Are you a whizz with numbers? We're looking for someone to support our fantastic Finance Lead in their role - someone with experience, enthusiasm, and a deep love of spreadsheets.
The Finance Circle oversees the Burning Nest budget, as well as planning for next year's event. They pay our vendors, determine the amounts available for Art Grants, and make sure all the numbers add up at the end!
If this soundsl ike your cup of tea, please fill in our volunteering form!
Seeking Gods/ Goddesses and general Heavenly beings of co-ordination to help keep us all legal and compliant during the Nest event this year.
Do you know your booze licensing from liability? Insurance from Indemnity? Want to help us insure an effigy burn (seriously, this IS a thing)? Fancy helping us chat to the council, medical folk and assorted ‘grown-up official type folk’ to allow us all play (safely) this Summer?
It may seem an oxymoron in multiple of multiple ways, yet we need organised burners to help us organise to disorganise!
We have an experienced Edge of Chaos team, ready to show you the ropes and pass on their knowledge - so you'll be supported every step of the way.
If all this sounds interesting, please get in touch!
We certainly are! It's not long until tickets go on sale (12 noon UK time, 30th January, AKA this Sunday), but we have a few updates for you to make note of, before you steam ahead with your fistfuls of hard-earned cash.
You need to make an account on Quicket, and bookmark the ticketing page on our website, so you can hit the big blue button at 12 noon.
We have decided to scrap Burner Bios this year, as we feel they are a bit confusing. They were intended to ensure that everyone attending Burning Nest was aware that it is not a normal festival (with a sponsored beer tent, and paid-for acts, and overpriced burgers in styrofoam boxes), and that lots of Radical Self-Reliance is needed!
We will still be asking everyone buying a ticket to read and agree to our 11 Principles, and it would be a very good idea to have a look at our Survival Guide, too. Why not do it in advance, now, like extremely eager beavers?
There are some important things to note, for Nestlings who kindly rolled their 2020 tickets over to 2022. Each one of you will be receiving an email soon, with a voucher code that will give you 100% off this year's Nest ticket. Cool, huh? This will enable you to claim your rolled-over tickets easily, and also means that if you'd like to sell or donate your ticket to someone else, all you need to do is send them your code - it will only work once!
Rolled-over ticket allocation will happen separately to standard ticket sales, so there's no need to rush on Sunday. There will be an eventual deadline for this process though, so don't wait until the last minute!
If you'd like to apply for an inclusion or carer ticket, please fill in this form as soon as you can, so we can assess your needs. If you would like to bring a carer with you, please enter their details on the form too. Carer tickets are free.
If you are bringing Fledgelings with you, you can buy their tickets through Quicket as well - they can be added during the checkout process.
You can also select a parking permit as you check out - this covers both vehicles in our car park, and live-in vehicles. No pass, no parking!
We may make it look like this event of ours runs smoothly and without any hitches whatsoever (cough), but we couldn't do it without our various teams (we call them Circles) of devoted volunteers. They work before, during and after the event to make sure it all runs smoothly, collaborating every step of the way to share their talents as needed.
This year, we have a few vacancies we'd like to fill as soon as possible:
Arts: Handling the all-important Art Grants, beautifying our site, designing the handbook, and lending their arty skills to newsletter and website design too.
Department of Public Works: On-site logistics, theme camp placements, power and lighting, toilets... these are just a few of the tasks handled by the DPW team!
Edge of Chaos: If you feel a deep kinship with Hermes Conrad, and know how to bridge the gap between Burner chaos and Council bureaucracy, we want you! EOC deals with licensing, sound management and insurance before the event, as well as overseeing Rangers, medical and security teams at the event.
Leave A Better Trace: Going one better than "Leave No Trace", we want to leave our site in a better state than when we found it. For this we need some dedicated volunteers both before and during the event, to help with our environmental goals.
Memberships/ticketing: Whatever you want to call them, we need someone to help us manage our memberships! Answering queries, processing refunds, and liaising with our Gate Team to help co-ordinate people on-site.
If you'd like to know more about any of these roles, please contact us via this form.
Even though the weather is cold and rainy, we have some news to (hopefully) lift those January blues. Nest HQ has been hard at work these past few weeks, planning, plotting, and blowing the cobwebs off the great engine that makes this whole event work.
As in previous years, you will need to log in to Quicket and fill in your Burner Bio for 2022. Even if you have attended in previous years, you must do it again this year (we will be advising how in the next couple of days)!
If you chose to roll your membership over in 2020, you do not need to buy it again this year. That includes parking tickets, so sit back and bask in the knowledge that your generosity not only helped us limp through to 2022, but that you don't need to set an alarm for next Sunday!
If you're unsure whether you have a membership from 2020, please get in touch with us at memberships@burningnest.co.uk, and we can check for you.
We know these are two topics on everyone's mind - how much, and how many? We have decided to keep standard memberships at £130 for 2022, the same as in 2020, and will be releasing two waves of memberships - one on 30th January, and another later on.
We may have the ability to increase our capacity this year, pending approval from the local council. However we would like to throw this decision out to everyone, and get your feedback - please join the conversation on Loomio to have your say.
Full details of all membership prices, and how to apply for an Inclusion, Carer or Starship membership, will be updated on our website shortly.
We have a number of roles available this year, some more active at the event itself, and some that require commitment outside of the event dates too. Each role operates as part of a supportive team (we call them Circles), and is open to people with experience and people without - if you've always wanted to try something, now might be the perfect time! The teams we're looking to recruit for in 2022 are:
We are also looking for new members to join our board of trustees, as part of a major reworking of our constitution.
