Difference between revisions of "2018 Postmortem Notes"

Revision as of 01:32, 10 October 2018

• Camp size: 33
• EA size: 7
• Placement: 3:30 & B, enormous 150' x 100' corner plot

What Went Well

• The lounge is a well-oiled smoke machine. Tara estimates 3k people served over the course of the week, and calls that a conservative estimate
• Meals were excellent, kitchen also a well-oiled smoke machine
• Modular shade cloth (multiple 10' x 20' sections) made setting up the back of the house much easier
• 10' extension to front of the house looked great, let us fill our giant plot
• Staggered diagonal layout worked surprisingly well, good use of corner frontage
• Lots of floor space in the lounge made for a nice environment, e.g. for Michelle and Eliot's wedding reception
• Virtually unlimited supply of water, no problem filling both 275G totes and move with existing truck
• Tea lounge was nice, need to advertise it better though
• Music improvements were well received, USB audio recording from the mixer to the laptop worked beautifully
• Piano, live music performances, and gonzo karaoke continue to bring people together and drive people apart

What Went Badly

• 2kW generator was woefully underpowered
• Hose adapters for 275G totes broke/leaked, had to pump water out of the top
• Staggered arrivals hurt camp cohesion, sponsors need to sponsor better
• People smoking pot (and etc.) in the lounge, need people on shift in the lounge to shoo them out
• As always, bike racks go unused while bikes pile up in front of the lounge and into the street
• One yurt never set up, left to languish in the truck
• Late-teardown was difficult, need more people to stay through exodus

Things to Remember to do Differently Next Year

• Mumble-ups should include acculturation and opportunities to get to know each other before the main event, not just logistics talk.
• Add a camp Code of Conduct, with a specific emphasis on consent. Cover this during the mumble-ups.
• Sponsors should handle camp walk through if their sponsees show up late
• Get 2 2kW generators or 1 3kW, not 1 2kW
• Have headcount for setup/teardown, know how many people will be staying through sunday night and packing the storage unit
• Have clear setup/teardown expectations, people should generally plan to do at least one
• Put EA/setup/teardown on roster
• Consider adding a Housing and Urban Development Hat to deal with yurts, tents
• Consider hosting events outside of lounge hours. Consider making the MoSC responsible for this.
• Merge lounge and tea shifts, have 2 3-hour shifts per night instead of 3 2-hour shifts
• Eco hat should be responsible for post-teardown cleanup, getting trash and recycling to the dump, taking photos after moop sweep

Hat-specific Notes

Power

• Generator needs to be >3kW, have enough gas capacity that we don't have to fill it multiple times per day
• Running the generator 24 hours over the weekend was a great choice
• Separate power rails for lighting and music: nothing but music equipment should be plugged into the power conditioner, and you shouldn't have to run the lights to play music.
• We finally had enough power cords

Water

• Replace and test tote adapters
• Do not bring more than 2G/p/d, dumping out water is a hassle

Build and infrastructure

• 2018 build inventory:
  • 32x 8' conduit
  • 102x 10' conduit
  • shadecloth TODO

• Get two more full-sized ladders, consider losing the stepstools
• Modular shadecloth is the future
  • Get a long spool of paracord, use running lines instead of bungee balls. See Suspended Animation's excellent camp setup primer.
• We had 10 lag bolts left after setup; don't forget to get more bolts if we expand camp
• More literal soft stuff in the dome/lounge
• More furniture in the lounge
• From last year: tool organization is weak, consider getting an actual toolbox

Layout

• Consider cutting 2' conduit sections to attach 8' and 10' cells
• Putting the truck south of camp helped block the sun
• Diagonal frontage worked well
• Chris needs to put this (and the last couple years') layout(s) online

Kitchen

• Still need to replace the fridge, but keeping it in the truck helped
• Get giant ziplock bags for ice to preserve meltwater

Lounge

• Need more people on lounge shift on saturday, possibly fewer earlier in the week
• Either get many more plastic hookah tips or give them out on request only
• Need more lounge furniture now that we've got a bigger lounge, consider playatech tables or a long standing bar
• Consider advertising for tea lounge or lighting the lounge up more at night

Trucking and logistics

• Think long and hard before using u-haul again, make sure cleaning and overage are explicit in contract
• Dusty Trucker needs to be responsible for cleaning/returning the truck

Etc.

• Add email/preferred contact info to the roster
• Checklists in camp manual went totally unused, is there a better way?
• It's probably time for new blackboards
• Digital organization continues to be a disaster
• Need a better way of tracking consumables year over year