Last weekend I attended Safetycide, a small retreat for Burning Flipside volunteers who are part of the safety infrastructure for the event. This includes the Rangers, the event’s mediators and its nervous system, a group I plan to volunteer for this year. As part of my position as the Web Content Lead for the event, I wrote about the event for burning flipside.com with the help of my Web Content Team:
Making Burning Flipside a safe, healthy and fun event for almost 2,500 participants is no easy task, especially when you consider that the entire event is run entirely on a volunteer basis. Flipside could not continue to exist without its Rangers, PETs, Guardians, Lighting, Sanctuary and other safety volunteers who help keep the community happy and work to patch things up if they go wrong. This past weekend, a diverse group of about 100 volunteers from throughout Flipside’s safety infrastructure gathered at Apache Pastures to train, share safety knowledge, and have fun at the second Safetycide retreat!
Safetycide took place at Apache Pastures, the private land where Burning Flipside occurs, from Friday, March 25, 2011 through the afternoon of Sunday, March 27, 2011. Training took place for much of the day Saturday and Sunday, while Friday and Saturday evening was devoted to volunteers getting to know each other better over food, music, and lots of great conversations around the fire. Several tasty group meals were provided by event volunteers and donations from those attending.
Read the rest of the article.
Can you spot me in the group photo on the article?
It was an amazing weekend, not just in the training and skills I gained, but also in the new friends I made and in how it made me feel. Though I have been attending Flipside for over a decade, this event was like the cream of the already wonderful community and I felt ecstatically happy to spend a weekend learning with them. Not only that, but never before have I felt like such a valued and integral part of the community as I did this weekend. I kept hearing what a great job my Web Content Team and I are doing, and how important we are to this year’s Flipside experience. I met with several members of my team and even gained a few new volunteers!
Re-entry from this event has actually been more difficult than some ‘actual’ Burn events I have attended. I had such a good time that it was hard to come back to the default world after. I’m looking forward to Flipside more than ever!
