Black Rock Center for Unlearning welcomes new members

[Princess_Pee_Foot]

Howdy, folks! I'm here to let you know that Black Rock Center for Unlearning, or BRCU, is welcoming new members. Started in 2009 by mostly virgin burners, we’ve made a tradition of welcoming new people, both virgins and veteran burners, to our camp each year. Some stay for years, some move on to start their own theme camps, some continue their personal tradition of camping with a different group each year. At this point, the BRCU family pretty much spans the globe.

We are a collective of about 90 people coming together each year to offer the citizens of Black Rock City a place to hang out, have a drink, play games, and dance. Each day boasts a different craft cocktail designed by our resident bar mistress. We have 1,500 square feet of shaded public lounge space, resident DJs, a fire pit and a trampoline. Plus swag. Yup, we have cool swag for our patrons. Buttons, stickers, and whatever gets deposited into our just-the-tip jar.

We also have swagger. Okay, I might be getting out of control. I don’t actually know what swagger means. I just mean we’re bad asses. We work hard and play harder. We build and maintain our awesome desert home as a team. And at the end of the week, we take it all down and pack it all up as a team. We all work to prepare our meals and clean the kitchen. There are no construction crews, no caterers, no Sherpas. We have seriously awesome amenities because we work together to pay for and organize them. We're no plug and play camp. Everybody works. Everybody participates. Our camp dues are contributions from all camp members to ensure the camp operates on playa. We are transparent about how those dues are spent, posting the camp budget for each year. This collective pooling of funds enables campers from all over the world to participate and contribute without having to haul that contribution in the form of bottles of booze or food for community meals. These funds allow us to store the camp infrastructure year round. They pay for the box truck that gets it all on playa, the gas and generators that keep our fridges, freezers and lights running. They pay for private potties, a simple camp shower, and grey water removal. They pay for our interactivity- that awesome bar I mentioned. And they pay for us to eat. That’s right: we have an awesome meal plan. Seriously. I spend half the year geeking out about the freaking meal plan. I'm sure my co-workers are sick of me. Just the other day, another camp lead and I wandered Costco for hours comparing quality and prices on countless ingredients that will go into our super-yummy eats.

These meals are no joke. Our meal plan includes two meals per day for the full eight days of the event. I mean full Thanksgiving dinner, Taco Tuesday, fresh salads, fruits and vegetables, and 100 pounds of quality, thick cut bacon slowly fried in a pool of its own fat. If that last part turned your stomach, don’t fret. We have vegetarian options at every meal. And not just scrambled eggs, veggie platters and peanut butter sandwiches either. I mean complete proteins. I mean cinnamon-banana breakfast quinoa served with maple glazed veggie sausage; delicious chick pea salad wraps; and amazing curry prepared by a seriously adorable Canadian chef who just happens to be camping with us. If you’re gluten free – we’ve got you covered too. But I need to be clear – this is a kitchen operated on playa by volunteers. If you have celiac disease, we simply cannot guarantee there will be zero cross contamination, but we do our best. As for vegans, I’m terribly sorry, but we’re just not there yet.

If you’d like to know more, please email me. This will be my seventh burn and my fifth year with BRCU. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

<3 Emily
[email protected]

[donovandymond]

Do you have room for 2 veteran burners and an RV?

[Princess_Pee_Foot]

You need a camp. We need new friends!

The Black Rock Center for Unlearning was started in 2009 by mostly virgin burners. Since that time, we've made it a priority to ensure our camp welcomes new faces every year. BRCU is an inclusive and irreverent bunch of kind of misfit weirdos. Each year, we welcome new members to our camp and they become part of the BRCU family, which now spans the globe.

As the burn approaches, we are filling up, but we still have some space available for new members. Camping with BRCU means participating and interacting with the citizens of Black Rock City as they visit our 24 hour bar, where they can enjoy shade, music, daily special craft cocktails, and our delightful if sometimes brazen and smartassed company. It means joining campmates for breakfast and dinner daily. We have an awesome meal plan, which is prepped by all campers-- camp leads have done the organizing and planning for this delicious menu, so on playa each camper just works two shifts during the week either helping to prep meals for fellow campers or clean up the kitchen after meal time. Camping with BRCU also means private potties pumped daily and access to a camp shower. We're not fancy, this is a camp shower that uses solar, gravity fed shower bags. This is not a plug and play camp, it's a lovingly dysfunctional family.

If you have questions or would like more information, please email me at [email protected]. I am the camp lead for BRCU this year. This will be my seventh burn and my fifth year with BRCU. I'm happy to help in any way I can.

<3
Emily