Camp Trans 2007
What is the number one thing a thinking dyke can do to broaden her political and social conscience? Get yer ass to Camp Trans, a fiercely engaged and deliriously celebratory protest...
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Directions to Camp!
Hey folks,
its getting to be that time when most of us going to camp trans this summer are trying to finalise the last details of our travel plans and start to head off toward camp-- we're getting more requests for directions to camp every day and that's great. i wanted to remind folks though that we do not post directions to camp anywhere on the internet (for the saftey and security of CT campers as well as the festies at MWMF) and the only ways to get them are to ask a friend who has directions or to email us at [email protected]! i know from personal experience that it sucks to realize the day i'm supposed to leave for camp that i never got directions and hoping hoping hoping that someone's still around to check their email and send out a copy of the directions! [email protected] redirects to my email address and i plan on checking my email for the last time before going off into the woods on friday early morning. i'll do my best to get someone to check my email for me once or twice while i'm gone and maybe even post the email address of someone else who will have internet access all week to volenteer to send off directions to folks getting them at the last minute but i'm not making any promises except that i'll do my best!!! the moral of the story being, if you need directions, please email and ask for them asap!!!
looking forward to meeting all of you next week at camp!!!
<3 jack radish
The Activity Grid Arrives!
Hey all, I know we've been silent a bit for technical difficulties (as you can see, we're even having problems changing the name of the site to be more relavent to the 2007 event), but we wanted you to know we're still here, and CT07 is still going to happen from Sunday, August 5th to Sunday, August 12th. As such, here's the tentative plan of events, with more to come! All times approximate, clearly, as time moves differently when you're at CT.
Sunday, August 5th
till 1:00: Structure Set-Up
3:00-5:00: Advocate Training #1 with Ali Blue
Monday, August 6th
9:00-12:00: Walking the MWMF line, to promote respect and Trans-Feminist Unity
5:00-7:00: Introductory Camp Fire
Tuesday, August 7th
3:00-4:30: DIY Caucus Time
5:00-6:30: Health and Safety Training Workshop
Wednesday, August 8th
1:30-3:00: Social times! Group Lake Trip, or Reasonable Facsimile
3:00-4:30: Queer Gamers Unite! with Lina
5:00-6:30: Flirting Workshop with Jack
8:30-Late: Open Mic/Karaoke Night
Thursday, August 9th
1:30-3:00: Medical Advocacy with Micah, or Genderqueer? with Kai
3:00-4:30: Advocate Training #2 with Ali Blue
5:00-6:30: Transwomen and Doin' It with Imi
7:00-8:00: Future of CT Development Meeting
8:30-Late: Show Night! Some Awesome Performers Yet to be Finalized!
Friday, August 10th
12:00-1:00: Meet and Greet Game
1:30-3:00: Racism and Activism with Sailor
3:00-4:30: Allies Workshop with Ariel
5:00-6:30: Trannyfag Caucus with Al, Transwomen Caucus with Lina and Imogen
7:00-8:00: Future of CT Candidate Meet and Greet
8:00-8:30: Votes Cast for CT2008 Organizer Positions
9:00-Late: Show Night! Some Awesome Performers Yet to be Finalized!
Saturday, August 11th
1:30-3:00: Trans and Cis Relationships Workshop with Caitlyn and Ariel
3:00-4:30: Queer Scientists Caucus with Sean
5:00-6:30: Radical Masculinities Workshop with Gauge and Fender
7:00-9:00: Rally for the Future of CT! Meet Your Elected CT2008 Organizers!
9:00-Late: Show! Some Awesome Performers Yet to be Finalized!
Sunday, August 12th
TEAR DOWN!!!
And that's not even taking into account the Daily New Camper Check-Ins with Imogen in the Welcome Tent at noon, Or the Daily Advocate meetings after Lunch with Ali Blue for those who want to be a part of making CT a safer space, or the Nightly Community Meetings during the second half of each dinner. Plus! DIY caucus times, dotted all over the map.
As organizers, we've done what we could this year to make sure that there's a lot to do, but the best part of CT is, well, you. So come on this year! Bring your own charm to these events. Fill our program holes with what you want to see, or just come and spend a week in a special space and duck all the programming. Here at CT, it's all about having choice, and having your choices valued as much as we possibly can.
Call for Proposals-Camp Trans
Camp Trans ‘07 will be held near Hart, Michigan on August 4-12, 2007. Join our annual gathering of transgender people and their allies as we educate festival-goers and support the building of a trans-inclusive community that is welcoming and safe for all, both on "the land" and off. We'll also work to empower the next generation of activists to fight for trans issues in their own communities, advocate for the inclusion of trans issues in progressive, queer, and feminist movements by building coalitions with supportive organizations and of course continue to protest the exclusion of trans women from other women-only spaces.
