Before i go and announce this on the main lists – i’ve been thinking about camp this year.
I’m thinking of charging an optional ticket price this year of £7.50 per actively participating head (so perhaps 3+). I wanted to do £5 a head but i can’t see the figures adding up. This would get you a welcome meeting with drinks and a biscuits (or whatever) will rent us a marquee, provide the disposible bbq’s for a midweek bbq and also the stuff for a couple of craft events.
I’m assuming i can speak to Wendy about a reasonably cheap marquee, i think £1.50 per craft ought to cover it, tea, coffee and snacks ought to be do-able and the bbq’s, if we get them at a cash and carry, should come comfortably into this price.
I’m thinking that we’d make it that people HAD to buy them beforehand, so we knew who we were catering for, we made it clear it was to faciliate inclusiveness and to make sure no one got left out of pocket.
I’ll organise that everyone receives a ticket before or on arrival, detailing their family so it should be foolproof and that you show your ticket when you turn up for the said 4 events.
What do you think? Too much, too little? Do-able? The right move to make it better and smoother? I’ve really railed against this sort of thing up to now, but i do feel it is proobably the only way forward. For the bbq people still turn up with meat/other to cook, any spare money goes towards salad/bread and of course, people will still be able to contruibute other general craftiness, party moments in the intervening period.
Comments please, with avengence. And then someone volunteer to do the collecting and organising of it, because i have as much skill at that sort of thing as a penguin.
My one concern about it is that the price of the statics is much higher this year, £170 and that was after i talked them down, so for those people, it will make it much more expensive.
Compulsory would be my only suggestion.
I think optional could end up with some really tricky positions, if you actually plan to enforce it.
Oh, i’m glad you said that 🙂 What about that price, do you think it is realistic?
Avengence?
oh.. i’m sure i meant something. I’ve got a cold 😉
Well, we’re desperately going to try to come this year if it kills me – holiday rota and IVT timetable permitting, and it sounds like a good idea to me to promote inclusiveness. Of course, having never managed to actually get to summer camp yet despite booking two years in a row I could be talking out of my backside, but seems good to me. We’ll be static-ing if we make it and I wouldn’t say £7.50 is too much, whether it’s enough would be up to the number crunchers!
Doh that shoud be IVF not IVT which sounds like a dodgy disease.
I dunno how much it would cost for the six of us to camp – but adding on another £45 is likely to be quite a hefty extra sum proportionately, so I would suggest it is too high.
I dunno, from last year I would suggest that what some people wanted, was to know there were going to be specific points where they could come and interact with people they might not know well without having to make the first move iyswim.
Aren’t there ways of achieving that without costs – apart from maybe the marquee – or minimum costs.
Hm, does sound a lot for bigger families. I’m slightly lost off at what the £7.50 breaks down to – is that heads taking part in camp in general? Are craft activities then provided for every head who’s paid for a ticket? So if I pay for three tickets, I get to do the crafts as well as the children?
Just trying to work my way through it, no actual opinion yet.
Oh, are we having mudpudbuds then? 😉
Camping is going to be the same as last year £55 for a hook up or £43 for a non-hook up – we are going to have the back field so that a marquee and anyone who doesn’t need a hook up can be in there with limited electics available in the marquee.
I’ve emailed Wendy, i think the crafts per craft might be £1.50 a head, tea and stuff and bbq’s – well…. anyone want to go costing things?
Inclined to agree with Chris about it maybe being slightly prohibitive cost-wise. We’d be aiming to have a cheap week so another £30 on top would be a fair whack really. I think the cost is about right given what you are aiming to offer so I guess the option is to reduce what you’re offering to bring it down to a smaller cost.
I would suggest it was more about the quality of the meet and greet aspect and the organisation of events rather than stuff being provided like biscuits. Same with the BBQ really, particularly – I’d go with bring your own food and disp. bbq perhaps…
Weren’t statics £125 last year? That’s a hell of a jump up isn’t it. And we’re even earlier so you’d think it would be cheaper if anything.
well, most parents seemed to join in so i figured yes – however, i’m more than up for other ideas.
I did think maybe a child and adult price might work £5 for a child £3 worth of craft and £2 of juice and bbq and maybe £5 for an adult for tea/coffee and bbq plus a contribution towards the marquee, whatever that is.
Would that work?
It is a jump, they’ve all gone up apparently. She wasn’t budging further down. The year before it was £145 or something though.
The disp bbq’s were such a contentious issue last year i felt we needed to budget – it’ll still be bring your own food, but at least the issue of whether you actually deserve to be there is helped a bit.
