Regional Network Forum 2022

PLENARY
9:00am – 10:00am PDT // 6:00pm – 7:00pm CEST

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Opening Remarks: Reflections on the Regional Network – Past, Present, Future
Speaker: Marian Goodell, CEO and Founding Board Member, Burning Man Project

State of the Regional Network
Speaker: Iris Yee, Steven Raspa (Regional Network, Burning Man Project)
We’ll take a holistic look at the Regional Network as it emerges from the pandemic revealed through reports and conversations with regional leaders across the globe.

Lightning Talks: Creative Responses to Community Needs
Speaker: Volodymyr Negodoga (Magic Forest), Caroline Kert “Caroshine” (Boulder Regional Contact)
Burners from Ukraine and the United States share their projects Burner-driven Mutual Aid Project and the Temple of Tranquility responding to urgent needs for humanitarian aid, collective healing and catharsis.

Opportunities to Connect and Learn Together
Speakers: Karen Jacobs and Siobhan Elliott (Education, Burning Man Project)
Discover how you and your community can access resources to develop leadership skills and find solutions to community challenges.

BREAKOUTS – SESSION 1
10:15am – 11:30am PDT // 7:15pm – 8:30pm CEST

 

Planetary Health: Burning and BLASTing Our Way to a Healthy Planet, Region by Region

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Speakers: Tim Barry “Ain Frog” (Green Theme Camp Community), Nils Hohmuth (MediMeisterschaften), Andy Justice “Money Daddy” (KiwiBurn)
How do we make our Regional Events, gatherings, and community spaces more environmentally sustainable? Learn more about the Green Theme Camp Community’s Burner Leadership Achieving Sustainable Theme Camps (BLAST) certification program and how Regional Events and communities are re-evaluating and changing their practices to make the planet a healthier place.

 

Starting Civic Projects: Humanitarian Aid and Temple of Tranquility

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Host: Molly Rose (Burners Without Borders)
Speakers: Volodymyr Negodoga (Magic Forest), Caroline Kert “Caroshine” (Boulder Regional Contact), Misa Rygrova (Czech Republic Regional Contact), Steve Maruska “Birthday” (Southeastern Colorado Regional Contact)
Learn how to start a civic project that brings your community together to create solutions to community needs, both local and afar. Burners leading active projects will share stories of their development including real time humanitarian Mutual Aid and Burners Without Borders Backpacks projects responding to Ukraine. Also discover how the Temple of Tranquility crew is partnering with local groups and designing strategies to rally support for this response to traumas experienced by Boulder, Colorado residents following the King Soopers shooting, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Marshall Fire.

 

A Workshop in Volunteer Succession Planning:
The Care and Feeding of Volunteerism in Our Communities
(Please note: This is a 3-hour workshop from 10:15am – 1:15pm PT, this will extend through Breakout Sessions 1 & 2.)

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Host: Harley K. Dubois (Burning Man Project Founding Board Member)
Volunteerism is vital for supporting participatory culture in our Burning Man communities and beyond. As our local Burner community gatherings, projects, and events return – whether in person or online – how do we recruit, develop, retain and renew volunteers to help co-create these experiences together? How do we re-engage disengaged community members and make it easier for them to step into leadership roles at our events and on our boards? How do we create the opportunity for new Burners to step forward to volunteer and help existing volunteers feel they can take a rest or explore new community roles without leaving a gap? Learn more in this interactive 3-hour workshop about the volunteer lifecycle, where you are in your own volunteer lifecycle, and what a succession plan can do for you and your community.

 

The Three Burner Life Stages and Implications for Community Health

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Host: Assaf Katz (Midburn Co-Founder)
What are the three life stages of a Burner? Come discuss this interesting theory about personal evolution. Assess which life stage you are in and what the implications of each stage are on the health and longevity of our local Burner communities. Discuss how we can assist Burners in their Burner development lifecycle, making sure our communities develop culturally at a healthy pace.

 

Trash Fence Chat Room

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Meet friends old and new in the Trash Fence open chat Zoom room. Stop by to say “hello again!” and connect with community leaders far and wide.

