Group Management – Published 3/20/21

GROUP MANAGEMENT

Managing a fire group is a lot of work! As Shin you are expected to maintain communications with the FC Council, coordinate and motivate a support crew and dancers, choreograph, shoot video, edit your audition, and be accountable for your people and their actions.

How you manage your group is entirely up to you. We will maintain a hands-off approach, offering guidance when you ask for it. We can, however, assist you with helpful insights from our own experiences, Burning Man management practices, and from what we’ve learned from Shins through the years.

EXPECTED CHALLENGES

• Managing personalities
• Maintaining motivation
• Conflict resolution
• Innovating ideas
• Cat herding
• Logistics
• Time management:
  • Personnel
  • Choreography
  • Practices
  • Costuming
  • Tool building
• Communications:
  • to us
  • to your conclave
• Video shoots
• Editing 
• Costs:
  • fuel
  • costuming
  • tool building
• Rehearsal space

GROUP MEMBERSHIP

Life is bigger than Burning Man. Never has this been more true than now, with the uncertainty the pandemic brought us in 2020, and moving forward. We know that there are other things to think about besides Burning Man. Pandemic aside, life happens, things change, babies are born, people die, move to different cities, find the love of their life, break up, etc.. We also know that people may double up in multiple groups, just to make sure they will be with a group that is selected. Or maybe someone told you they would be with your group, changed their mind and forgot to tell you. We always see doubles on multiple lists. We then email both Shins as well as the person in question who did not communicate to either Shin. You might want to do the work first and communicate to your group that they need to communicate honestly with you.

This also goes for your support team that has been subscribed to this discussion list. If there is a parting of ways (you change Shin Assist(s)) then you need to communicate with us as soon as you know. We’ll unsubscribe them as quickly as we can. 

When you have been accepted into the Fire Conclave we will send you a link to a google form to send to your group members to fill out. We will also send the shin a link to the spreadsheet that the form populates, which will allow you to check each member’s information and make any changes if needed. Each member of your fire group will need to register a Burner Profile (see the section on Ticket Information in this document) to participate with the Fire Conclave, and must register for their very own email address for ticketing purposes. It’s important that everything matches. It will be helpful to you to collect this information early and verify it with your people.