s good for everyone–any regional burn requires a three-week blackout period, and there are other obligations that could interfere as well (I unfortunately wound up scheduling BAM on top of Lakes of Fires’ leads retreat, for example).

I had the Convention & Visitors Bureau in Denver and Chicago send out RFPs on my behalf. I’m originally from Chicago, so I have a good sense of what parts of town would work. I had never even visited Denver before. But I received more proposals from Denver hotels, and they generally seemed like a better fit for BAM. I chose the Sonesta hotel in downtown Denver and signed a contract with them in December.

Another priority for me was to have the conference in a busy part of town—I’ve been to conferences where everyone was captive at a remote hotel, and I hate that. I wanted people to have options for dining and after-hours entertainment.

I brought Izzy and Misty onto the planning committee; Jim Taflinger and Trevor Goodman (who have day-job experience in hospitality and event production, respectively) were on the committee’s Slack workspace, and provided advice, but were not involved in ops.

I did not do a great job involving Misty or Izzy in operations; Misty had some preoccupations in her personal life anyhow. Izzy helped with brainstorming and reality-checking me. I am lucky that I have a job that doesn’t make too many demands on my time, so this was not really a burden on me, but it did mean that I was the single point of failure for BAM if I got run over by a truck, which is something I thought about while riding my bike to my day job.

Tech

We used a Slack workspace for the planning committee; we were using the free tier, so messages more than 90 days old are hidden. This is not ideal.

I set up a separate Slack workspace for participants. This did not get a lot of play until very close to the event, when it blew up. I did get a little pushback on this from one technically savvy participant who doesn’t like Slack. I actually don’t like Slack that much myself, but I thought that it would be the least objectionable option to the most people. And I have to admit, at the end of the conference, when someone declared on the #random channel “this is now a cat thread” and everyone posted pictures of their pets, it was pretty great.

I am pretty conversant with WordPress, and used that for the conference website. I explored a number of services for hosting conference schedules, payment processing, etc. Some of these looked OK (Sched.com), most were far outside my price range. None of them seemed to do exactly what I wanted. I also explored a number of WordPress plugins for these functions. Here’s what I wound up using

• WordPress for the overall website
• WooCommerce (a WP plugin) to provide the shopping cart functionality for
• purchasing tickets; there are a few other plugins that get installed along with
• this one to support it
• WooCommerce Box Office, a paid add-on to WooCommerce that adds necessary functionality for event ticketing.
• Square as the payment processor
• All in One Invite Codes, another WP plugin (more on this below)
• Pods.io, another WP plugin (more on this below)
• A few other security and utility plugins

I have used Square before, both for direct payments and as the payment processor for a WooCommerce web shop, so I was comfortable with it. Square also hosts online shops, and I created one as a backup, but never used it.

WordPress has a lot of flexibility and lets admins create their own data types; Pods.io makes this easier. I’ve used it before as well, and in this case used it to create “speaker” and “session” data types. I can see some ways to further optimize it. This worked OK, but laying out the session grid was still a manual process. In theory, someone better at programming than me could write some code that would automate it.

I made the decision early on that the boards of regional burns should be the ones to decide who represented their burns at BAM. I used the Invite Codes plugin to generate invite codes and validate them when people paid for tickets (all the codes were single-use). I sent batches of 10 codes to all the burn orgs I could find, and let them distribute codes as they saw fit. I also handed out invite codes directly to people I invited to BAM.

This worked OK but there are flaws in the process. In a few cases, there were people who approached me directly about coming to BAM; I said “ask your board for an invite code” and the board never responded to their request (this board did not use those codes at all); I wound up giving them codes directly. I did not receive many complaints about the invite codes, or gatekeeping in general, but at least one person has publicly taken an injured stance that her overall contributions should have earned her an invite (but she never asked me for an invite code).

I have a cheap “shared hosting” account at Dreamhost, where I have my personal site and another side project. I’ve learned that at the level of performance I get from Dreamhost, WooCommerce makes a site run very slowly. Also, with outstanding timing, Dreamhost had a major service outage on the day before the conference and during the conference itself, so access was up and down repeatedly. In fairness to them, I haven’t seen an outage in a very long time, but it may be because my other sites get so little traffic.