 

BREAKOUTS – SESSION 2
11:45am – 1:00pm PDT // 8:45pm – 10:00pm CEST

 

Radical Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (R.I.D.E.) In Motion

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Host: Iris Yee (Regional Network, Burning Man Project)
Speakers: Marlon Williams “Elephant”, Erik Peters “Threepio” (Black Rock Rangers)
What does radical inclusion, diversity, and equity mean to you, your team and community at large? Join fellow event, team and community leaders for a conversation about how groups in our global Burning Man community, including Black Rock City Rangers, are building open, inviting and inclusive culture through their team strategies and event operations. Participants will have an opportunity to share and discuss how they’re approaching this journey and tools that can help put our principles into practice. Let’s go on a R.I.D.E.!

 

The Next 25 Years: Evolving the Regional Network

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Host: Emma Weisman (Civic Activation, Burning Man Project)
The Regional Network is entering its 25th year of existence and this is certainly something to celebrate! It is also the perfect time to think about the next 25 years and what we might want to improve upon and evolve. How would you like to see the Regional Network evolve and what is important to prioritize about this evolution? Join us for a moderated discussion about the Regional Network Mission, what a thriving Network means to you, and the next 25 years and beyond!

 

Community Events Discussion Lab: Hot Topics and Challenges

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Host: Chromatest J. Pantsmaker (Regional Events Committee), joined by Zeitgeist (Regional Rangers and Regional Events Committee)
Join Regional Events Committee member Chromatest for a facilitated discussion amongst fellow event organizers. Participants will share and discuss event-related challenges identified by participants during this breakout session. This discussion lab is especially suitable for official Burning Man Regional Event teams but is open to anyone with event production experience to share. The format will be peer discussion vs. lecture.

Trash Fence Chat Room

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE TRASH FENCE

Meet friends old and new in the Trash Fence open chat Zoom room. Stop by to say “hello again!” and connect with community leaders far and wide.

Plenary Speakers

Marian Goodell – CEO, Burning Man Founding Board Member, Burning Man Project
As the organization’s recently named first CEO, Marian oversees Burning Man’s year-round staff of 70+ employees and its annual operating budget ($45 M in a normal year with the Burning Man event, but halved in 2020). Marian first attended Burning Man in 1995, and in 1997 was a co-founder of the management organization that eventually became Black Rock City, LLC, which produces the Burning Man event. Throughout her leadership in the Burning Man organization, she has been the Director of Business and Communications, and also oversaw the Black Rock City Department of Public Works. She has steered the development of the Burning Man Regional Network, which is now on six continents, with more than 250 representatives in 30 countries. Marian is a founding board member of the Burning Man Project, the Black Rock Arts Foundation, and Black Rock Solar. She is currently leading the organization’s efforts to facilitate and extend the Burning Man ethos globally.
Marian holds a BA in Creative Writing from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland and an MFA in photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She has worked in sales and public relations, and was a project manager for a software development firm when she first arrived as a participant at Burning Man in 1995.

Iris Yee “Miao” – Head of Regional Network, Burning Man Project
Iris first trekked to Black Rock City from New York City in 2008, curious about “that crazy art thing in the desert”. Fascinated by the people, the art, and experiences they created during that scorching week, she vowed to return home and bring that sense of playa wonder wherever she lived. After moving to Beijing, she sought out other China-based Burners, and served as a welcoming presence for visitors while volunteering remotely for Media Mecca. As Head of Regional Network, Iris facilitates connections between Burners across the world and supports over 250 Regional Contacts, who are volunteering to nurture Burning Man culture year-round in their local communities.

$teven Ra$pa – Associate Director of Community Events & Member of Regional Network and Regional Events Committees, Burning Man Project
$teven Ra$pa is an artist, arts advocate, pacifist, prankster, community organizer and long-time community event producer for Burning Man. He has over 25 years of event production experience and has worked with numerous cultural organizations and museums. He supports and nurtures Burner communities around the world with their official Regional Events. He is a founding member of the Burning Man Regional Network Committee and Regional Events Committee and has a wide range of experience supporting a growing, and globally dispersed community of artists and freethinkers. He often speaks about applying the 10 Principles to daily life and urban planning. His present medium of choice is “social reality”.

