CAMPERSAND 2023 @ OMEGA! All info, plus scholarship fund. (Patreon)

Dear Patrons, after a THREE-YEAR DELAY due to Covid and *waves hands everywhere*, IT IS TIME!

Some bands/artists do cruises.

We? We go to the LAKES AND THE WOODS. We are like that. Also, I'm really lucky to have one of America's grooviest and most beautiful retreat centers IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, and I'm friends with the founder, Elizabeth Lesser (listen to our podcast together here).

WE are finally pleased to announce CAMPERSAND 2023 - a five day gathering/party/retreat/camp in Upstate New York for ONE HUNDRED patrons (plus me, and the workshop artists/leaders, and the AFP staff!)

Last time we did this (at the same place, The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY) it was for a week in July 2019. We hosted fifty patrons and it was a really emotional deep-dive. We did yoga, swam, ate meals together, walked around, talked, played and listened to music, and got together at least 2-3 times a day to circle up and dive hard into the topic of compassion. We shared a lot about ourselves. It was, in a word, life-changing. 

Omega's Rhinebeck Campus is located 90 miles north of New York City (about 180 miles west of Boston). Their website with tons of helpful information and FAQ's can be found here: https://www.eomega.org/visit/visit/rhinebeck-campus

This year's camp will be from July 2nd (checking in at 4pm) through 7th (checking out at 1pm) and will be TWICE AS BIG, with 100 instead of 50 guests, and we plan on keeping the vibe a little lighter and the fare a little less philosophical. Omega itself has a TON on offer: swimming, kayaking, hikes, star-gazing, a library, tons of places to sit, flower-sniff, muse, read. All meals are provided in an incredibly beautiful dining hall where everyone can sit where they want and socialize with other patrons and there are massages and more on tap. My vision is more a real community CAMPFIRE vibe. All is on offer, nothing is required. You can just come and enjoy the meals if you want, but I'll also bring in visiting writers, artists, yoga teachers, and more and offer up a course or two a day, and we will gather as a WHOLE group at least once a day and do stuff, talk, hang. I'll play you music. We will get to know one another better. We'll share some stories. Trust me, basically. I'm good at this. I look like a rock star sometimes, but I'm basically a party-organizer and camp counselor at heart.

All of Team AFP (minus Jordan) will be there, and hopefully some alums (I'm looking at you, Hayley). We will be making a little Campersand 2023 merch bag (hopefully with towels, water bottles, totes, journals and writing tolls) for everyone who attends...that's part of the fee. All the people I'm brining in to do stuff with us will be paid and lodged; and profit this might wind up making (which'll be minimal) will go towards the main band and next year's camp if all goes well.

CAMPERSAND goes on sale at NOON on Friday Feb 10th, and a link will be sent HERE ONLY as a patron-only post. Please be decent and don't share the link. We also really want this to be patron-only. We will check your patreon status, so make sure it's stable.

Some fine print:

We promised the original 50 camp attendees from 2019 the FIRST CRACK at these tickets/space, so we are sending the ticket link to that email list of people 48 hours before the rest of the patreon. Luckily, even if every single one of those people wanted a space, there'd still be a handful leftover.

The cost for camp is a sliding scale, depending on how glam you wanna get. There's the program fee - which includes everything including all meals - is about $500. If you're local and wanna drive every day, you can just commute for about $200. You can camp with your own gear for $475; tents with electricity start at about $750 for the 5 day program; and more hotel-like accommodation goes up to $1500. All in all the whole thing costs about $750-$2000 per person, depending how you like to sleep. There's tons of info on the Omega site linked above and the info people there are very helpful if you're confused by their site and wanna ring up.

On that note....

CAMPERSAND 2023 SCHOLARSHIPS!!!! 

There was a long discussion in 2019, and since, and huge demand for a scholarship fund so that more-monied members of the community could help fund a camp space for lesser-monied ones. It all took a little bit of plotting within the team and work with the retreat center, but we DID IT!

Team AFP is going to select up to 15 people to attend Campersand 2023 at NO COST (travel not included), and we are gathering funds through GoFundMe (my virgin voyage using the platform, interestingly enough...I've done plenty on Kickstarter and Patreon, and this is my first go 'round with GoFundMe, it's been great).

HERE is the link to the GoFundMe. If you're a better-off Patron, please consider donating even just $20 to fund someone who's broke. If the Scholarship fund doesn't reach it's goal, I'll still foot the bill for up to 10 scholarships myself, but I'm hoping the patrons help the patrons, and maybe already offered to do so (because you are awesome). Karma loop in effect.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/campersand-23-scholarships-for-patrons?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

You can apply for the scholarship HERE using this form. 

It's basic and shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fill out.

DEADLINE TO APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP IS 5pm EST, Tuesday Feb 7th. We will contact you by 5pm EST, Thursday Feb 9th if you're selected, and we'll also put up a patreon post when the whole thing closes shop. (If you don't hear from us, sorry, but you didn't make it).

Here's the TEXT from the GoFundMe page, just FYI:

...........................

Hello All!

It's Amanda & Michael from Team AFP here, writing to tell you that we are thrilled to announce that Campersand '23 (our hopefully annual patron-only gathering) is happening from July 2nd - 7th and registration will be open the week of Feb 6th. There is a post with all the details on Amanda's Patreon, here.

This is a fund that ANYONE can donate towards (patrons or not!) to help build up a scholarship fund to send up to 15 Amanda Palmer patrons to camp this year!

Four years ago - in the summer of 2019 - about 50+ patrons got together at the Omega Institute retreat center in Upstate New York, along with Amanda, Team AFP and a small collection of bodyworkers and workshop leaders....and, short story, we had a BLAST. We talked, we ate, we swam, we stayed up til all hours getting to know one another. It really helped build an important part of this Dresden Dolls/AFP community which is so often connected only via screen and internet.

BUT, obviously, not everybody can afford this kind of thing. An all-inclusive 5 day-stay at a Retreat Center is not a cheap undertaking so we've created this GoFundMe as a Scholarship to help out 10-15 people who otherwise might not be able to attend due to financial reasons.

Since so many patrons want to come but don't have funds, and since so many patrons have already put their hands up to donate towards the cause: VOILA! We are the bridge: we have set up this fund so that patrons can help patrons.

The money raised here will go 100% towards Campersand '23 Scholarships and if we surpass our outside goal of fully funding 15 scholarships we will put any additional money raised towards making Campersand '23 even more exciting, and possibly put the money towards Campersand '24!). At the end of this campaign - if we haven't reached our goal - Amanda has pledged to make up any difference to fully fund at least 10 spots using her own funds.

The scholarship attendees will have accommodations in the "Tent Cabins" (glamping, more or less - description here) and include all meals for the stay, but please note: we cannot cover any transportation to or from the retreat!

So, if you're feeling generous, please donate below, every little bit helps!

The normal link to simply attend the retreat at Omega will be posted on Amanda's Patreon on Feb 7th (give or take a day).

AND, if you or someone you know is interested in applying for the scholarship, our Application Form is Here.

We can't wait to see you at Omega!

Love,

Amanda, and Michael from Team AFP