Sessions

I made the decision early on that the conference should work like a burn in the sense that the sessions would be what people want to bring to the conference. I did have a few ideas for sessions and I knew who I wanted to present them; I contacted those people directly and told them “I want you to present on this.” They all agreed.

I also had ideas for the roundtable discussions, and for the most part asked people to facilitate on topics that I gave them, but there were two roundtables where people came to me with the topics they wanted to facilitate. The roundtables were generally well-received and went pretty smoothly. In general, I think they are good for raising problems shared by different orgs, for giving people food for thought, and for sparking offline conversations. But we probably didn’t solve any problems during the 90 minutes of the sessions themselves. Also, there’s some comfort just in knowing that others are facing the same problems you are.

I had originally expected having enough people to justify 4 parallel sessions; in the end, there weren’t enough people or sessions to justify this, so the fourth room got turned into the “lounge.” The lounge was lightly used but was appreciated by the people who did use it. Also, having only three tracks meant people felt slightly less FOMO.

The conference opened with a very short plenary session in which I laid out some ground rules for the conference. I think it’s very hard to have a substantive, entertaining, and relevant plenary session, and didn’t want to waste people’s time. After about 5 minutes of me speaking, we moved into another room where I had taped 9 broad topics onto the walls, and I told people “find a topic that interests you, talk to the other people congregated there about why it interests you, and when you’ve exhausted that conversation, move on to another.” This seems to have worked really well as an icebreaking exercise.

Finances

I created a single-member LLC in the state of Texas as the operating entity for BAM.

I set up a business bank account with an online-only bank called Bluevine, and lent it $1000. This bank is very new and does not support some obvious features, like bank cards for more than one person. I can’t recommend them.

My goal was for the conference to be 100% funded by ticket income.

Bottom line is that the event wound up $3916 in the red this year. All things considered, this isn’t too bad. This is completely attributable to the fact that I overestimated the number of room-nights that I should guarantee to the hotel. I don’t think there would have been any downside to estimating a smaller number in terms of the services the hotel provided or the prices it quoted. If I had correctly estimated the room-nights, the conference would be exactly $2000 in the black.

In the contract I signed, I estimated 215 room-nights, which works out to 108 room-nights with 50% attrition. In the end, the conference accounted for 74 room- nights booked at the hotel. By neat coincidence, this works out to one room-night per participant.

I have a statement showing all income and expenses, available separately.

Venue, food & beverage

The conference provided breakfast and morning coffee as part of the registration fee. I agonized over whether to hold a Saturday-night banquet: my instinct pointed me toward doing it because it would be a good opportunity for everyone to socialize, but holding it at the hotel would have been prohibitively expensive, and I wanted to keep costs to participants low. I did some research on holding a banquet somewhere else, but had trouble getting quotes and gave up on that pretty quickly.

In the end, I decided against a banquet, and with the benefit of hindsight, I think this was the right decision. Denver in general and the area around the conference venue in particular have plenty of things to do, and people took good advantage of those options. Denver has a Meow Wolf installation, and a number of participants organized a trip there the Saturday night of the conference; Saturday nights also happen to be free nights at museums there, and some people did that.

The largest function rooms we used had seating for 55 (not quite enough for the plenary session!), and I learned that amplified sound isn’t really necessary at that size. Nonetheless, we did have PAs set up in the two presentation rooms. I borrowed Soundbokses from a couple of local burners, and brought mics that I sourced on my own. No one wound up using these.

I also borrowed a TV from a local burner for the presentations that needed visual support. It would have been nice to have had two, but we made this work.

Lesson 1: I was too optimistic about how much enthusiasm there would be for BAM. Based on that optimism, I guaranteed a certain amount of income to the hotel, based on the number of room-nights that would be booked. The contract with the hotel did allow for 50% “attrition” on that number, but I did not even meet that.