OK Merry Im kinda lost here, having no idea of the set up etc. Could someone help me a bit. 🙂 please…
we probably need to know what a marquee is going to cost – or do you know that already? Craft suggestions – I can get basket weaving stuff again, but would ppl want to do it again? Layla’s rag weaving was fantastic (or at least looked it, didn’t get a chance to join in last year!), but again, would ppl want it repeated? Do you have other ideas of crafts?
I can find a bulk pack of 10 disposable bbqs for £25 online (postage boosts it, but gives me a feel for price).
must reset your clock, thought I was staying up late there!
It doesn’t include food for the barbecue?
So £1.50 per craft for two crafts – well, I think these should be opt-in or out, not as a bundle – I can’t guarantee that all 5 or 6 of us would want to do both.
And that leaves another £4.50 per person – seems like an awful lot for some tea/coffee/squash and biscuits – and I’d bring my own teabags anyway! – some disposable barbecues and a marquee.
Honestly, I wouldn’t pay £37.50 (excl C because I don’t know if he’s coming or not), and then what are you going to do, bar me from the marquee?
I think there should be a basic extra mandatory charge for the marquee, and the get-togethers should be BYO. And then a separate charge for each craft and disposable barbies. And I know that sounds like a bugger to organise, but I’d be more than happy to help.
ISTR (without going back to read the blogs) that really the issue witht he BBQ was some people did not contribute failry on the food front as well as the BBQ’s and that a few people ended up doing most of the cooking. I think some better communication about it would help, and maybe just some people offer to do the cooking?
Still pondering the price.
For a craft – whether included or not, I would be up for bringing polyfiller and poster paints for a make your own paperweight/painted handprint, whatever.
Haven’t costed it, but should be reasonably cheap. Best not done in the marquee!
we will be bringing the Mobile Home Ed Unit for some shade too!
[we are contemplating taking 2 cars to help bring ours/Merry’s crafts]
Alison, you could consider yourself co-opted there 🙂 I know you and your pretty excel sheets 😉 I think you’d be the perfect woman for the job.
I’d like it to be as easy and as clear as possible – and i need to do it fairly quickly obviously, but what i’m hoping is that you experienced MPers will thrash out a package so i don’t have to!
FWIW, i think £7.50 too much too, but i thought if i made a starting point, you’d all have lots of sensible things to say and we’d come up with something 🙂
Oh I see, you just want us to do all the work! 😉
argos didn’t show up on google 🙂
I was thinking you were going to need a spreadsheet. I think we need ballpark figures ahead of time, but we can probably fit in extra ppl as it goes.
When Alison’s there with her spreadsheet I can knock you up something similar to bookbags so that ppl can choose their tickets and pay online if that would help. With a tiny bit more time I could get it to record the bookings in a database so that you’d have a proper record.
Grin… well, call it management 😉
Jax – brilliant idea 🙂
q is, are they cheaper now than in the summer? and should we buy some!!
i think for the crafts, there can be a general message that there will be some organised in advance and some ad hoc, but that it is to be expected that if costs are accrued putting on crafts, then there may be a small charge – even if not in the ticket. After all, your basket making was great, and it did have costs attached.
one options is that the ticket pays for 2/3 craft sessions at your discression to choose which – if a reasonable number might happen.
but also towards costs of playdough/beads etc etc that get used up
I think it’s an excellent idea to have specific “meet and greet” type times, but I think the cost is fairly high at 7.50, especially as it is for mainly covering things that people will individually have brought from home anyway – squash, tea bags etc. I Do think however that any cost does need to be on a per person, rather than per family basis, and then that does make it a lot to hand over for people with bigger families. I’d be inclined to go for a cost for the marquee, and then make the rest BYO. I think it’s just important that people understand that IS what they need to do. The camping Merry, do you mean it will be in the PGL field over the little stream? So that anyone camping with electrics – eg in a towing van, or a camper van, would be somewhere else separate from the main group? And then statics elsewhere again, obviously? Or have I not understood you?
Wasn’t sure how long it would let me go on for…. not sure either about paying for crafts in advance either. I can’t see Hannah actually doing them, but OTOH, I can also see it’s hard if a child comes over wanting to join in and they haven’t paid – what do you do then? So not sure about that.
I guess you remember their name and nab their parents later 😉
Yeah Joyce, the field that DIDN’T flood last year!
