A new name and some new imagery in 2020?

@franellis ... I understand what you're saying, but if we decide to go above 500 next year, we will actually have to direct market to attract a good chunk of new people... this is to keep membership prices where they are.. If we decide to grow next year it has to be a significant uplift in membership purchases as insurance and license will be so much more expensive over our current 500 threshold. So we will need to engage a lot more people. Any help you want to offer with that will be very much appreciated!!

@franellis i understand what you're saying, but actually next year to make it so people can afford to purchase membership, we actually will need to direct market to new folks

For me Fred "radical inclusion" is about welcoming people to our community no matter how they got here or 'who they are' in the default world. And taking steps to ensure the burn is accessible to people from all different walks of life. Totally agree that getting our values out there is fab, but I'm of the opinion that this may not necessitate 'marketing' the event itself to a wider audience, but integrating our community principles into our daily lives and inspiring those around us to do so too.

When it comes to the financial aspects, fair one - hadn't realised that was the plan but can completely understand needing to attract more people to keep the cost low :ok_hand:

@franellis yep if we opt to go above our current license and have a larger event license to include more people that means we will need better more comprehensive insurance and that will be significantly more expensive. so to keep memberships at the same price, we need to extend by a significant number of people. That's why we will need to do more marketing next year.

I'm a newbie. My first Nest was in 2016 and I joined almost by accident - I was supporting an artist. I don't have a hippy background though my age isn't too far off an original hippy. But I found Nest really welcoming and inclusive, and so came the next 2 years on my own. And now I love hippies :).

I'm strongly against rebranding and am much happier with the idea of naming that shows what you are rather than the market you want to reach. I also believe Small is Beautiful and most things get ruined by growing. So by all means grow to meet demand, but don't AIM to grow. The aim should be to preserve what you've got as far as that makes people happy. If there's room for a different sort of UK burn then that's fabulous. More power to them (and anything we can do to help them should be done). Diversity is far more important than numerical growth.

Over the last 10 years I've been involved with a different community organisation which chased growth for economy and reach - the social side quickly broke down because it was trying to be right for too diverse a group. With social community broken; trust, involvement, contribution and, perversely, growth, went too. Would have been far better to split, specialise and above all else preserve the social group rather than maintain growth. If that means the group dies for lack of the original team and another arises, so be it.It's the natural way of things. Preservation of the brand in the face of change is a mistake . A lot of what's wrong with current politics, IMHO : differentiation and branding instead of service.

@adriangodwin that's all really lovely and in a ideal world i agree with you, but as i just detailed to Fran above if we want to live by our inclusion ethos that does mean growth... there are already 70-odd people looking for memberships which aren't forthcoming this year. We have a wonderful mind blowing approx 30% newbies this year (whoop!) and your experience of becoming part of this community is exactly the reason we should be opting to grow.

However in boring practical terms, it's actually not that straightforward. If we opt to go above our current license and have a larger event license to include more people that means we will need better more comprehensive insurance and that will be significantly more expensive. so to keep memberships at the same price, we need to extend by a significant number of people to have enough revenue to pay for the extra costs of license and insurance. Because laws and shit as well as inclusion and accessibility. this is the balance we must maintain. It's not as easy as going, oh let's just have another 50 folks. It just won't work, sadly.

This is all feeding nicely into the discussions we'll be having at the Nest community meeting on the Sunday. Please come along and contribute to it

I thought the picnic said it was just for fun, no discussions?

Yep, when is the community meeting bit happening? News to me too.

I mean a community meeting at Nest

I'll check FB, thanks

I'm with @charlottedavis on this one... We've already been talking about a digital overhaul for next year and i think making sure our creative direction is part of that is essential. If there are any graphic designers in our midst would would like to support the creation of an image library, go for it.

I think the dragon in the Nest is lovely, but i do think it could do with a new lick of paint and perhaps some different colouration..? Any offers to help with that, gladly received as i'm not a graphic artist.