Lesson 2: Everything at a hotel is expensive. Catering is expensive: a gallon of coffee cost $99, which works out to over $6 for an 8-oz cup. Plus there’s a 25% service charge tacked on to everything, so make that almost $8 for the coffee cup. AV services were offensively expensive; renting a TV for a day cost about 3× as much as buying one (plus paying for a technician’s setup time). If you opt to provide your own AV, the hotel charges a steep cover charge for that too.

Lesson 3: Again, being overly optimistic, I thought “build it and they will come.” I was not aggressive enough about publicizing BAM early enough, and no doubt there are people who would have come if I had reached them earlier. Initially, I only promoted BAM through the InterBECs mailing list. This probably resulted in 20 ticket sales.

Burning Man helped publicize it through its “regional-event-organizers-announce” list and a couple of other e-mail outlets. I think this prompted a few registrations but not many.

In late August, I then contacted the addresses for various regional boards by direct e-mail. This may have had a little uptake, but not a lot.

In early October, I began e-mailing individual members of regional boards inviting them individually. This was pretty late for initial (from their perspective) contact, but probably generated the bulk of registrations–there were 50 registrations after I started doing that, although of course some may have been acting in response to earlier communications.

Temple of Tranquility visit

I found out well into the planning process that Colorado burners were building the Temple of Tranquility in Boulder, about a 30-minute drive from the venue. I spoke with Steve Maruska, a CO RC, about this and worked out that the night before the conference began would be a good time for a field trip.

I added a checkbox to the ticket reg form to solicit interest in a field trip there. 32 people expressed interest.

I explored chartering a bus, but decided it was too expensive.

I rounded up some local burners to ferry people, and based on the numbers, booked three rental minivans to drive the rest. I added to the website an optional $15 contribution to cover the cost of van rental and gas for the volunteer drivers. Only seven or eight people actually pitched in, and on the day, it turns out that not everyone who had expressed interest actually showed up; we could have gotten by with one or two minivans in addition to the people driving their own vehicles.

The temple was in a public park and not easy to find–it was not really lit, and the directions my phone gave me to the park put me as far as possible from it. In hindsight I could have done a better job getting the exact geo coordinates for it. I don’t think anyone regretted going, but it was not as lively a visit as it might have been.

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Program

Roundtable meeting guide

Roundtable discussions do not have a presenter speaking to an audience; everyone is participating on an equal footing. In order to make this work, we need some tools and ground rules. Some of these will probably be familiar.

Facilitator

The facilitator presents the topic of discussion, keeps it on track when people seem to be veering off course, and can inject ideas to keep it moving if it seems to grind to a halt.

If a small number of people in the meeting are dwelling on a side issue or monopolizing the conversation, the facilitator should invite them to “take it offline.”

Stack keeper

In order for everyone to have a chance to say their piece, they raise their hand or otherwise get the attention of the stack keeper, who maintains a written list and calls on people in turn.

Time

No need to be strict about time, but each person should limit their speaking turn to about two minutes.

Jumping stack

“Jumping stack” is speaking out of turn. The facilitator should shut this down whenever it happens except for points of information.

Point of information

If a speaker is saying something based on incorrect information (not a matter of opinion), or has asked for clarification, someone else can jump in to clarify. When you are jumping in without invitation, begin by saying “Point of information…”

Points of information should be kept short so that the previous speaker can get back to what they were saying without being derailed. Do not interject points of information just to add asterisks to what someone else is saying.

Twinkles

Rather than getting on stack just to express agreement with what someone else has said, participants can hold up their hands and wiggle their fingers to show agreement.

No personal attacks

You can criticize another person’s idea, but don’t criticize the person.

Don’t use up all the air in the room

If you’ve already spoken, give other people a chance to speak before getting back on stack.

Sessions

Saturday

09:00

Plenary session

Welcome, ground rules, get acquainted.

10:00

Insurance Talk

Part 1: 45 mins – open forum, let’s talk insurance woes.

