BWB has never had the chance to bring our diverse stakeholders together in a singular place before.  For many reasons, BRC is either cost or time prohibitive to many BWB members, and Fly Ranch gives a us a chance to come together with a low barrier to entry.  This event was a co-created and community based experience.  All meals were led by participants, and all sessions were participant proposed.

We had roughly 80 members in attendance.  Participants were BWB Advisory Board Members, BWB Founders, BWB Chapter Leads, BWB Grantees, Regional Network Leaders, Theme Camp Organizers, Black Rock Labs and other project leads and volunteers from the network(s).  Our youngest participant was 4 months old, and our oldest was in their early 70’s.  We had attendance from far and wide including Mexico, Argentina, Russia, Washington DC, New York, Florida, Seattle, Texas and others. The weekend was loosely structured around both work projects and conversational programming.  Check out the Report Out slide deck.

Some of the work projects included:
– Prepping the land for future camp-outs
– Installing the third Solar Array with Black Rock Labs
– Preparing the Banya section and building better infrastructure
– Preparing the Mobile Resource Unit (MRU) to be used on site throughout the summer

The conversation topics included:
– Disaster Relief
– Non-profit Management
– Sustainability & Environment
– Community Hubs & Spaces
– Art & Wellness
– Community Building & Network Weaving

Digital versions of the conversation are available here, please feel free to comment and use within your own communities.
Want to join the ongoing conversation?  Join BWB on Slack or on FB.  (Need help?  Email:  bwb@burningman.org)

This first retreat was an incredibly successful on all fronts and as one participant said “we won’t know what the results are from this event until 2 years from now”.

> How to create a Project.