OFFICIAL Kings Canyon Camp Swank Thread

[Capt Jack]

me want!!!

[Prudence]

This is the style of tent we have. I highly recommend it. It's plenty big enough for two queen-sized slat beds and lots of stuff. Canvas is breathable so you can actually sleep past dawn, if you choose. And it's tall enough to stand up in. Most important - small enough to easily transport and set-up, and no guy wires to trip over.

Now y'all just need to plan a Camp Swank: Northwest edition to be able to see it.

[innerSpaceman]

With all due admiration for €uro's astute and hysterial synopsis of the competing camp styles, I have to point out that it's some of the biggest purported Laissez-faire proponents who have established the need for anal-retentive planning ... namely the TEAM STRUCTURE that's the most frelling anal-retentive camping thing I've ever come across in my life.

That's not to say it isn't successful. I'm a planner and I appreciate it. But nothing comes closer to €uro's satire, and I find it pleasantly ironic.

How about we drop the "edict" of who camps where and with whom, and furthermore forego the anal-retentive planning of meal team members and what they will be cooking?



What's that you say? It allows for much more leisure time on the camping trip? Why, so it does. That's what advance planning accomplishes.





If we're going to build Medieval Pavilions, btw ... that's gonna require a lot of planning.

Will there be jousting??

[innerSpaceman]

So, um, how come you can't set up Thursday and tear down Monday? It's not like you wouldn't have plenty of help.


It would be so damn cool.

[Morrigoon]

I could spend days on some of those medieval pavilion pages. Wow.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

I could spend days on some of those medieval pavilion pages. Wow.

Going to an SCA (or Adria) War is an amazing site. Literally hundreds of pavilion style encampments. It is not only the tents, but all the extras (furniture, etc) too.

[Sohrshah]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Going to an SCA (or Adria) War is an amazing site. Literally hundreds of pavilion style encampments. It is not only the tents, but all the extras (furniture, etc) too.

At Pennsic, there are 14,000 people. the tent city stretched for more than a MILE....

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I'm reading a book called Here Comes Everybody, about how the Internet's social groupings have changed how groups work.

He details how hard it is to get people together to accomplish things, as we're well aware.

In one part he talks about how easy it is for 2 people to go see a movie, and how it gets harder the more people you add into the mix, due to the exponential math involved.

By the time you want to go to a movie in a group of ten, waiting for forty-five separate agreements is pretty much a lost cause. You could sit around discussing the possible choices all day, with no guarantee you'll get to an agreement at all, much less in time for the movie. Instead you'll vote or draw straws, or someone will just decide to go to a particular movie and invite everyone else along, without trying to take all possible preferences into account. These difficulties have nothing to do with friendship or movie-going specificially; they are responses to the grim logic of group complexity.

Hence, groups designate leaders, or committees, or a hierarchical structure, or something to make these sorts of things work. (The point of the book is that a lot of these problems disappear in Internet groups. It's when we venture into the real world that we get in trouble, isn't it?)

My point? Eh, don't really have one, was just reading and realized it fit in with this thread. The transactional rules are there. Either you obey them or you have nervous breakdown.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

So, um, how come you can't set up Thursday and tear down Monday? It's not like you wouldn't have plenty of help.


It would be so damn cool.

The foot print is about 18' x 40'. I have very serious concerns about finding a spot large enough to place it on.

Also, it is a complicated set up. I would be very worried about trying it without the owner of the tent being there (it is not mine in case I didn't make that clear - it belongs to some friends of ours).

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

I'm reading a book called Here Comes Everybody, about how the Internet's social groupings have changed how groups work.

He details how hard it is to get people together to accomplish things, as we're well aware.

In one part he talks about how easy it is for 2 people to go see a movie, and how it gets harder the more people you add into the mix, due to the exponential math involved.



Hence, groups designate leaders, or committees, or a hierarchical structure, or something to make these sorts of things work. (The point of the book is that a lot of these problems disappear in Internet groups. It's when we venture into the real world that we get in trouble, isn't it?)

My point? Eh, don't really have one, was just reading and realized it fit in with this thread. The transactional rules are there. Either you obey them or you have nervous breakdown.

Exactly.

Being a professional events planner for almost 20 years has taught me that the "big group decision making process" accomplishes nothing, is frustrating, and does not foster excitement for the event and, in fact, it often alienates people. I MUCH prefer to work with a small planning committee, present the plan to the larger group and move on to accomplish the goal from there. That's the way I work in my professional life and that's the way I prefer to work in my non-professional event planning life.


I've already made a decision that, IF we have a camping event next year, I will either be involved in planning with a small group or I will not be involved at all. This process is too frustrating and maddening for me to take part in. While I love doing things as a group, I like to make solid plans and make them work. If that can't be accomplished with LoT events, I cannot, for my own sanity, be a part of them. I'm too busy to waste time spinning wheels.