Volodymyr Nedogoda – General Producer, Magic Forest & Artmisto
Volodymyr is a Burning Man artist, leader of the Artmisto creative team, organizer of official Regional Events in Ukraine and active supporter of Ukraine during this hard time in terms of the 10 Principles. He helped found and produce Magic Forest, the official Burning Man Regional Event in the Lviv region.

Caroline Kert “Caroshine” – Temple of Tranquility Advisory Committee & Boulder Regional Contact
Caroshine has been serving as the Burning Man Regional Contact in Boulder, Colorado since 2016 and previously served in a Director position with Apogaea, an official Colorado Burning Man event. At the time, Apogaea was a 1,000+ person event, with overnight components, large scale art installations, and hundreds of volunteers. Ms. Kert attended several leadership training summits put on by Burning Man and worked her way up to becoming President of the event for two years. She continued to be involved over the course of a decade in an advisory capacity.
As a Regional Contact, Caroshine has helped the community to provide innovative programs for the arts. She and the local Burning Man community have successfully presented three large scale official Burning Man fundraising events, have managed community funds, have provided art grants, and coordinated a regional arts leadership summit for the arts community as a whole (2019 Burning Arts Leadership Summit in Boulder). She is also a member of the Boulder Arts Commission and Principal Attorney at Creative Legal (Boulder).

Karen Jacobs – Learning Manager, Burning Man Project
KJ is the Learning Manager at Burning Man Project. She works across many teams at Burning Man to strategize, develop, and deliver on learning opportunities for staff members in Black Rock City and throughout the year.
KJ has worn many hats since she began working for Burning Man in 2007. She has wrangled data and logistics for the Department of Public Works, and had a hand in much of the varied work of the People Operations team. Burning since 2001, KJ has been blessed with truly incredible experiences in BRC, including her many years of spinning fire with the performance group The Mutaytor. When not hard at work for Burning Man, she works hard to indulge in her passions for cooking, yoga, family time, and the outdoors.

Siobhan Elliott – Education Program Coordinator, Burning Man Project
Siobhan (pronounced shi-VON) Elliott is the Education Team Coordinator at Burning Man Project, and a host on Burning Man Hive, creating course content and partnering with staff and the Burner community to foster connection and learning year-round. She attended the Burn in 2019, then joined Burning Man Project in August, 2021. Outside of Burning Man Project, you’ll find her avoiding the Florida heat and humidity through travel.

Breakout Session Speakers

Harley K. Dubois – Burning Man Project Founding Board Member and Chief Culture Officer
Harley K. Dubois is a founding Board Member and serves as the Chief Culture Officer for
Burning Man Project. Harley’s expertise in project management, art facilitation,
organizational culture, and city planning has directly contributed to the growth of Burning
Man into a worldwide cultural and artistic movement. Harley is a founding Board Member of
the Black Rock Arts Foundation, where she created the Grants to Artists program, now
known as the Global Arts program. For eight years Harley served as City Manager of Black
Rock City, overseeing many practical aspects of the building and disappearance of the city,
including Community Services, Life Safety, City Zoning, Environmental Sustainability, and
Volunteerism. She has also been deeply involved in leading the fiduciary, legal, and staff
development aspects of the entire organization. In 2016, Harley was named a founding Board
Member of the Nation of Makers, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide more Americans
access to the spaces, communities, and tools to create more and consume less. Harley also sits
on the Board of Illuminate the Arts (ITA), the nonprofit producer of San Francisco’s The Bay
Lights, and on the Board of her local radio station, KALW Public Media.

Andy Justice “Money Daddy” – Kiwiburn Chair and Treasurer
Having observed Burning Man from afar for many years, Andy couldn’t make it to Kiwiburn until 2017 during which he was appointed to the Finance team before taking on the full Treasurer role on ExCom six months later. In late 2019 Andy also took on the role of Acting Chair and after sixteen months this morphed into being appointed as the full Chair and will hold the Treasurer role until Kiwiburn finds someone else to count the beans. Andy joined ExCom to help develop a plan for the long term viability of Kiwiburn’s annual event and the expansion of Kiwiburn’s activities to include other events and happenings year round, particularly in relation to the Arts, and to foster greater engagement with various community groups both within, and external to, the burner community itself.

