Folk Camp Organisers Retreat & Weekend Gathering Aug 21-27, 2023
We took this year off of hosting Summer Camp as a way of catching our breath and assessing whether we could move forward with the camp as an organisation. Often, hosting camp means many of the organisers leave feeling burnt out… and this past year the organisers have been performing double duty as the board of the organisation and camp organisers. Running camp in addition to everything else seemed impossible, this along with several of the key organisers looking to pass on some of their duties, called for ways of bringing in community members into higher levels of leadership.
We decided instead of the usual Summer Camp to gather together with a smaller group of collaborators for an intensive planning retreat for several days, and then offer a community “camp weekend” at the end.
At our planning retreat, we spent many hours dissecting the structures of Folk Camp. We looked at different aspects of the organisation and our position in the wider community, as well as future possibilities. Presentations, conversations and forums were facilitated by the organisers: Bozena Hrycyna, Oksana Hawrylak, Elisabeth Shipman. Natalie Abdou, community member, and a skilled facilitator of the interplay modality, also supported some of the group exploration activities. Arnaud Brassard, graphic designer and community member, worked on presenting the topic of rebranding, (which we didn’t have a chance to go into then, but will continue with a series of conversations with the board).
We covered many layers of Folk Camp structures - from programming, communications, to volunteers, and getting at what the camp means to us and the wider community...
We introduced and then used the 8 shields model (a model used in community mentorship organisations and the nature connection community) to draw a huge circle with all of the moving parts of our organisation - mapping out every aspect that pulls camp together and designating these as spots within the cardinal direction points.
Then we set to work to create the beginnings of a master document of it all!
We covered the history of Folk Camp and Kosa Kolektiv: where we have been, and what we are trying to move toward, ideas of renaming/”rebranding”, personal experiences and connections to the work…
We balanced our time with evenings of crafting and singing, instrumental jamming and even dancing! We took turns cooking nourishing, hearty meals for each other. We spent time in the gardens and by the lake.
Jurgita Zvinglyte offered a workshop in traditional 12th century Slavic pottery firing with rye flour slurry called “obvara” (akin to the more widely known Japanese “raku”). The process was wonder-filled and the results were spectacular and immensely satisfying, a new discovery for all.
Anastasia Fyk led straw “pavuk” making with Jurgita (who knows this craft as soda/i in Lithuanian) and shared how to make traditional straw birds.
Dina Cindric shared Croatian and Macedonian songs; Jurgita led a group in the practice of “sutartinės” (multi part Lithuanian songs); Andrea Kuzmich and everyone :) gathered to sing Ukrainian village songs; musicians played Ukrainian dance tunes, as well as Balkan kolo and Balfolk tunes.
Oksana Hawrylak invited folks to harvest flax and straw flowers from her gardens.
She also set up a painting station where Natalia Borchevska and Fedir Kurkchi led folk painting.
Bozena Hrycyna led an introductory scything workshop for the new women scythers!
Oleksandra Kulinenko and Fedir Kurkchi of KurKul Arts led a group workshop in doll making from dried corn husks.
Wreaths were woven, pavuky strung, dolls placed on the altar, and flower bouquets made to beautify and prepare the space for the weekend festivities.
Our week then spun into a weekend where our numbers grew fourfold; celebrating our efforts with feasting, music making and dancing.
Camp Weekend & Community Forum
On Friday night, we invited the larger community to join us for our very first Community Forum. As the board works towards creating changes within the organisation we need ways to be informed and in conversation with our community. Friday night’s Community Forum was an effort towards this, as we hosted a very fun World Cafe!
About 40 community members showed up and spent 15 minutes at different stations, focused around the topics: communication, inclusivity & diversity, engagement, and future visions… and afterwards, shared their gleanings with the larger group. This was followed by some social dancing and singing.
The next day, Bozena presented a brief synopsis of the history of the organisation and the vision for the organisation renaming and regrouping, and most importantly, a picture of the scope of the activities involved in running Summer Camp (the map of which was developed earlier that week with our planning retreat). There was opportunity for discussion and for community members to see where they might fit into this picture.
Saturday was also filled with families harvesting potatoes in the gardens, helping prepare food, crafting, painting, and learning songs together.
A feast was prepared by our kitchen team and laid out en plein air, where a Ukrainian-Georgian style “supra” supper took place with toasting and singing until dark.
Following dinner, our beloved Hungarian band Czango Unchained started off the night with very lively dance tunes, which were followed by everyone’s favourite Ukrainian and Balfolk dances, ending with a classic late night song sharing.
It was a whirlwind finish to a very intensive planning work week, and we left with many many conversations to finish and ideas to further elaborate, problems to solve and follow up on. We're hoping to offer Folk Camp next year again, as it was, with more structures in place for everyone, including organisers, to have a great experience. We are working on recapitulating and drawing from the information gleaned from our community forum and work sessions, and reconvening in small work teams/committees to move forward on some key fundraising and engagement initiatives.
We are very grateful to all who worked tirelessly to make the retreat happen, and to all the community members who showed up to contribute their ideas and experience, and to all those additional behind the scenes (who couldn’t be there) who made it possible, including our board members and sponsors!