See more information about these roles, and apply, here: https://airtable.com/shrXwpr1kRAMAfiJd?fbclid=IwAR3pSIdLXMkpHjZYK-u1h7DjbWChXCxdL9X5Qf2CpZRh5Jluf6VcT7PL9nk
Thanks to everyone who joined us on May 30th for Nest Online! Our individual login numbers sat at around 370 over the course of the day - very similar to the attendance numbers of Burning Nest 2019!
All the traditional Burn elements were present - a cabaret, a beautiful Burn, and the love and energy that makes our event and community so special.
Hilda has written up her account of the day:
We are still on a high from a wonderful virtual burn on Saturday. Just because we are indoors doesn’t mean we can’t have fun, and with this in mind, we held Nest Online, as a way of staying connected with each other, holding our workshops, dance parties and communal activities, all via the magic of video conferencing.
Six separate Zoom rooms (or theme camps) were curated under a ticketed free event, and participants were encouraged to move between rooms in a whole day of activities. While it was impossible to see everything, my day went something like this:
Starting with Lexicorn Unicorn's Brunch, we learned how to make playa French Toast, then there was an hour of Qi Gong lead by Rachel. I took my laptop into the garden and loved stretching with the feel of the grass between my toes (fewer thistles than on the actual site, too!). After that we needed a rest, which Hammock Half Hour provided, then there was a crafting session, where we were encouraged to bring an unfinished project to work on together. A personal highlight was Simon’s ‘hundred years of being a hippy talk, followed by the Embassy of Nowhere Ambassador’s party - we dressed in our finest outfits and brought our own cocktails and bubbles. People made an effort with a beautiful array of hats and formal dress. We jumped rooms again to watch the Barnacles, a talented jazz trio who are on lockdown together, performing live, followed by the chance for us all to join in with the Great Rainbow Piano Singalong, which was a lot of fun, latency notwithstanding!
I only caught part of the cabaret, hosted by the ebullient Rob, but Lara Hopwood reported back that she enjoyed Xavier's dramatic recitation of French cheeses, Yon's story of playfulness and collaboration at one Burning Nest between the bridge builders and the trolls stealing the bridge, trying a Zoom body popping wave with everyone, John's poems of oneness and nature in his excellent bee-bird costume and Iona's dancing the alphabet game.
Finally, we had drumming from Michelle to accompany the fire spinners which were co-ordinated by Alison, who, while in lockdown on her own, had co-opted her neighbours to standby with a blanket, just in case! This lead on to some beautiful fireworks and an appropriate burn of the Phoenix effigy on the actual Nest site, in the hope that Nest will rise again next in the not so socially distant form that we all know and love.
We may be in lockdown, but we are not alone. I love our community!
Thank you Hilda, for a fantastic report of the day!
What were your favourite memories from Nest Online? Feel free to share in the comments below! x
Now that we've all recovered from the fun and frolics of Nest Online, we thought we'd share this year's Epic Cheese Lipsync: A Little Respect. Thanks to everyone who pitched in with a line of the song, some kitchen percussion, or their fancy dance moves, to make this awesome video happen. And thanks to the lovely Cheese for organising and editing it all together! Without further ado, enjoy!
Well, you lot have been busy! We're thrilled to see so many Nestlings joining together to create wonderful workshops, dramatic DJ sessions, perfect parties and all sorts of other alliterative 'appenings (alright, that one was a stretch).
For all information on how to join in with Nest Online tomorrow, be sure to go here: https://burningnest.co.uk/nest-online to pick up your ticket (it's free, but you will need it to get in!)
If you would like to see an overview of the day's activities (highlighter in hand, ready to circle your favourites), cast your eyes over this glorious Google Doc.
All that's left for you to do is dig out your glad rags, remember your cup (and something to go in it), and see you tomorrow, at Nest Online! x
We’re all missing our yearly opportunity to let loose, meet up with friends, learn something new, and share our skills and experiences with our fellow Nestlings. It’s to this end we created Nest Online - a day of workshops, events, parties and get-togethers on 30th May! We can’t do this alone though - after all, you make Nest happen with your contributions, every member brings something unique to our community!
Whether it’s a yoga class, poetry reading, philosophical discussion or craft-a-long, you can hold your workshop in a Zoom room. Register nice and early to make sure people can see it and sign up in time and plan their day - we all know the pain of having to choose between two conflicting workshops at the same time! To register your workshop, please use this form to let us know by 27th May what you have planned and when you’d like to hold it. Check out the workshops already registered here.
We are also offering Zoom rooms to theme camps or groups to use for an extended period - whether you plan to hold an all-day rave, whisky tasting session (BYOB, unfortunately) or meditation circle, we have space for you at Nest Online. All you need to do is register your interest here by 24th May, and if you’d like to see who has already registered to host a theme camp, click here.
We will even be hosting a Burn in the main room, between 9 - 10pm! Alex, the landowner, has agreed to build and stream the flaming heart of our yearly celebration. What better way to look forward to next Nest, than all coming together virtually to set things on fire? We are hoping to have some fire spinners perform too, for a properly authentic Burn!
To join in with Nest Online, we will need you to register for a membership on Quicket (don’t worry, it’s free!) - that way, we can send you the Zoom access information for the workshops we are hosting. We have also created a Facebook Event, where you can promote your workshop, team up with others for ideas, or see what we have planned!
We’re also looking for people to help us out on the day - think of it as Virtual Rangering! If you have tech/video skills, or can offer any time to co-ordinate, please get in touch.
All this information is, as always, available on the Nest website. If you have any questions at all, please do get in touch using this form.