Each year Camp Trans holds workshops, trainings and caucuses around a variety of trans issues. These sessions allow campers to share their knowledge, benefit from that of others and also have fun! You can shape the experience of the many people who will pass thorough camp this year, and in doing so join a variety of others who have chosen to use their expertise to give something back.
We're looking for proposals from folks of every identity which address diverse topics such as tactics for local organizing and activism, how to be a good ally, hormones and surgery, relationships, employment, identity, and even flirting! Hour and a half sessions can come in the form of a formal workshop, casual caucus or group activity.
Please include in your proposal your name and pronoun preference (and that of any co-presenters), contact info (email and phone), the name of your session, a brief (under 200 words) description of your session including its goal and how it will be structured, a brief bio for each presenter (under 100 words) and if it is open to all attendees or closed to a specific population.
Email your proposal to [email protected] as an attachment and put "CT workshop proposal" in the subject line. The deadline for submissions is June 10th, 2007 (submissions received early may be given priority). We look forward to hearing from you!
2007 Organizational Update
Camp Trans 2007 will be important for us as an organization, although perhaps not in the way one would originally think. The best way we can support our allies in the Yellow Armbands at this time is to do away with our "On Land Organizer" position, if only for a year, so that the Yellow Armband organization has an opportunity to prove itself a separate entity from the events and the workshops that Camp Trans will be focusing on in this transitional year. We'll still be walking the line, and we'll offer our support to the Yellow Armbands in whatever way is mutually beneficial, but we shall leave the Yellow Armbands to be the sole promoters of trans inclusion within the festival. This is in part due to a desire to see the Yellow Armbands continue to blossom into a proud and independent organization internal to MichFest, and in part because Camp Trans has some house cleaning to do, particularly concerning the way we've structured our organization in the past.
To put it bluntly, CT has not elected its organizational body for the past two years, and perhaps not legitimately for longer than that. It's easy to throw together an online poll or a list-serve email and then mark the trickled responses that make their way back through the wilds of the internet as a form of legitimacy, but this fails to account for the diversity of experiences which make Camp Trans the amazing space that it is. Not everyone has access to the internet, not everyone has the social capital to know how to find these online elections, and as a result our elections must happen on the ground in the future. Camp Trans 2007 will include a series of workshops in which we will account for the major organizer positions within the Camp and then hold elections for those positions before camp ends. This will allow all attendees of CT to know who is in charge in the upcoming year, and should prevent recurrences of situations like two years ago, where our organization was thrown into turmoil when key organizers dropped out without warning.
We know we've faced allegations of a lack of transparency as of late, and we want you all to know this is not because we've forgotten about you, nor is it because we're trying to keep secrets from any of you. We've been planning on how to make a Camp Trans that will be a self-perpetuating, open entity, and in that hunt for future transparency we've been hushed by our fears that speaking of it too soon would jinx our plans. There have been, and will always be, people who profit from the slightest miss-statement from the mouths of CT organizers. In trying to minimize those missteps we've appeared to make no steps at all… which is a shame, really, since we're happy to inform you that we've been working, dialoguing and planning to make camp a new and better place for us all.
Jack Radish & Lina Corvus
Camp Trans 2007 Begins With a Call for Organizers!
Camp Trans 2006 was about the informalization of formalized processes, in many ways. Lisa Vogel herself admitted this in her press release, when she spoke of an expectation of transphobia at MichFest, which stands contrary to their newly formalized policy of admitting all womyn who can pay. This is one of many lessons the CT 2006 organizers took home from camp this summer that led us to the conclusion that informal policies and structures are not conducive to organizing out in the woods of rural Michigan. For this reason, Camp Trans 2007 is planning on a bright future for trans folks and allies, and as such, we are formalizing several informal positions and organizational relationships which have previously managed to fall together in an informal fashion.
What does this mean to you, the aspiring camper or hopeful CT organizer? Well, for all you campers, hopefully this means your experience at Camp Trans is going to run a bit more smoothly. For you future organizers, the answer is much the same and more. The new, structured, system of Camp Trans organizers allows for several levels of participation, each of which is in some way vital to the functioning of Camp Trans, and yet requires differing inputs from people commensurate with what time and energy folks can put in.
For starters, this year we have a Camp Trans Coordinator, Jack Radish, who is in the center of the organizational hub. Jack’s job is to keep everything on task, to call up the other primary organizers to see how their jobs are going, offer insight and support when possible, and to keep communication flowing between different organizers and help ensure that Camp Trans 2007 accomplishes what we have set out to accomplish.
Next, we have the four primary level organizers. These organizers all represent the fundamental breakdown of responsibilities of Camp Trans, as was reasoned out by the parting CT 2006 Organizing Committee. The four categories are Fundraising, Strategy, Logistics and Culture, and each one of these committee members looking to adopt an apprentice or helper to ensure the smooth running of CT even should any individual organizer fall victim to the type of life event that so often calls one’s attention away from Camp business.