• What’s some bad shit that can happen?
• Who hates trying to find burn insurance?
• Who has a hard time finding it at a good price?
• Who is confident their policy actually covers stuff?
• Who has had an incident that was or was not covered? Can we talk about it?
• Volunteers? Covered? Anyone?
• Let’s talk FIRE damage scenarios – Fireworks, neighbors, loss of income, etc.
• And D&O. Sued personally? Now what?
• Renting trucks? Who’s on the line for that?
• Excluuuuuuusions. Trampolines. Water. Inflatables.
• Prohibited items?
• Art car liability. Wrecks, anyone?
• Waiver, what?
• Who sues? Family.
• Any attorney burners in the house?

Part 2: 45 mins – Talk solutions and options on how we can build a policy – how does that work?

• How can we regionals fund this ourselves, without BMORG, what will it cost?
• Can we do this without their help?
• Discuss basic insurance needs for all burns and cost per participant, etc.

Roundtable: Keeping our communities safe, Excluding members from community events

I’m sure we’ve all encountered this situation. Bad actors, Sexual Predators, Repeated violence, or even domestic disputes. How do we keep our communities safe but also keep being radically inclusive? What can we do to reintegrate the ones that deserve redemption? I don’t have the answers, but I’m sure we all have a lot of questions and ideas. Let’s get together and round table discuss this.

13:00

Zero Fault Learning Environment

Learn about the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP), a set of publicly available federally supported systems and best practices for emergency response training and organizational improvement planning. More importantly, learn how to steal from it like an artist and adapt it to help your event train volunteers and improve emergency operations plans and procedures.

This presentation will introduce concepts beneficial for conducting exercises and for building a cohesive long term exercise and improvement plan for Safety teams.

No ONE Leads

A talk on collaboration, designing against burn out, and making the journey fun. A build team is as strong as the bonds it has and the energy it’s saved. No ONE can do it alone, nor even lead it alone. It takes many different people all having a say to create something truly eclectic, flushed out, cohesive, and inspiring.

Approaching builds from this angle impacts all levels of planning, starting at the first sketch.

Roundtable: Dealing With Landowners and Local Officials

A facilitated discussion where members of the community can share questions, concerns, experiences, and advice on working with landowners and local officials when planning events. This includes but is not limited to land use agreements, permits, fire and police, city or town council, health department, and any other agencies you may be working with.

14:30

Double Oh Seven: Logistics and Human Considerations in Participant Ejections

Ejecting participants is a challenging, multi part process. Many regional burns may benefit from building knowledge and competence in these areas: too often it falls to the same usual suspects, and we aren’t building a deeper bench. We’ll get in to basics and more advanced issues, in a dynamic and interactive workshop.

Good Governance and Other Corporate Concerns

This session focuses on how to keep your organization running well, in compliance with the law, and structured in a way that respects the community involvement and ensures succession and longevity.

Roundtable: “Leadership Lifecycle”—Nurturing, Supporting, Planning

Let’s talk about the people who make our all-volunteer events go. Pitter Patter will facilitate a group discussion, including topics like:

• How can we cultivate and nurture leaders in our communities?
• How can we support and empower folks–and help them grow in their roles?
• What can we do to prevent burnout, encourage boundaries, and intentionally plan for the next generation of leaders?

Sunday

09:00

Emergency Management for Producer-Level Volunteers

This presentation is a starting point for how to anticipate the unexpected, how to plan for those misfortunes, how to prevent or mitigate them, and how to respond when the world outside of the event wants to know what happened and why your response was (or was not!) effective.

We will go over how to look at your event site for vulnerabilities, both inherent and participant-created, threats that may impinge on those vulnerabilities, and the risks created by the combination of particular threats attacking particular vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities, threats, and risks are much more wide-ranging topics than you think they are.

This is loosely based on the IS-15 “Special Events Contingency Planning for Public Safety Agencies” course at FEMA’s National Training and Education Division (go to the National Preparedness Course Catalog, and search for IS0015.b). If you have an interest in specializing in this kind of planning and management, please consider taking the class before coming to Burn After Meeting.

The presentation will take between 45 minutes and an hour. We’ll spend the remainder of the time discussing scenarios and recent events, including the return of Lake Lahontan in September.

