Should we stay or should we go?

I think we should have at least one more year on this site. It is a beautiful piece of land with multiple areas, and I think we can improve a lot on what we did last year now we know the site. I’m all in favour of another burn there!

I liked the site but can definitely see where Tom is coming from in terms of some people in tents, some people in the cottages and it being a bit spread out and fractured. It gives us less freedom to put things where we want to as we have to work with what's there.

I know we aren't using this to complain about last year but I also think there has to be a conversation with the owner about how present he is while we are there using the facilities to avoid people feeling uncomfortable.

If possible, maybe we ask them to hold it a while longer but make an active effort to find a suitable alternative within a specific timeframe and if we havent agreed on another site then we stick where we are. It feels a bit risky to let this site go when it has so many good aspects to it in favour of the unknown.

Mmmmm, Can't get past the title riff.........

I'm an easy customer, could go for staying or leaving. Mainly I can't wait to burn in Scotland again and try out all the lessons lerned last year and from over the year.

Thoughts:

The event has a max capacity of 100 people (site specified). My favourite scenario would be a non-advertised (word of mouth), organic number of people attending that could be 100, but could be more or could be less.

Tom is right that it is more a holiday, with someone collecting our waste, lighting the sauna etc. That's all okay but important to know that it is there, and making it's own constrictions to our expression.

Thinking, thinking.....

I'm in favour of a new site... if, Tom's two land contacts in Scotland are a positive bet? If they are uncertain or can't commit then I would stick with last years site.

My thoughts on a move - The processes that we have (with some fine tuning) will make a new venue easier. (much of the hard work done last time).

I would like to imagine our community, when faced with a big decision like this, chooses the more radical, uncertain future with more potentail. A year is a long time, so much happens, things change, we all change. No time to waste, I want to be radical and shape the future and community that I want to be a part of.

I can put my name forward to join a team of land explorers if we do decide to move.

I'm all in favour of some land exploration but keeping in mind Frans comments about the popularity of those dates and the lead in time to secure something.

Do we have any idea of how long we can feasibly keep the current site earmarked with the owners? We can then impose on ourselves a date a month from now to come up with a suitable alternative and make the final decision?

Well, on 12th July she asked me to let her know "ASAP one way or another as Easter weekend is usually very popular"

Yeah, so sounds like we need to make a decision now. I say we stay then in that case and try to work on the feedback we got last year to give us more opportunity to focus on the community side of it now we know the lay of the land.

I am happy to stay or go, but if we go for Easter again, that’s only 7.5 months away, and whole-site bookings do need to happen quite far in advance, especially when they’re over school breaks. Definitely agree that if we return I would stipulate that we operate the sauna and hot tub ourselves. We could have a wee site liaison crew - no need for the entire burn to listen to long ass speeches. A positive for me about having it easy infra wise is that it gives us more energy to build community, relationships and culture, super necessary if we are to ‘make it’ out there on our own.

Like the possibility of more people with applying for an event notice like Tom says. 100 fills up so quickly and the waiting list last year was 30ppl deep. Site liaison crew sounds good, especially if there are more people to fit in.

I think we should contact the site to confirm what would the process be to have more people there. They told John and I when we picked up the lost and found that they can host a certain number of larger events per year by submitting a notice (very much like TEN in UK , which is ten per site per year) and now they trust us they would be happy to talk about that. So let's do it. Let's get prices and sizes etc before we make a decision if possible?

So it looks like this AP is closed in favour of going back to the site to discuss the max number of attendees we can have before the final decision is made.

Closed 10th Sept.

Hello, appreciate this AP is closed but still seems to be the best place to post an update! Chatted to the site. Unofficially 150 people max, no infrastructure for any more than that. Cost is £7,100 for the whole site Thursday to Tuesday, including a couple of yurts that we cancelled last year to reduce the price per person. A weekend costs £4,100, extra nights = £1k p/night. A weekend means 2 nights Fri and Sat or Sat and Sun. They need a deposit asap, which is 25% total booking (Can anyone confirm how much cash we have left from last year for this?) There are no clashes at the moment if we want to extend our booking to Tues-Tues (the people before us leave on the Sunday).

Finally, I mentioned operating the 'spa' ourselves for increased privacy, including mentioning that some members felt uncomfortable getting undressed with Mike being there all the time. The sauna almost certainly fine but hot tub very expensive to fix if anything goes wrong, more than our 500 cleaning deposit. So we have to raise this with Mike directly.

Mike said they had bigger events there before and he trusted us to do that (he was very complimentary about us as respectful visitors) shame they don't seem to want to go through with it now. I know it's extra risk for them as it involves an event notice being looked at by officials, so maybe on reflection he just doesn't want to do it next year. who knows. thanks for reeching out and asking though. I also wonder if we want to pay £1000 for Monay night? is that good value for money?

I have also got details of two further sites we could go on a mission to look at while we are all up there if anyone else is instersted in that? One of them is on the north side of Galloway forest park, which is only just over and hour away. That land would be free for us to use as it's owned by an American burner who wants to support us. It is an empty site though, but with no neighbours and huge woodlands.

I'm happy to get involved in visits to potential sites (whether for this year or for future years), I'm looking at properties around that area anyway. May know another potential site around that area too, will check with owner.

We have £2477.99 in the account. I'll ring and pay deposit to secure the site.

This thread is closed now and we will be staying at the old site for next year.

I cant work out how to put this comment up top*