We had another incredible year at Bandido Ground Campground for our 3rd annual Pacific Circle Revival from Thursday June 23rd thru Sunday June 26th. The theme was Spirit of the Community. The weekend was attended by 80 visitors and we sold 99 registrations. We issue refunds for 3 attendees as a matter of good will due to a death and illness. The week before the event was one of the hottest on record and there was a wild fire (10% contained) in the forest which the event was to be held. I believe these factors account for the remaining 17 pre-registered attendees that did not come to the event. The fee for adult overnight camping was $35 (with a $10 late fee after May 23rd), adult single day visits were $15 ($5 late fee) and kids (17 and under) were free.
A significant issue we faced during the event was a Ranger unhappy with the group. When the Ranger pulled in for a drive through he saw a fire burning in a cauldron despite the strict restriction that all fires must be in approved fire rings. Allowing this activity to occur was an error on the part of the committee and must be stressed in the rules and to all volunteers in the future. I personally believe that all other issues that followed with the Ranger were because of this serious and dangerous breach of fire safety during a “very high” fire danger time.
The Ranger also advised us that vending was not allowed on federal lands. Since this restriction does not appear anywhere on the rules or rental arrangements we had no way of know about this restriction. Nevertheless, the 6 vendors in attendance were shut down for the remainder of the weekend on Friday around 4 pm. We did a last call for vendors to give them one more shot at funds then shut them and the PCR witches attic fundraiser down. Although vending was free, we recognize that the vendors may not have been interested in attending the event otherwise so we offered a $45 credit to the 3 paid attendance vendors. Only one accepted the refund. Upon researching I found that it is in fact against the rules to even charge people to attend an event on federal grounds unless the proper permits have been procured. This will complicate the facility management and likely change the funds needed for the event in the future.
Parking at Bandido is increasingly becoming a problem. There is no official allowed vehicle count but with many more vehicles it will be impossible to keep the drive clear of vehicles. The committee may need to consider charging a fee for vehicles or some other way to manage them. It will also be important to beginning tracking the number of RV/Campers attending as the amount of space for them is finite.
There were a number of rules flouted by campers including the ban of generators, disregarding quiet times, and food storage safety. The committee must discuss how these issues can be handled in the future.
We had an amazing set of volunteers on site this year. This year we had over 30 hours of volunteer work slots that we needed to fill with non committee. We got 8 volunteers and only one was a no show. We were able to offer compensation for volunteer time. This was a $10 discount off of the attendance price or cash onsite. Only 2 volunteers used it for a discount and only 2 people accepted the cash fee on site (4 volunteers said no thanks, happy to help). Both that took the cash spent it on $10 worth of raffle tickets. Each volunteer (this included presenters) got a schedule when they arrived. It was a custom schedule to tell them when and where to be for their volunteer times as well as a bit of a description of the job. One volunteer (the no show) reported that they lost their schedule pretty much immediately upon arrival and I didn’t have spares.
Our committee had to work very hard this year as we were a very small group with 80% of the work being completed by 4 people. The attendee survey has gained us a few more people interested in helping out so I am hopeful that next year’s committee will be more plentiful. As the event director this year all duties we did not have someone to perform were left to me and it was a bit overwhelming. I hope to assist next year’s director with the following recommendation of committee roles. It creates a much clearer division of labor and creates roles that aren’t so daunting for new committee members. Obviously, one person can do more than 1 role if we do not have enough volunteers to go around. Coordinating this number (12 total) of people will be harder but I believe it will be more attractive to volunteers and therefore more stable year after year. The one role we could also look to break up would be the programming coordinator but I do feel like it’s best as it is as long as we have a committee member who can handle it all together.
- Event Director and Assistant Event Director- This role will be performed by two people. The director will manage the initiation of the committee, the planning, execution and the post event review. The assistant will be trained to take on the director role and provide assistance.
- Financial Coordinator – As an Unincorporated Association, Pacific Circle Revivals financial accounts must be created on the behalf of an individual. This will remain the case until PCR changes their status. The role of financial coordinator will be handled by that individual. When/If the individual changes the accounts must be recreated and funds transferred. This is the only way to protect the privacy and credit of the individual. This person should also take responsibility for registration and budget management to simplify the process.
- Promotions- Promotions is an enormous job and it is one that would be easy to break into more reasonable amounts of effort.
- Communications Coordinator – Handles email campaigns to our 170+ mailing list subscribers.
- Community Outreach Coordinator – Handles getting info to stores, meetups, FB groups, etc.
- Social Media Coordinator – Handles daily social content on our pages/accounts and all other promotion through those channels.
- Webmaster – Manages the website.
- Facility Coordinator – Handles the booking, set-up, management of the facility. A much bigger job than previous but still manageable.
- Safety Coordinator – Handles food, people, animal and fire safety items.
- Programming Coordinator – The schedule and program guru.
- Vendors and Fundraising Coordinator – I’ve only lumped these two together because I’m unsure if vendors will be possible or favorable under the new guidelines.
- Volunteer Coordinator – Someone dedicated to recruiting, managing and thanking the volunteers would be an excellent idea.
Of course, this means that we will need to really beat the bushes for committee members. I think we have three great community events that we should consider attending with information and email sign up lists. Both Pagan Day Fest and Pagan Pride Day occur only months after PCR. Whichever of the two of these harvest time events occurs last could be used as an “interested party” meeting point. The Event Director could provide all of those interested in committee roles a sample charter (which includes the roles) and give everyone a chance to chat casually with past and future volunteers. Then the committee kick off could take place in November as usual. I think this would give us more exposure to potential committee members and also make sure anyone volunteering understands what we are asking of them before signing up.
I know this write up is full of details about how things didn’t go quite right but I want to assure you that PCR 2016 was fantastic. The community did rally around the event and everyone really had a spectacular time. I suspect that even after the 50th annual PCR we will still be finding way to do things a little better. Good Luck in the future and thank you for everything you have done and will do to support the community through this event.
With much love,
Kandy Crenshaw
2016 Event Director