Tim Barry “Ain Frog” – Green Theme Camp Community
Ain Frog, default Tim Barry, began designing green buildings as a Peace Corps volunteer five decades ago. A retired architect still volunteering with Burning Man and the GTCC team, he’s now helping develop our Burner BLAST standards for greening our nomadic villages, from alkali deserts like BRC, to airport runways like Medi, to lush pastures like the Kiwi Paddock. Over in the default, in the real world of covid and humanitarian travesties, the past two years Tim’s also been applying Real Green to refugee camps in Mexico. In 1995, Tim began working on the USGBC development team creating the LEED green building standards, and since then has applied LEED on something over 50 million cubic meters of design projects, all around our planet. Frog’s love Real Green.

Nils Hohmuth – MediMeisterschaften
Nils is a Burner and a medical doctor and works on research projects around Planetary Health. The World Health Organization sees climate change as the biggest health threat facing humanity. He uses wearables and digitalization to better understand questions like: How do humans impact the earth’s ecosystems? And how does this affect human health? Nils has a huge passion for festivals and art gatherings. For 15 years, he has been an organizer of the largest medical student gathering globally, with up to 25k participants. Together with the Green Theme Camp Community team, his latest project aims to measure, reduce, and compensate for CO2 created through events. The goal is to create an easy-to-use calculation-model for local burns and camps worldwide to measure their emissions, efficiently reduce them, and offset the unavoidable ones.

Molly Rose – Program Manager, Burners Without Borders
As Program Manager for Burners Without Borders, Molly Rose promotes Burners’ civic impact around the world. She partners with leaders at all stages of civic aspirations, amplifies community initiatives, and supports the BWB network in self-organizing and decentralized networking. Molly is especially driven by projects related to access to creative expression, process and equity-focused partnerships, and finding shared work in dynamic collaborations. She has lived, worked, and studied in more than 15 countries, and believes that clear communication solves almost everything. Molly also works in festival, event, and immersive experience production in NYC, is an avid sunrise dancer, amateur neon bender, and loves what happens at the intersection of creative expression, a solidarity mindset, and grassroots humanitarian programming.

Volodymyr Nedogoda – General Producer, Magic Forest & Artmisto
Volodymyr is a Burning Man artist, leader of the Artmisto creative team, organizer of official Regional Events in Ukraine and active supporter of Ukraine during this hard time in terms of the 10 Principles. He helped found and produce Magic Forest, the official Burning Man Regional Event in the Lviv region.

Caroline Kert “Caroshine” – Temple of Tranquility Advisory Committee & Boulder Regional Contact
Caroshine has been serving as the Burning Man Regional Contact in Boulder, Colorado since 2016 and previously served in a Director position with Apogaea, an official Colorado Burning Man event. At the time, Apogaea was a 1,000+ person event, with overnight components, large scale art installations, and hundreds of volunteers. Ms. Kert attended several leadership training summits put on by Burning Man and worked her way up to becoming President of the event for two years. She continued to be involved over the course of a decade in an advisory capacity.
As a Regional Contact, Caroshine has helped the community to provide innovative programs for the arts. She and the local Burning Man community have successfully presented three large scale official Burning Man fundraising events, have managed community funds, have provided art grants, and coordinated a regional arts leadership summit for the arts community as a whole (2019 Burning Arts Leadership Summit in Boulder). She is also a member of the Boulder Arts Commission and Principal Attorney at Creative Legal (Boulder).

Misa Rygrova – Czech Republic Regional Contact and Alumni Meta Regional Contact
Misa has been burning since 2010. She learned about Burning Man by accident on internet and is dust addict ever since she stepped on playa. She started to volunteer as Regional Contact for Czech Republic and Eastern Europe, is helping the Regional Network and in 2015 became the first Burning Man Project Fellow. She is based in Prague in Europe and makes sure Europe keeps Burning. Misa also loves to wear black and volunteer with Gate, Perimeter & Exodus. Her name should be written with diacritics, but it usually breaks computers…let’s try it… Míša (pronounced as Misha or Meesha).