Participate in Politics

We’ve had discussions about whether Burning Man is political, but have we thought about how Burning Man’s ethos of “NO SPECTATORS” can be applied to politics?

Let’s discuss how we can be better participants civically, and work at the local level to protect burns (and the burner way of life). This will be mostly centered around US politics, but you are welcome to expand the conversation if you are an international attendee.

Note: This is NOT a discussion about political parties. This is aimed at encouraging more participation at all levels–from your local dog-catcher to a national-level position.

Roundtable: Supporting Artists

Let’s talk about how we support artists in our community.

10:30

Nonviolent Communication and De-Escalation

It seems there are still a few people who haven’t heard of Nonviolent Communication. For some, this can be a handy tool to add to your conflict resolution toolbox, for others it can be a life-changing epiphany. For those that are already familiar, I know we’re always looking for new tips and a chance to practice.

We will go over the five basic concepts of NVC with a particular focus on Emergency Empathy and de-escalation. This will focus on the individual, assuming the other party in a conflict is not aware of the concepts.

Cat Herding: The Art of Volunteer Management

Our events can’t happen without volunteers, but keeping track of them can be a challenge. Learn about how software can help.

Several regional events now use an open-source volunteer database built by burners to help keep track of who is volunteering at their events. In this session we’ll be showing off all the features of the PlayaSoft Volunteer Database and discussing how Apogaea and other regionals use their volunteer database.

Volunteers can sign up for shifts online before the event starts, allowing event coordinators and department leads to know who will be volunteering and when. This is critical for determining which departments need additional support in the time leading up to the event.

During the event, the Volunteer Database can also be used to generate printable reports for shift leads to keep track of who is supposed to show up. After the event, additional reports can be run to keep track of who showed up for their volunteer shifts and who didn’t.

Roundtable: Community Hubs – making and maintaining connection beyond the event

From monthly dinners to maker spaces, how can we support community that supports our events? What are some types of burner community hubs? What are the advantages and pitfalls? How do we create, support and evolve our community spaces outside of events?

13:30

Burning Bright: Servant Leadership and the Power of Community

Join us for an engaging exploration at the intersection of servant leadership and the transformative principles of Burning Man. In this session, we delve into how these philosophies, often seen as unconventional, can come together to create a powerful framework for positive cultural change. Discover real-world examples of organizations and initiatives that have successfully blended these principles, leaving a lasting impact. Additionally, we encourage open dialogue and idea-sharing, inviting participants to envision innovative applications in their own communities. Be part of this collaborative journey as we inspire positive change through servant leadership and the Burning Man ethos, proving that together, we can light the way towards a better world.

Roundtable: Ticketing systems

Let’s talk about ticketing systems.

15:00

Closing Mixer

Speakers

David “Battalion4” Barr

David Barr (“Battalion4”, he/him) became a Black Rock Ranger in 1998, with red and blue dots. In 2001, he departed the Rangers to help form the Burning Man Emergency Services Department. Most of his ESD career was as the Planning Section Chief until his departure after the 2013 burn. He joined the SOAK Fire Safety Team in 2014 and was the Team Lead between 2016 and 2022.

In 2018, Precipitation Northwest, Portland’s Regional organization, invited David and Tacy Brotherton (“HugBoss”) to go to Safetyside and bring back everything they learned. In 2019, he and HugBoss founded Safety Northwest as Safetyside’s peer in the Pacific Northwest. David and Tacy still produce Safety Northwest, with Lauren Stewart (“Sweetie”) and Ben Heredia (“Brother”).

Rachel Fish

Rachel is a software developer who has been participating in regional Burning Man events all over North America since 2008. In 2015 she began working with the Apogaea board of directors to develop custom software for managing art grant applications and a volunteer database. Over the years the Apogaea VolDB has been adopted by several other regional events including Elsewhence, Sun Burn, and PortalBurn.