The first of these organizers, in no particular order, is Angel, who is in charge of Fundraising for the second year in a row. Angel still has need of an understudy, to help her with managing the books (which, under her supervision, were left in the black this past year), and will be relying on a set of regional fundraisers to help her out in the collection of the much needed capital that it takes to run Camp Trans. As a regional organizer, your responsibilities can be as great or as small as you feel comfortable with; the only general rule is that you keep connected with a community, throw a fundraiser or two (or have your friends throw them), and make sure the money gets safely into the coffers of Camp Trans. Do it for a month, or do it for the whole year; when you can get by with a budget of $4,000, every dollar counts.
The second organizer is Jess S, who is in charge of Strategy after spending many years as our on-land organizer over at the festival. Strategy breaks down into two main components: Activism and Media. Media is a job that splits up into several different categories: the creation and publication of press releases, the maintainer of the website, the creation of a portal filled with Camp Trans history. One of the best political strategies is to reflect Camp Trans as we truly are, a place of laughter, support, and an ocean of smiles, and for that Jess needs people to fill those media roles. In the Activism half of her job, Jess needs people to work both as on-land organizers and to help her plan a campaign of leaflets and fliers to make sure that walking the line, and all on-land organization, still stays an effective tool towards widening the perspectives of people who have the power to make the spaces they go home to more accepting of transwomyn.
Our third organizer is Bryce, who resumes his duties as the logistics chair after receiving such a swell report after his first year on the job. Logistics is a bit more complicated, and as such it trees down in a different fashion. Under Bryce are four secondary-level organizers: Rentals, Supplies, Personnel, and the Kitchen. The Kitchen will be run by Alex, whose stalwart presence and good cooking have made her a fixture for several years, but Rentals, Stage Manager, Supplies and Personnel are all available for determined organizers who really want to make a difference. Rentals involves making sure that the port-a-potties, land and audio-visual equipment are all rented and paid for in proper fashion, and returned in proper order. Nine tenths of this job is on the front end, but it still requires some clean up effort. The Stage Manager position involves making sure the performances run smoothly. This person will serve as a liaison between the Performance and Rentals coordinator and will be in charge of making sure we have the right sound/lighting equipment, the performances start on time, and helping us avoid disasters such as stages falling on performers during windstorms. Supplies is almost entirely a front-end job, requiring a person to calculate the various quantities of wood, food, medical supplies and other miscellaneous goods that Camp Trans runs on, and then set about procuring those things. Personnel is in many ways the most involved of these four secondary organizer positions, as it requires a person to find a staff for the medic tent prior to CT, but then to also supervise the work shifts at CT to make sure that all positions get staffed. Each secondary level organizer can further delegate as they see fit, so long as they remain in touch with Bryce about this. So, if you want to be the person in charge of making sure CT has water, never fear, there’s a job for you here!
The last organizer is Lina Corvus, who is in charge of culture. Culture, like Logistics, is a heavily delegated organizational system, and several of those positions are currently filled, but that doesn’t mean there still aren’t jobs that need doing. Imi Park, for example, is in charge of performances for next year, although if you wanted to help her out with that, I’m sure she’d appreciate the help. Meanwhile, Hospitality, Recreation, Peer Advocates, Caucuses, and Workshops are all organizational areas in need of someone to watch over them, and each one is a meaty position. Hospitality involves getting together a core of Greeters, who know a bit about the history of CT to tell when asked, and will be willing to take night shifts in order to promote Camp Safety. The Peer Advocate organizer is a similar position, only instead of camp history, Advocates need training in crisis intervention and interpersonal conflict management, and would also be willing to take night shifts for safety’s sake. If being an organizer itself doesn’t strike you as being your cup of tea, remember that individual Greeters and Advocates are incredibly important to the functioning of CT, and require little advance planning. Recreation is a new organizer position this year, but is incredibly important all the same; for this position we’re looking for someone fun to put together camp games and other community activities. The Caucus organizer is in charge of making sure caucuses have a time and a place to happen, and happen as they’re supposed to. Finally, the Workshop Coordinator is in charge of putting together a lineup of workshops so as to empower us all to go back into our communities and change things at home.
So folks, that’s what CT2007’s organizing committee is going to look like, and we’re sending out the call for people to join us at your own individual comfort level! The best part is, if there’s something you feel like we’ve left out, or some way you feel like we can improve our organizational structure, we’re here to hear it. You can contact any individual organizer if you have a suggestion relating to his or her area of expertise, and for any other suggestions or if you’re not sure which organizer to contact, Jack’s more than willing to hear your ideas. We hope you all are as excited about this upcoming Camp Trans as we are; we’re doing our best to make sure it’ll be a hell of a year!