Greeters

2009 was a successful year for Greeters. There were some serious challenges for sure, but nonetheless, Greeters had an amazing year.

The 2009 event started with a challenge: a series of mishaps resulted in the collation building being set up three days late. Thanks to some inter-departmental cooperation (Thanks to Playa Info, DPW, Placement, Transpo, and Support Services teams), the collation crew was able to successfully collate the event packets. A day late, but nevertheless, the task was accomplished and multiple team cooperation was the key.

The building and tear down of Greeters Station went smoothly. Even though there was not an official Station Building Manager, a terrific team developed organically to ensure that the station was properly and safely built, torn down in a timely manner, and looked great.

Again, there were many participants who simply showed up at the station to help collate, set up, tear down and Greet. These random volunteers are amazing and really help to round out the Greeter schedule. 2009 was a year of growth for Greeters. Some long-time Metas had some life changes that took them away from the event this year. As much as these folks were missed, it opened up the schedule for new Metas and Leads, and these new team members did a great job. With some additional training in 2010, these new Leads and Metas will continue to contribute to the Greeter family.

Opening night was spectacular, with an abundance of Greeters, beautiful lights in the sky, art cars, fire displays, a fabulous DJ, and fire spinners all on hand to Welcome the participants home. Greeters Station rocked for hours!

Greeter Council is a very solid team. Members worked well together, know what needs to be done with little direction, and have fun at the same time.

at the Greeters

at the Greeters

2009 ended with another challenge. Greeters ran out of City packets late Wednesday night / early Thursday morning because a large number of packets went mysteriously missing. It was never determined where the packets went, who took them, or why. The saddest part of this is that as a result, many participants did not receive a packet.

For 2010, it’s our intention to create a new sign-up schedule, revamp Greeters Camp, conduct more Greeter trainings, develop an online training video, update the Greeters training manual, and implement new security for collated materials.

As always, Greeters continue to ROCK at Burning Man. Everyone should be proud of all their hard work.

Submitted by,
Deb Stiers