Hello Nestlings! We will be holding our virtual community meeting on 31st March at 8pm, via Zoom. You can register to attend here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkc-mtqDkvHt3AQy1o9CtJ7Ab04rVim-N8
The community meeting is a great chance to ask questions, find out what’s happening at the event, and meet other Nestlings! We have a discussion thread on Loomio here: https://www.loomio.org/d/WblqLVex/virtual-community-meeting – don’t be shy, join in!
One of our 11 Principles has always been “Leave No Trace”. With careful preparation, thought and consideration into how our event is run from the ground up, we’re proud that every year we leave nothing behind in the Glade, other than some squares of yellow grass where our structures once stood.
Leave No Trace means that no rubbish hits the ground, and if it does, we will take responsibility for picking it up and disposing of it (even if we didn’t drop it!). It means carrying an ashtray for our cigarette butts, having a dedicated recycling bin for cans, packing light to reduce crisp packets and wrappers, and avoiding glitter and loose sequins altogether!
This year, we are going one further. We believe that the burner community has the power to make a positive impact not only on the individuals who are part of it, but also on society at large.
This is why Burning Nest is adapting the original Burning Man principle of Leave No Trace to: Leave a Better Trace.
We want to honour the principle of leaving the environment as we found it. But why stop there when our community has such potential to leave a positive trace?
Examples of LBT include planting trees in a place that has been desertified; creating art or facilities that can be used by locals after you leave; awakening people to take further actions to protect and improve the environment or become activists.
This means our mission expanded to include:
Our LBT crew is new this year, and are looking for ideas to leave our home (and the environment at large) better than when we found it. If you have ideas and want to get involved, please get in touch!
Hello Nestlings!
We’re making plans for our first community meeting of 2022, and we’d love your input! Our community meetings allow everyone to bring questions, feedback and proposals to the core team, and are also a great opportunity to meet new people!
The event may be in-person, but we will be streaming or holding a virtual event at the same time, to allow everyone to attend, regardless of location.
We’ve created a discussion on Loomio, asking about agenda items and possible dates – please let us know what you’d like to discuss!
Hey Nestlings!
As I assume you are all aware of the sad news that Burning Nest 2020 won’t be happening. I know this is devastating for a lot of members in our community but with the state of the world today it was the most sensible way forward!
But, work for Nest is still afoot! There are some exciting changes coming and we are looking for people who want to get involved and help make it happen! Burning Nest is co-created through the principle of Consensual Do-ocracy in conjunction with the 11 principles taken from Burning Man and extended with Each One Teach Oone.
There are 2 big changes that we are currently working on to help enable us to co create through Consensual Do-ocracy! One is the Advice Process and the other is a new Circle (used to be teams) currently called WOW (Ways of Working) but we are open to other names so if you have some ideas we’d love to hear them!
Some of the goals for the changes are:
The Advice Process is a way to collect sufficient information and engage those affected plus put it out to the wider community to reach better decisions. This is a powerful tools to help support all of the goals. It is new to Nest but exists in similar form in some other burns such as Borderlands and Kiez Burn.
The WOW Circle will look at how we work together and what we use to do it to support the Goals. This will cover things like what tools we use, processes we need to help, where we need structure and what they are responsible for and how they interact (board, circles, community etc). We are looking for a range of people with different skills to get directly involved and will also be creating a lot of Advice Processes to get feedback from the Community. If you are keen to get involved fill out this form: https://airtable.com/shrsF6kzfPoC3SdMw
Also keep an eye on Facebook, our website and email newsletters for some other Nest related things that will be happening in the near future!
Hello, our gorgeous, lovely, and hopefully healthy Nestlings!
If there’s one thing we’ve learned since the pandemic crisis started in the last few months, it’s that nothing seems to dampen the creative and caring spirit of our little community. Since we had to make the heartbreaking announcement that we could not hold our usual celebration this year, we’ve received messages of support, love and empathy with our difficult position. It’s a shared sadness – we look forward to meeting up with our friends every year so much!
Just because we’re indoors for the time being though, doesn’t mean we can’t still have fun. It’s with this in mind that we’re holding Nest Online – a way of connecting with each other, holding our workshops, dance parties and communal activities, using the magic of video conferencing!
We can’t do it without YOU though! Do you have an idea for a workshop, or a burning desire to dance like no-one’s watching? Or would you like to support people in making their dreams come true – maybe you’re a technical whizz, or can help co-create something from afar?
If so, follow the link above to our Facebook event, where you can register your event (we’ve got to make sure we don’t have too many scheduling clashes!) and see what’s going on.
