Placement Questionnaire Tips for 2016

[trilobyte]

HepKitten from the placement team has written up a pretty awesome document with tips for camps filling out placement questionnaires. With the team's permission, I'm sharing that info below.
  

Who should fill it out?  It should be someone who is knowledgeable about your camp and who can make decisions regarding it.  In other words one of your core members / camp planners/ camp mom/dad/mayor whatever you want to call yourself. This person is placement's camp contact.

Availability of that person. That person needs to be available to answer emails and phone calls from the time they submit the questionnaire through the time we send out the "You've been placed announcement" (That's March - July)  And I don't mean every second, but they should not be out of the country, offline, or someone who doesn't check their email AND voice mail pretty regularly.  Sometimes we have the time to wait for a response and other times we don't - so having someone who's on top of both methods of communication is ideal.

Filling out your questionnaire

1. Who's your placer?  Presume that the person who will be mapping and potentially placing your camp knows nothing about it.  I know that a lot of folks are now used to having the same person who's placed them for years but you can't count on that.  Better to take the time to fill in the information we need than to assume we know who you are and have a new placer who's not heard of your camp not place you because you didn't give us relevant information.
2. Interaction.  In the not so distant past having one thing happening at your camp once a day was great!  It's not enough anymore.  We have consistently gotten more theme camps asking to be placed than we have space for.  What this means to you is that the camps that are doing more will get placed.  Especially in relation to camp membership.  If you have a big camp we want/expect/need more interactivity to be happening. Put details about your interaction IN the interaction field not elsewhere.  Make sure that what you are putting in this section is only your interaction.  Be concise but thorough (I know that's a bit of a paradox but I think you know what I mean).  Include how often and for how long you will be providing each interaction.
3. Interaction where? Keep in mind that the interaction that we consider when we are looking at your camp for placement are all the great things that you are doing *within your camp*.  So if you are meeting up at your camp and having a parade or taking people to a deep playa party that's great.  And we, personally, may want to know about it so we can join in the fun *but* it will *not* count as interactivity for your camp because it is not happening in your camp space.
4. Use enthusiasm.  Let us know in your questionnaire how excited you are about all the cool things your camp is planning on doing.
5. Be yourself.  If you're funny, be funny; if you're sarcastic, be sarcastic.  Use your personality while you're answering the questions
6. Vague is bad. Make sure you take the time to let us know what you're doing THIS year and be descriptive about it.  Don't say 'we're bringing food' say 'we'll be making the most amazing yummy quesadillas'. 
7. 1 vs 200.  While you're grumbling about what a pain in the patootie filling out the questionnaire is and beginning to feel lazy about filling in all the data we ask for please keep the following in mind. While you have to take that time to fill in ONE questionnaire each placer is reading about 200, or more, of them.  So while punctuation and spelling, or lack there of, isn't necessarily going to put you on the 'no placement' list it IS important so please try to pay attention to it.  And while I'm at it please please don't use all caps when filling in the data.
8. Don't wait until the last minute (April 28, 2016 at 12 noon) - we know you want to give us the most accurate information as you can, but waiting until the last day is a really bad idea.  You can always update us with changes to your interactivity after you've filled in the questionnaire so fill it in a little early and give yourself time to do it right.
9. Camp Plans -
   1. Dimensions. Please make sure that you write down dimensions - frontage and depth of camp (with both marked as such) in addition to contact information and camp name.  Please mark your frontage on your camp plan.
   2. Be realistic about your needs - account for infrastructure, camp members tents, and parking all the vehicles that will come with your campmates WITHIN your camp.  Don't expect to be able to spread out or park elsewhere.
   3. Large Structures? If you have any large structures they need to be on the camp plan.  Most times when we are looking to change the depth or frontage of your camp to fit into a space we have we consult your camp plan.  If you've neglected to put that 60 foot dome on the map we may adjust you out of the space you need for it.
   4. Container?  If you've rented a container from Burning man or are having a driver who is not part of your camp deliver it - Put it on your camp plan. Don't forget to include the PC#, mark where the door goes,  and include the dimensions from the borders to place it inside your camp. 
   5. Private/Public space/RV Fortresses. We understand you need to plan for private space and that trucks and RV's make excellent 'walls' to block the heat and the wind/elements for your tent campers.  But if you are lining a block with big vehicles please consider trying to make the street a little prettier by covering the sides of these vehicles with art.  All it takes is a big sheet that someone draws a mural on secured to the side - have those camp mates that live far away and aren't able to attend your work weekends take this on if you can - it's a great way to keep your privacy while you're making sure you're keeping our city beautiful.  That said - make sure you've also allotted public space that is easily seen as such - please NO RV fortresses.
   6. Previous Playa Projects/Other Contributions - Use these field to let us know what other projects you have worked on, what departments you volunteer for and what other camps you have been a part of.
   7. Communication.  How do you get a hold of us?  Send an email to [email protected].  Include your camp name in the subject line and your first sector choice.  The newsletter we send out after placement is announced is an announce only list. If you try to respond to it that email will bounce. But we have many placers monitoring [email protected] and we'll do our best to get back to you in a timely manner.
10. Who should be on your early arrival team?  Only you can truly answer this - but please be sure that the folks who are the first to arrive (the ones who meet us and who we place in your home on the playa) are the ones who actually know your camp and where things go.  The first folks should NOT be that cute sparkle pony that just joined your camp and who wants to get there early but who has no clue about the infrastructure of your camp.   Please make sure that everyone in your camp knows the name that you put on the questionnaire.   And if you are part of a village make sure they know the name of the village as well.



