The purpose of this post is not to brag or complain, but to only share information about some of the aspects of the East Texas Caver's Cookout and what may be required to ever try to do it again.
I personally spent about $ 2,300 hosting the cookout. I did receive $ 70 in donations afterwards. Other attendees, including my wife, either brought food, or provided their labor to cook and clean-up, or all of the above. I can justify part of that expense, as I was taking my family on what I knew was going to be an awesome experience camping in one of my favorite places in Texas. We had a nice cabin for the entire weekend in a very scenic setting,( although my wife and daughter only used it for one night ). I chose to sleep in my tent, but would have run for the cabin had thunderstorms been severe. Had 80 more people showed up, it would not have cost an extra penny to the cost of the event. Had 400 people showed up, we would have needed them to bring some form of food, or pay someone to make a run to the store for more food. What needs to be done in the future, is that prospective attendees need to RSVP and the event needs to be announced much sooner. This may be easier in the future, as we are on better terms with the land-owner. I am guessing we could improve land-owner relations by donating lots of money to the camp for repairs. We need someone local who either has access to a cooking trailer, or knows someone that can deliver one inexpensively. I had somnone lined up to do this, but he stood me up, and I am guessing that is because I didn't wave enough money at him. The other option is just to buy a big charcoal grill and keep it in the NaturFest storage unit. I don't want attendees to be expected to have to do a lot of work cooking and cleaning. I prefer to hire somebody local. I did that this time, but the lady didn't show up till 9 p.m.. She did thoroughly sanitize the Bath House. That was something I would have liked done before the guest arrived. Maybe next year, I can hire her again. Did I mention the Bath House has awesome hot showers ? Another thing that needs done in the future, is somehow the word has to get out to all the cavers in east Texas that a really big event is going on that is worth attending. The NSS was very supportive this year, and I thank them for that. Most of the work that I did for NaturFest 2013, was on-line trying to invite potential cavers or people that had some kind of background in natural science, camping, nature, etc. If you do not feel you were properly invited, please let me know. I did receive some negative feedback about my aggressive invitations. I did little on Facebook for this event. I was hoping to use Google+ to manage the flow of information. I did a large percentage of that work on my HTC cell-phone, including all the live reports from NaturFest. All of my internet use was done via tethering on my HTC phone through the Cricket wireless service. I was not able to do that in years past, so that was a huge help. On the Friday evening of the event, I was at the NaturFest storage unit with a rented U-haul cargo van. It was at that time, that I had to make a decision as to whether to load up the van with all the accumulated event stuff, or make some other plan. I only had 4 cavers who had vaguely expressed interest in coming, and the weather forecast looked unpleasant. So I never loaded up the van, and just parked it for emergency use. Instead, I made 3 trips in my wife's mini-van with the bare necessities of what I thought we might need. I didn't want to have to micro-manage expenses like that, and in hindsight that effort to save a 10 or 20 dollars just created extra work. What I really needed at that time, was someone at camp on Friday night greeting visitors, so that I could load up the U-haul efficiently. I live nearly 2 hours from camp, and it is not practical for me to store all this stuff near my house and haul it on the night before to NaturFest. Plus I have a really good deal on a storage unit just 5.3 miles from camp. I would like to see NaturFest have caving related activities. I was hoping to show a cave related movie on a big screen. It would be nice to have a rope-practice session in the trees ( if you can find one still alive ). I was hoping to display many of the cave related things I have accumulated, all of which are boxed-up in the NaturFest storage building. I also have some boxes of items that I could put in a caver-related yard-sale. But all of that is insignificant compared to the over-all goal of NaturFest. We need to get young cavers like those at A&M and the other colleges in east Texas to come out and socialize. This event is only 45 minutes from the A&M campus, and only 6 miles from the campus of Blinn in Brenham. It is not realistic for NaturFest to attract cavers west of Austin and San Antonio. And unless, the event can be properly organized in advance, it is not realistic to attract cavers from anywhere west of Brenham. I would like to thank Mike Walsh for coming all the way from Cedar Park. In summary, planning NaturFest 2014 is going to require lots of work and resources. Mark your calendar for March 8th & 9th, and hopefully there will be someone crazy enough to do it again. David Locklear NaturFest Association 281-995-8487 ( text-line ) https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/106745323215963190758/106745323215963190758/about --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