All our love,
Burning Nest HQ x
Dearest Nestlings,
Some decisions are hard to make and even harder to announce, so it is with heavy hearts that we confirm this year’s Burning Nest is cancelled.
**Update 28th April: we now have an FAQ covering membership refunds here**
This decision was not taken lightly and with the principle of Civic Responsibility in mind and in light of the unfolding coronavirus situation, we have taken the pre-emptive step and incredibly tough decision to hold off running our event in 2020.
We have our community’s best interests at heart and feel it is our duty of care to protect our Nestlings from large scale gatherings. While the UK government has not yet officially curtailed these events, we believe it is only a matter of time before they follow suit.
Although our terms and conditions state that memberships are non-refundable we will be doing everything in our power to return as much as possible back to you. Given the complexities of an event this size and the fact we’re a community and volunteer organisation, please be patient whilst we navigate the best way to deal with this unprecedented situation. We will be releasing further information about this in the next week or so.
Rest assured that if you have already spent grant money on an art piece, we will be reimbursing your costs as normal. We wish we could have seen all your art and hope that you can still create it for 2021.
We want to assure you that all your amazing work, time and investment whether it be physical, emotional or financial will not be going to waste. We will be back in 2021 and we hope that coming through this difficult time as a community will just serve to make us stronger and bring us closer together.
Burning Nest is a beautiful experiment in community and we will continue as one. There are many things more important than a Burn, namely everyone’s health, and safety (in spite of what we may often repeat) comes first.
This could be a wonderful time to reflect and think about other important things in your life, where else to invest the energies we’d have exerted in preparation and during the Burn. We might want to invest them in ourselves, loved ones, friends, charities, local projects or getting things done that you’ve been putting off for ages. Even learning a new skill or reading the book you’ve been meaning to for ages. Please remember to be kind and compassionate to yourselves and fellow humans as we need it more than ever right now.
Great communities thrive whilst coming together during times of crisis and I know that our wonderful Nestlings will do just that.
Thank you all for understanding – we are really sad to have to make this decision.
We will be releasing more information in the next week or so, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, please email us or contact us on any of our social media networks.
The Effigy Burns in 439 (ish) days!
Our last Community Meeting was a great success, with many newbies and old…bies? (ahem) meeting up and discussing their ideas for the future of Burning Nest.
Want to get involved? Our next Community Meeting is going to be held on 28th March, at 26 King’s Mews, London, WC1N 2JB (map link here).
Please plan to arrive for mingling at 2.30pm, with the meeting starting just before 3pm. We hope to be all wrapped up and out by 4.30pm (although there are plenty of nice pubs close by, if you want to continue the fun).
Bring snacks to share, drinks (hot and cold) and get comfy with your fellow Nestlings!
See you there! x
Communal Effort is one of our 11 Principles here at Burning Nest. This can take many forms (and let’s be honest, our event wouldn’t exist without it), but one of our favourites is the way our community bands together to solve a common goal.
This year, one of our stars, Iona, has volunteered to co-ordinate a communal fruit and veg order from Riverford Farm, a veg box company located near our site in Exeter.
This will mean a lot less driving on and off site, as we will be getting a delivery at the beginning of the week and one in the middle.
If you’d like to join in on this community-organised initiative, please do the following:
If you have any questions about the service at all, please contact Iona directly!
Are you planning a theme camp or art installation? Not been to Burning Nest before, but want to see the lay of the land?
Why not join us at our site visit on 22nd February, where we have a wander around the Nest site? Meet fellow Nestlings ahead of time, share some lunch, maybe a few pints, all in the Exeter countryside!
We will be meeting at the Nest site (precise directions will be emailed to all interested parties) at 12 noon on Saturday 22nd February. We’d recommend getting to Newton Abbot in Exeter for 11.30am – more details of where to meet will be sent out.
How to get involved with this fantabulous site visit? Just email vols@burningnest.co.uk to be added to our list!
Here at Burning Nest, we take participation and community decision-making very seriously. This can sometimes be difficult on platforms such as Facebook, where algorithms often mean that important information is lost.
We are currently trialling a platform called Loomio, that enables communities to discuss, vote and make decisions, outside of a space designed to sell advertising.
If you’d like to get involved and have your say (we are currently running a trial, restricted to 100 members due to cost), please join up here! Simply click the “Join Group” button, and create a profile. You will need to be approved, but it should only take a day or so for someone to notice you and let you in.
The more involved everyone gets in using Loomio, the better it will be – if you have strong feelings on anything to do with how Nest is run, or want to offer advice or help, please join! There are Help topics available too, if you get stuck.
Much love x
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