Emily “sauerkraut” Gregor

sauerkraut (she/her) has been burning for about a decade, including 15 or so distinct regionals. She has been in ranger leadership and other production rules at many of those. At the big burn she works for Gate, Perimeter, and Exodus, and in 2023 is a Volunteer Operations Lead for the Airport. Her favorite thing to do at burns is have a volunteer problem, and climb things. She lives in Salida, Colorado with hey life and burner partner Inkwell.

Alex “Context” Head

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Boris “Natasha” Levit

Vice President Ignition NorthWest

Noreen “Izzi” Long

I served on Austin Artistic Reconstruction from 2013 to 2020, including 3 years of liaising with our Area Facilitator who oversees our warehouse. I helped develop a warehouse host program, along with training, helped oversee a move to a new space, and prior to being on the board, was on several art/effigy build teams using that space. I’ve since moved back up into a role as community member and artist, and am interested in how to best support and evolve use of our community spaces.

Kim “Pitter Patter” Loop

Pitter Patter started burning in 2008 and joined the leadership group of FreezerBurn Texas in 2016.

Jimmie “WiFi” Lundie

Jimmie “WiFi” Lundie’s journey within the burner community began at Flipside in 2007. Over the years, he has actively contributed in various roles, from City Planning to Event Safety, and has served in board positions and producer roles at FreezerBurn, TX and Critical Northwest. WiFi’s primary focus has always been on promoting safety, fostering a sense of community, and embodying the values of servant leadership. He remains humbled to be part of this community and continues to strive for a positive impact in any way possible.

David “DK” Katz

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Debi “Crackerjack” Mansour

Crackerjack has been burning for 10 years since losing her burnginity at Burning Man: Cargo Cult in 2013. Since then she has organized theme camps, been a lead for Guidebook creation and Art Grants, as well as being the principal organizer for Burnal Equinox in Rochester, NY for the past 7 years. In 2020 she joined friends to organize a new burn event called Cosmic Burn which is still going strong and in 2023 she joined the POrtalBurn Board of directors.

Kay Morrison

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Marah “Inkwell” Rosenberg

Inkwell has been burning since 2004, and has volunteered with a variety of departments.

They have been with GPE since 2018 and is the Traffic Operations Center Manager.

Prior to that they Rangered, specializing in Green Dot situations. They also acted as Ranger Outpost Berlin Camp Host for 5 years.

They have been a theme camp / village organizer (hosting the first and second years of Camp Beaverton inside Freedom Community Village)

They are also a former regional representative for NJ, coordinating events with Philly and NYC regions.

Joe “Quickfinger” Royer

FreezerBurn TX board member, FreezerBurn radio lead, ranger/khaki for Texas regionals. IS-200c, NLP Certified in 2019, Ham radio operator, avid NVC practitioner and presenter, accomplished Toastmaster. Communication is my jam (do the kids still say that?)

Seph & Misty

Seph & Misty are a couple of people who love creating interactive and immersive art builds. They take a function/experience first approach, with a heavy focus on build accessibility for the sake of both newbie builders and ease of deployment.

Susan “Edie Cosmos” Shelton

Susan is currently a director of the Catalyst Collective, the non-profit organization that produces Burning Flipside. A nature center volunteer from an early age, Susan has been used to the idea of “giving back” since around the age of 7. As the kid of a naturalized citizen, she learned the importance of civic participation when her parents took her to the polling booth with them. A lifetime before she started burning, she served as the Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Texas, and has served as President of the Texas Democratic Women, been a board member of the National Federation of Democratic Women, and a founding member of the United Democratic Women.

While she may be a partisan at heart, she firmly believes that voting is not just a right, it’s a duty. Her time at the League of Women Voters reinforced the need for trusted resources in politics, and it drives her ongoing efforts to get out the vote in every race, every election, every time.

Greg “Wulff” Swift

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Kristen “Fancypants” Vogt

Kristen (aka Fancypants) is a former board member, secretary, and Ticketing Lead for Apogaea, and currently serves as Permit Lead. She is also the Project Manager for the Burning Man Regional Events Committee. The committee is a resource of knowledge and support for the ongoing development of official regional events within the Burning Man Regional Network. On playa, she works with Playa Info and Lost and Found, and sometimes assists Census with data entry. Kristen is a librarian nerd who loves to help behind the scenes with “creating the container” so that our brilliant Burner communities can do all of their amazing things.

