Story Camp 2017 | Bring On The Connections + Next Date Announcement
A couple weekends ago Katie and I held our first Story Camp event here in Eugene, Oregon.
We welcomed 30 attendees, 9 Creative Team members and 1 local friend (love you Amy) for a community building experience rooted in honoring our stories.
It was so, so great.
We talked a lot about practice (both in the way we view our stories and in the projects we create) and a lot about making things less "precious." We talked about loosening up our memory keeping expectations and embracing simple formulas to help us get more stories told and take a whole lot of guess work out of the entire process. We tangibly "practiced" telling our stories using a variety of products and sharing stories around the tables with new friends.
On one of my Instagram posts Katie called it a “game changer of a weekend” and I can’t even articulate/express to you all the ways that is true.
My One Little Word® this year is connect and that was one of the core reasons I wanted to do this event. What I learned - or was reaffirmed or became wholeheartedly obvious over the course of the weekend conversations - was that many others are really looking to connect with an in-person community of memory keepers who value story.
There is so much magic in gathering together. I’ve known that to be true but sometimes I forget. I'm thankful to Katie for pushing to make this happen and for supporting me with all the planning and organizing of the entire event.
For years now I’ve been honing in on what’s most important to me in this memory keeping lifestyle. My own voice has been becoming stronger as my mission has become more clear - to empower people to own and value their own life stories and to create tangible records/projects of those that reaffirm those messages to them in their own lives (“scared is what I’m feeling/brave is what I’m doing”).
On Saturday evening as the group buzzed with conversation and projects and drinks I looked around the room and took a deep breath of thanksgiving - for this whole entire adventure of my life. Seeing people actively connecting with new friends who share a common interest was the most awesome thing to witness.
This group. Love these new friends who asked questions and shared stories and listened and were open to hearing whatever it was they were there to hear.
Katie and I loved being able to invite and include any of our Creative Team who were able to make it in this event. They are all brave storytellers. In the photo above is Katie, Brandi, Sarah, Pam, Ingunn, Jen, Jenny, Kelly, Laura, me and Jess. So thankful for the ways in which my entire team shows up to tell their stories month after month.
Getting to connect with them in person was a very real gift to both Katie and me. It was emotional for all of us and we missed those who were unable to attend.
The Story Camp crew. Peter (Katie's husband), Paolo (who's been my friend for more than half of my life), and Christine (our awesome Marketing Specialist who works for Inked and totally gets us). Gratitude to this crew goes beyond words.
Christine put together this video that gives you a glimpse of what our time together looked like:
You can also read Kelly's post about her experience here.
The verdict is that we will be doing this again. It was totally worth it. Read below for details about the next event:
We loved our first Story Camp go-around so much we have decided to do it again this fall at the same location. We are also planning to offer this event again next year so if you are unable to register for this event there will be more chances in 2018. At this time we do not plan to offer these workshops online nor will we be taking this event on the road.
We learned quite a few things during our first experience and because of that we are making a few changes to adjust the overall flow of the event and adjusting the price. Here are the two main changes:
We are adding another day - the event will start on Thursday evening vs. Friday evening and end on Saturday evening. This gives more focused time for the journaling workshop (moved to Friday morning) when people aren't tired from traveling. We are adding another workshop. When reflecting back over the content of the workshops for the weekend one of the things I personally felt was missing was an opportunity to talk as a group about photography and the huge role that plays in our memory keeping processes. Adding this workshop will allow dedicated time to dive into this topic as well as potentially doing a photo walk around the area (weather dependent).
Our October event will be open to 35 people. You can read all the details on the main Story Camp information page here.
This event sold out very fast the first time and we anticipate that it will go fast again. We suggest making sure your current payment option is up-to-date for your account here on my site. If you are wanting to attend with a friend we recommend that one person purchase both spots.
Registration for the next event will be on Tuesday, June 27th at 10am Pacific. Link will not be live until registration opens.
