Dear Interested parties and attendees of Transformus:
We write you today to address the recent wave of public comment and
question about the status of Transformus as an official Burning Man
Regional Event. Beginning in March 2008, Burning Man has been in
receipt of multiple comments and complaints regarding certain aspects of
the production of Transformus and as of Monday, June 23, we made an
official statement to the Transformus LLC members regarding this matter.
Transformus is a Burning Man Regional Event that requested and received
its "official" status in 2005, during its first year in existence. As
you may know, any event that is designated as an official Burning Man
Regional Event has a relationship with one or more Burning Man Regional
Contacts, who must agree that the event will uphold and adhere not only
to Burning Man's Ten Principles
http://regionals.burningman.com/network_principles.html, but to an
additional set of criteria required by Burning Man designed to assure
that the event is actually legal, permitted, insured, of benefit to the
entire community, and available to all who wish to attend.
Whenever one or more formal complaints are made about an event or a
Regional Contact, Burning Man makes careful effort to address them
directly. There is a process for a formal investigation into the
allegations made in a Regional Contact/Regional Event complaint, one
that includes interviewing and engaging with as many members of the
local community as possible to gather information and make inquiry. (If
you are not familiar with the process to send us feedback about things
happening in your region, please take a look at this page:
http://regionals.burningman.com/regional_feedback.html
The member of the Transformus Board of Directors had themselves been
active in asking for support and guidance from Burning Man over the past
several months as the problems with this event came to a head; in fact,
in light of those requests and the comments and complaints we had
received, Burning Man sent its Regional Network Coordinator Bex Workman
to Asheville, NC in April to meet in person with the Transformus Board
of Directors as well as members of the local community to try to gain a
better understanding into the issues the organization was facing and try
to offer some support.
Part of Bex's purpose on this trip was to obtain information and
background from as many sources as possible, and by sending a staff
member to engage in person we hoped to come to better understand the
ticketing and technology issues with Transformus that had been brought
up for review. This visit was in addition to a number of visits that Bex
had made to the area, including two annual trips to the Transformus
Work/Play weekend, and she and Steven Raspa had both made multiple other
check-in visits with active Transformus community members over the past
3 years. Both individuals had been involved in many emails and phone
conversations and mentoring with various Transformus leadership as welll.
After Bex's most recent visit, and following months of investigation,
many phone calls, visits and conversations, the Regional Committee has
come to the conclusion that Transformus, as it exists today, has not
been able to operate in full alignment with the principles and criteria
required to be an official Burning Man Regional event in 2008.
Specifically, the investigation has determined that the event has been
unable to uphold the tenets of Civic Responsibility and Transparency.
For example, this was seen in its inability to notify participants of
their invitations in a timely fashion, and to clearly and publicly
illustrate the methodology and fairness of that invitation process – as
of this writing there still seems to be ambiguity and frustration for
some participants, and dissent about the nature of the process, and a
need for a public address of the grievances that have been raised.
One other example is the Board Of Directors' failure to post timely
and detailed accountings of previous events' financial reports to the
community, either through the event's announce list, the regional
announce lists, or through the Transformus website; timely, transparent
accounting is a strong requirement in order to maintain good standing as
a Burning Man Regional Event, but it is especially important when there
have been accusations of inaccuracy in bookkeeping. We have made
recommendations about when and how to share this bookkeeping that have
not been able to be met, although we are aware that the group are still
actively pursuing making this posting.
Among the complaints that were shared with Burning Man, some of the
most prominent were related to incomplete bookkeeping and imprecise
nature of the invitation process. As we understand it, efforts are
underway to remedy this matter, but in the strictest sense, the prior
Transformus events have failed to follow the guidelines outlined by
Burning Man and cannot truly be said to have upheld those standards.
It was a very difficult decision for us to move to suspend Transformus'
official status; however, the value in having and engaging in the
Burning Man Regional Network lies in the ability to truly identify that
certain standards and benchmarks of the Burning Man community are in
place for any event, and if they cannot be met or verified readily by
the casual observer or participant, even by the best efforts of the
persons involved, it is our duty to encourage the production team to act
to bring things back into alignment, as well as to inform the public
about our official position on the event.
In this case, although we do not believe any individual engaged in
wrongdoing, we do believe that the business entity behind Transformus is
clearly faced with a need to stop and reflect, as they have done, and in
the meantime, the current state of affairs has left little choice but to
act to address the complaints and agree that Transformus organization as
it stands is not in a position to be identified officially as a Regional
Event in 2008.