Have a picture of your frontage from last year?  After you've filled in your questionnaire please send it to us ([email protected] - with your camp name and sector first choice in the subject line). We can attach it to your questionnaire.  It will help placers who may not be familiar with your camp to have a realistic picture of your camps' awesomeness.


Do the right thing. And the last thing - which seems like a no brainer, but bears mentioning, follow through with the interactivity you've told us you're doing.  Making changes to specifics is ok - but keep in mind we WILL check up on you to make sure SOMETHING is going on. 

HUGE thanks to HepKitten and the rest of the placement team. These are some great tips, I hope it helps them get a better crop of questionnaires this year than ever before.

Go here to access the Camp Placement Questionnaire.

[Popeye]

Nicely written and informative. I'm particularly glad to see:

[*]Be realistic about your needs - account for infrastructure, camp members tents, and parking all the vehicles that will come with your campmates WITHIN your camp.  Don't expect to be able to spread out or park elsewhere.

I know this was discussed last fall with no real conclusion, glad to see something official and maybe I won't wake up in the morning to see a 50+ car parking lot across the street.

[trilobyte]

The topic was discussed at some length last summer, somewhere after where placement was announced and people started leaving for the desert. From what I had gathered in that discussion, there was some level of disconnect in the messaging that some camps were getting. From a logistics standpoint it would have been a nightmare to tell a camp or village that something they had previously been told was okay wasn't okay, and that they had to re-think their whole plan just weeks before the burn... so I'm glad that they let things slide last year and followed that up with clear messaging from the start in 2016.

[BBadger]

Nicely written and informative. I'm particularly glad to see:

[*]Be realistic about your needs - account for infrastructure, camp members tents, and parking all the vehicles that will come with your campmates WITHIN your camp.  Don't expect to be able to spread out or park elsewhere.

Wow, I'm surprised that this wasn't the protocol already. I thought it was assumed that this is what you were supposed to do. Then again, I don't know why these things surprise me anymore.

[Jovankat]

It got brought up at the Theme Camp Organizers symposium a few weeks back and the response was something along the lines of "it's something we're thinking about"

It struck me that placement seemed quite blasé about it in comparison to how worked up about it people got here and in the Theme Camp Organizers Facebook group.

[Eugenia]

I'm going to forward this to the person doing our app this year, and make sure he gets a photo of the front of our camp from last year.

One thing I'd add to that list, if the person filling out the app this year didn't do it last year, last year's person should forward them that confirmation email we get from finishing the all. And if the same person does it every year, doing a little refreshing/recycling of the info from the previous year is helpful.

I did my camp app the last two years (Horny Camp). Another camper is doing it this year, and the first thing I did was send him last year's info. Makes it a lot easier, when you have all the old stuff to go from.

[trilobyte]

Hopefully the person coordinating your camp's placement questionnaire last year also communicated the change to the placement team when they asked for that kind of info in February. Otherwise don't sweat it, if I remember correctly there is a field in the placement form for also mentioning any changes in leadership/contact person.

[Dr Dilemma]

Nicely written and informative. I'm particularly glad to see:

[*]Be realistic about your needs - account for infrastructure, camp members tents, and parking all the vehicles that will come with your campmates WITHIN your camp.  Don't expect to be able to spread out or park elsewhere.

I know this was discussed last fall with no real conclusion, glad to see something official and maybe I won't wake up in the morning to see a 50+ car parking lot across the street.

My recollection from the Theme Camp leader forum a few weeks back they talked about this a bit and were going to be actively discouraging the practice for various reasons. Hopefully they will take this into consideration when sizing the space. What I didn't hear this year was anything about a "fire lane" in camps, which was talked about last year.

[trilobyte]

Perhaps you or your camp leader should take a look at the camp layout page. Aside from just being a part of the published theme camp resources, it's also linked to in a few places in the placement questionnaire. There's not a lot to talk about, if the camp is over 150'x150' they need to have a fire lane as the page describes.