We will need to get cracking with all of this fairly sharply after this year's Nest to make sure it's all ship shape before we start the event planning for 2020.

As for the name, Nest is the registered name with BMOrg, so changing it is probably a no go on that front. From my perspective as Comms & Marketing Lead: as we're hopefully going to be upping capacity on membership numbers next year and it will be a BIG increase if we do, and therefore a lot more work to market, the last thing we should do is totally change our brand identity. So, yes, a refresh of all artwork and digital comms is definitely something i would like to see, particularly aligning to the theme as Charlotte has done this year... Total change is not something I would recommend in my capacity as lead in light of the challenging opportunities that we will have going on next year.

sounds all on point to me.

Does this mean we already have the theme for next year so we can have the graphics in time?

we don't, but perhaps this year we could sort that out early?

I really want us to have creative team between arts, marketing and comms next year, @amandasm if poss? can we put heads together to see how this might work in practice? So we'd have creative direction across everything... <3

PS, @amandasm yes please to early release of theme - i'll need this for marketing. Have already flagged to core team: we need to make decision on membership uplift asap after this years Nest so that i can get marketing started. @mandsconnolly if you're still gonna Cat Wrangle for next year, i def need a marketing team. :)

Feel free to add these ideas to the Nest Retrospective Project on Asana

Good shout @pauliophario, will do! :)

I’m a graphic designer. I’d love to help steer the creative direction that fairly represents our community and it’s principals. I think if we just talk about who we are and the things we believe in we will attack like minded people by proxy rather than directly marketing for a bigger network. If the burn principals fit into something that more people are open to then wonderful 🌈

Agree @corinnehitching and this is exactly the approach i would like to take, but i'm also aware that to have an indirect attraction strategy, rather than direct marketing, we will need to start early on all this activity for next year as it takes longer to penetrate.

And YES PLEASE would very much love you to come on board and work with us on creative direction and bring your graphic talents. I think creating a cross-team working group between Arts, Comms and Marketing to pull a stunning creative direction thread through everything we do would be just bloody lovely. <3

Cool let's have some team power! I'm pretty used to putting creative workshop together so let's do one after Nest and see where we go weeeee

Thanks for all your hard work Siren and Char, you've done an amazing job with just the 2 of you, thank god you realise you need more people next year Siren. I know that you are a superwoman but share the love!;o) Of course as Lead Cat Wrangler I'm always asking people to step up, but this really is a chance for one of you keyboard warriors (ok I know that's pushing it :-P) to have a very visual impact. Whats not to love?!

This isn't a criticism of work made, more the way we represent ourselves going forward. Please take it as such. The image itself is of quality and to topic.

ok just a suggestion, leave a massive black board in front of the point, (and -optionnal- make a fake loomio poll design) where people can write a theme idea and vote, the winning theme is the theme for next year and is announced during the community event the sunday(i think there is one)

Or drop the idea of themes.....

@aussiefred we've only just started doing themes last year. lets give each idea a proper bash first. people are really enjoying the themes and actually they're a really good way to support inclusion and marketing.

I did wonder where the "primordial wonderland" came from. Themes are new, I didn't know, I should pay more attention to such things as the years progress.
I'll see you on site :) we can have a chat on it all

Actually this is the 3rd year with a theme, first one was Fundamentals of Flight. This year it was open to submissions but since it got started late there weren't very many. Will be better done this year - Loomio could allow more of a vote perhaps?
Anyhoo, nobody is obligated to engage with the theme if they're not into themes. Same as how Burning Man or Afrikaburn have themes - some will engage, some will just do whatever they were gonna do anyways. Those who like having a little challenge for inspiration will engage and others are free to ignore it.

Yeah, fundamentals of flight 2017, now you mention it I remember that one :) Good year that one. The first year away from the old site and so we thought we were taking flight. We had the super-sized dragon and the massive site layout