However, although Burning Man has announced that Transformus 2008 will
not qualify for official Regional Event status, we do remain actively
engaged in an effort to encourage and support the Transformus board and
the many people who produce the event, and to assist them in moving
through this period as they reflect on their leadership and determine
the common goal for its future. Although there are transitions and
challenges afoot, we want to make it clear that we believe that there is
ample enthusiasm and dedication to help rally the community to resolve
these issues together and move beyond this conflict; we are confident
that you can and will create an event that your region can be proud of,
and that leadership will guide you through and hold the center, whatever
that turns out to be.
Indeed, the Burning Man Project has every intention of continuing to
offer its support to you, and it is our hope that Transformus will seek
and regain its official Regional Event status in the future. We do still
intend to send several members of our staff to support Transformus this
year; both Bex Workman and Wally Bomgaars aka:Odwally (DMV, Rangers)
will still be sent out to offer their assistance, expertise, and sweat
to help produce Transformus, just as had been previously planned; Ranger
Splinter is also still planning to conduct a Ranger Training at the event.
We also remain eager to help to connect all interested parties with any
others in the Burning Man Regional Network who might offer their insight
and assistance through their similar experiences, whoever they may be.
We are in frequent communication with the Burning Man regional contacts
in the area who are involved and concerned about this event. Regional
Contacts are individuals who have satisfied a set of established
leadership criteria to be a contact point in a particular area, and
we're depending on them to help translate Burning Man's expectations to
the communities they represent and to let us know what other support we
might provide. Truly, although we know the ultimate solutions are up to
the community, we still want to be as supportive as possible if we can.
However, we know that the biggest component in Transformus (the event)
solving its current spate of issues is Transformus -- the community --
deciding together to figure out how to solve them. We've never seen it
as our place to tell another event what to do, even those within our
"Network" – we offer what we offer by way of affiliation or relationship
and shared principles, not by ownership or dictation. Our desire to help
is not about us illustrating what "we" think "you" should do – it's
about us sharing what our experiences have been with you, introducing
you and connecting you to others with similar experiences, and offering
whatever we do know about building community and about producing events.
In this case that experience tells us that when things go off course
and personal actions are in doubt, it helps for everyone to reflect on
their shared values, sometimes in a public process, and this can help
you to see what you can do to get back to them, together.
And yes, we have the Ten Principles, and perhaps those are a place to
start a discussion, but we trust that there are many viewpoints and sets
of ideals among those who would consider themselves participants at
Transformus. Thus, we won't deign to try to ascribe those values to
everyone who attends that event, but we do offer them as a place to
start, especially since we've found them useful so often ourselves.
Burning Man isn't trying to tell Transformus that we have the solution
for them, although we believe that we have tried to offer some input and
possible solutions for consideration. Ours is not to direct, dictate,
nor even to suggest what you should do in your local groups from all the
way over here in San Francisco, and no matter how many staff members we
send to visit, we only know what you and your community are telling us,
but ultimately the solutions are up to you. Either way, we're certain
you'll still come together and make Transformus great this year, and we
are eager to see what the future will bring.
In closing, I'd like to again emphasize that this decision was based on
careful investigation of a mass of shifting facts and information, and
was only designed to try to help the Transformus Board Of Directors and
all of you move towards building a strong community and producing an
event supporting the values of that community. We do not believe anyone
should pull out of their participation or stop working on or planning to
attend Transformus 2008 solely because of this decision on the behalf of
the Regional Network's official event requirements. Indeed, the primary
purpose in building the Regional Network has been to facilitate a
connection amongst all of us, and we are in no way trying to negate the
importance of Transformus and its participants or its organizers as
members of the Burning Man community.
As such, we hope that it is understood by all that the Burning Man
Project will remain available to your community for questions, comments,
or support as we can offer it (remember this is a particularly busy time
for our production staff as we near the creation of Black Rock City),
and that we do believe that Transformus will find its way to the future
Self reflection and self improvement are values that can never been
underestimated in helping manifest change.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us
directly via: regionals at burningman.com
Sincerely,
Andie Grace
--
Andie Grace, Actiongrl
Burning Man Communications Manager
Regional Network Manager
(415) 865-3800 x102
www.burningman.com