Courtney “Deere Bringer” Weidner

Courtney Weidner is a burner insurance nerd who loves cats, coffee, butterfly gardening and nature photography. ENFJ, Sc, ADHD, Pisces, dreamer.

She attended her first regional Burning Flipside in 2014 and knew instantly – she’d found Home. Volunteer to her core, she’s worked as a zone czar, DaFT, VAS, perimeter line and is forever an Earth Guardian, working as Clean Up Lead for the last 2 years.

Her default career for the last 25 years has been working as an agent with Farmers Insurance. She acquired the family business in 2007 and in September 2023, she fully retired from Farmers and launched her new commercial independent agency, EverSecure Insurance Solutions.

Courtney is now assisting regional burns with their insurance needs across the country. Her professional experience and insight into how burns operate give her a unique position to understand the risks and exposures at regional burns. She knows first hand how restrictive the insurance market has become and how difficult it is to find coverage for our organizations. She will be leading a discussion on insurance needs and provide options as to what we can do to collaborate on solutions. # Schedule Grid

Saturday

	Ellingwood A	Ellingwood B	5280 Boardroom	Red Cloud
8:00–9:00	Sign-in
9:00–10:00	Ellingwood A: Plenary Session (welcome, ground rules, get acquainted)
10:00–11:30		Insurance Talk Insurance basics & prospects for an insurance purchasing group By: Courtney “Deere Bringer” Weidner		Roundtable: Keeping our communities safe, Excluding members from community events How do we keep our communities safe but also keep being radically inclusive? By: Boris “Natasha” Levit
11:30–13:00	Lunch break
13:00–14:30	Zero Fault Learning Environment Emergency response training based on HSEEP By: Alex “Context” Head	No ONE Leads Discussing an approach to leadership on big build projects. By: Seph & Misty		Roundtable: Dealing with Landowners and Local Officials Share questions, concerns, experiences, and advice on working with landowners and local officials when planning events By: Kristen “Fancypants” Vogt
14:30–16:00	Double Oh Seven: logistics and human considerations in participant ejections Ejecting participants is a challenging, multi part process. Many regional burns may benefit from building knowledge and competence in these areas. By: Emily “sauerkraut” Gregor Marah “Inkwell” Rosenberg	Good Governance and Other Corporate Concerns How to keep your organization functional, legal, and sustainable. By: David “DK” Katz Kay Morrison		Roundtable: “Leadership Lifecycle”—Nurturing, Supporting, Planning Let’s talk about the people who make our all-volunteer events go By: Kim “Pitter Patter” Loop

Sunday

Ellingwood A	Ellingwood B	5280 Boardroom	Red Cloud
9:00–10:30	Emergency Management for Producer-level Volunteers Imagining how unexpected misfortunes might strike an event, and then planning how to prevent or mitigate those challenges. By: David “Battalion4” Barr	Participate in Politics How can Burning Man’s ethos of “NO SPECTATORS” can be applied to politics? By: Susan “Edie Cosmos” Shelton		Roundtable: Supporting artists How we support artists in our community. By: Debi “Crackerjack” Mansour
10:30–12:00	Nonviolent Communication and De-escalation Covering 5 basic concepts of NVC By: Joe “Quickfinger” Royer	Cat Herding: The Art of Volunteer Management A look at PlayaSoft VolDB, used by Apogaea By: Rachel Fish		Roundtable: Community Hubs – Making and Maintaining Year-Round Connections How can we support community that supports our events? By: Noreen “Izzi” Long
12:00–13:30	Lunch break
13:30–15:00		Burning Bright: Servant Leadership and the Power of Community An exploration at the intersection of servant leadership and the transformative principles of Burning Man. By: Jimmie “WiFi” Lundie (he/they)		Roundtable: Ticketing systems Let’s talk about ticketing systems. By: Greg “Wulff” Swift
15:00–16:00	Closing mixer