Iris Yee “Miao” – Head of Regional Network, Burning Man Project
Iris first trekked to Black Rock City from New York City in 2008, curious about “that crazy art thing in the desert”. Fascinated by the people, the art, and experiences they created during that scorching week, she vowed to return home and bring that sense of playa wonder wherever she lived. After moving to Beijing, she sought out other China-based Burners, and served as a welcoming presence for visitors while volunteering remotely for Media Mecca. As Head of Regional Network, Iris facilitates connections between Burners across the world and supports over 250 Regional Contacts, who are volunteering to nurture Burning Man culture year-round in their local communities.

Marlon Williams “Elephant” – Living Cities & Black Rock Rangers
Marlon Williams is a public servant and organizer skilled in leading the transformation of public institutions to center equity and create a more just world. He serves as an advisor on organizational and systems change initiatives that readily require the coordination of multiple stakeholders and perspectives to address and undo systemic racism. When cities and institutions want to work towards operationalizing racial equity in their policies, programs, and practices, he is who they call.

Erik Peters “Threepio” – Black Rock Rangers
Erik Peters is an advisory member of the Black Rock Ranger Council working on incorporating the Burning Man Radical Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (R.I.D.E) initiative into the Ranger space. He has extensive experience with both volunteer coordination and event operations in a variety of both Burner and non-Burner contexts, including volunteer work at a number of regional burns. He is a passionate advocate and facilitator of organizational systems change in nonprofits and volunteer settings.

Assaf Katz – Co-Founder, Midburn
Assaf is one of Midburn’s Co-Founders, Israel Regional Contact Alumni and has been burning since 2009. He has led many development programs in various professional roles.

Emma Weisman, J.D. – Burners Without Borders & Civic Activation, Burning Man Project
Emma is the Associate Director of Operations, Burners Without Borders, Civic Activation. She joined the Government Affairs department as their Government Agency Relationship Manager in 2018, a natural progression in a peripatetic career including athletic fashion retail buying and management, law, natural disaster response management, emerging agricultural industries consulting and management, and international nonprofit management. It’s her privilege to have transitioned into the Burners Without Borders and Civic Activation departments in an operational capacity.
Emma first went to Burning Man in 2009, where she found many parallels between her own beliefs about art and civic involvement and the 10 Principles. In 2010 Emma went to Haiti where she collaborated with BWB alums and other volunteer disaster responders to found Haiti Communitere and Communtiere International. She is a member of the Birds of a Feather art collective and a part of the theme camp Hearth, which merged with Awesome(ville)! and then splintered back out to become Awkward(ville)!.
Emma was raised in Vermont, attending the Bread and Puppet Domestic Resurrection Circus from infancy. She graduated from the Buxton School in Williamstown, Mass., and holds a B.A. in English Literature from Kenyon College and a J.D. from the University of Oregon. She will enter into a war of words with anyone who devalues arts high schools or liberal arts educations.

Chromatest J. Pantsmaker – Regional Events Committee and Official Events Team, Burning Man Project
Burning since before he was born, Chromatest currently volunteers with the Regional Events Committee and the Official Events Team. He’s a theme camp organizer, event organizer, DJ, musician, and artist. Chromatest is also a former Regional Contact for Arizona. You may have seen him awkwardly presenting at the Global Leadership Conference once or twice, or maybe dressed up as Santa in Black Rock City.

Corprew Reed “Zeitgeist” – Regional Events Committee, Burning Man Project & Black Rock Rangers
Corprew ‘Zeitgeist’ Reed is a member of the Regional Events Committee and a facilitator of the Regional Ranger Network. He is a long time Black Rock Ranger.

Steven Maruska “Birthday” – Southeastern Colorado Regional Contact
Steve Maruska has been engaged with the art community for many years. While serving on the Public Art Commission for the Town of Castle Rock for 5 years(4 as Chairperson), he oversaw the implementations of over 20 long term projects. Many will hold places of prominence in the town long after his existence. He has managed leadership teams numbering over 15 and volunteer teams in the hundreds for one day and multiple day(overnight) special events in Denver and Park County. Steve has spent over 20 years developing his career and skills in the IT industry and has been pivotal in the development of points of presence in The Netherlands, China, India, England and Japan as well as domestically in Virginia, Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago. Steve also leads several nonprofit and for profit companies in the worlds of art, real estate, IT and community building.