And Jax, it came up in *my* Google 😉
btw, 5 for a tenner at Argos Jax 🙂
Ouch re. new statics cost, though guess they’re still a lot cheaper than normal. And have you seen the price of statics at Hesfes???
We’re happy to chip in for marquee etc. Don’t personally see need to offer refreshments at meet and greet, surely it’s enough that people know there will be get-togethers at certain times and people can provide their own stuff. And would have thought crafts were easier on a pay-per-craft basis.
Need to think of some way of improving communication to static people who don’t always get messages about what is going on. Do you know how far in advance they allocate statics – as the statics are normally in groups of 3 or 4 wonder if there’s some way of setting up a message ‘tree’ (like a phone tree!) to pass messages between them – it can be a long way to trek from top of site down to field with littles to find out that everyone has gone out! Am happy to try and coordinate something but could do with some ideas as to how to do it. Any thoughts fellow static dwellers?
No, haven’t seen the Hesfes statics – tell us more?
We had a noticeboard one year, didn’t we? Could do similar again, so that it can be updated with plans during the week, ppl could use it to leave messages to each other (although agree that it’s a long way to walk from the statics to check a board, need some way of improving communication up there. Would perhaps someone in a static be happy to prop a board inside a window?)
Ahh, can’t find e-mail now but otoh they were £335 for week plus Hesfes costs on top.
Yep, I fetched a big whiteboard a couple of years back but it’s glued to a kitchen unit now. Sure I have a smaller one I’d be happy to stick in our static window.
Wow!
Bet they don’t sell out nearly as quickly this year as they have done previously…Kessie looking like really good value now Merry, even with the static price rise!
I agree – I think there should be some ticket type contribution to a marquee and then crafts should maybe be pay per participation. Which would mean gathering payment if you were the one running the craft I know, but that sort of makes sense if you have been the one to make the initial outlay for materials. What does need coordination is what crafts are happening when – so if everyone who was up for laying on a craft said so in advance we could arrange a sort of programme of events based around any trips out we had planned and maybe some more organised meet ups at the swimming pool? I’d be up for that if no one else volunteers.
Slightly concerned about the prospect of further spreading out of sites. The reason we are thinking of tenting is to be ‘in the hub’ but if the hub then moves away again that’d be concerning. My plan is to be ‘where the evening action is’ really so that after the children are asleep I can socialise but still be within yelling hearing distance of them rather than in another field… so where will the majority of us be?
Not sure, but it is an inevitable part of us growing i think. There just isn’t room on the electric only pitches for all of us.
The two places are very close though, well within yelling distance i would say.
I think i might go for non-electric, especially once i know for definite that the marquee will have elctric in it.
We will be most likley go in the ‘non – electric field’, imagine that the evening hanging out will be in the marquee – as long as we put it in the right place it won’t be too far from the others pitches.. We have no great need for hookup, we only really got it and the coolbox last year for keeping BB’s milk cold, we didn’t take it with us when we went down to Somerset. We use a gas light and head torches for light. For the possible oocasioanl use for charging mobiles or camera batteries i’m happy to cadge if necessary. If we have electic in the marquee I’d probably be happy for our electric coolbox to go in there for general use. (what ws the campsites view on that Merry?)
It’s shame there isn’t hookups in the other field, and that might split us bit, but otherwise it’s great field with lots of space that we can have to ourselves it would seem.
It would be good if people could book their craft places beforehand, so that those doing it know how much to provide, otherwise they could end up with loads to much or not enough, though no reason others couldn’t join in if there is enough stuff.
I think craft book beforehand, it makes running a craft session hard work when you’ve no idea who’s coming and you’ve got to gather money from heads as well. Imagine if I do a craft I’d make sure I had well over the decreed amount of kit on the principle I can probably fob it off on groups after anyway, so it wouldn’t cut out ppl turning up on the day. But it would make life easier on some levels.
We’re going to need some reasonably firm suggestions aren’t we? What about trips out as well – yet another wildlife park visit? Given I didn’t go last year, I would probably be up for it this year, but I think most of you lot did go didn’t you?
I’m going non electric, the only thing that it was a real life saver for was the kettle, and if there’s going to be ‘lectric in the communal marquee, then I can do a kettle in there and then store in a thingummy (haven’t finished first cup of tea, have no brain).
Merry, can I suggest a small forum somewhere for the further planning of this?
http://home-educate.me.uk/camps ? 🙂
Anyone who wants to be involved in the setting-up, or wants to provide a craft or do anything else useful, come over. I’ll only approve people are on the Camps List. And will also appoint some extra admins, lol 🙂