Five Year Fete

Fête!
n 1. A festival or feast
2. An elaborate, often outdoor party
3. To celebrate & honor with a festival

Recap of a fabulous weekend with BAWT!!

See photos of from the Fete - click here!
More photos

BAWT's Five Year Anniversary Fete could not have turned out better in my wildest dreams. For those of you who couldn't make it, not only did we have a gorgeous site, at a great time of year, but the weather was perfect and 60+ people showed up to enjoy and celebrate! Many thanks to the folks that showed up Friday, (despite the bridge jumper and gridlock) and got assigned volunteer jobs. A special shout to Erika, who drove down to the site to get her briefing on being volunteer kitchen coordinator, only to go up to SF for a good bye party for a friend, to then drive back down so she'd be ready Saturday AM!

By Saturday mid morning, the workshops were in full swing with people learning: how to build fire with a bow drill, perform basic wilderness first aid, and bake bread in the backcountry! Ahh- the smell of fresh bread on a farm in the spring! Thanks to Jill, Jeremy and Todd for presenting. The afternoon "Cultural Conceptions of Wilderness" panel discussion was extremely interesting and gave us all incredible food for thought. Running Gras reminded us that we are all doing "Thomas Jefferson's work" i.e. social justice/civil rights work- by engaging in a dialogue about race/culture and wilderness. The session was videotaped and will be made available for distribution at some point. (thanks for your patience!) Teambuilding happened simultaneously and lead to some great group process learning for all.

By early evening all had gathered at the conference center to begin the merrymaking for the evening. The Thirsty Bear provided plenty of barley and hops and the bidding began on BAWT's first Silent Auction. Many terrific items, ranging from skateboards to rafting trips to brewery tours -were had after some serious bidding wars ensued. Many, many thanks to all the organizers, local businesses, artists and bidders who helped make this part of the Fete a huge success. We raised around $2,000 and far exceeded our goal! Some stories about BAWT's early adventures, including its exciting rescue on BAWT's first WLT -were sprinkled with awards for volunteers while everyone enjoyed a truly scrumptious dinner put on by the Back To Earth guys (Ari and Eric).

And then there was the music..... wow! The bluegrass trio of Jeff, TR and Cliff played their tightest set to date and set the stage for Carvell Wallace and Seth Augustus who truly blew us all away with their soulful original songs. Chad Abernathy poured his heart out with a spoken word piece he wrote that reminded me of the power of the ocean and sky. Then the fire spinners lit up the night and shared their gifts with us all as well. How did we end up with such an amazingly talented community?!!!

The last of the revelers apparently put away the vinyl at 3am, just about 3 hours before I got up and started flipping pancakes for the fine folks who stayed through the weekend with a relaxing Sunday at Elkus Youth Ranch.

I knew the weekend was truly blessed when I was in the back room packing up and Cassie said "Ah- Look!" and pointed out the window towards the edge of some tall grass. There, about 100 feet away we watched a bobcat prance around, stretch and spray before disappearing back into the grass. A first for me.

When I founded this organization 5 years ago, I could not have imagined that so many great people would be drawn to our vision, and that there would be so many of you out in the world, everyday, sharing the outdoors with the youth of today.

-KyleMacdonald- May 04

Overview Agenda:

Friday- April 2, 2004

Registration 4pm - 9pm
Spaghetti Dinner
Games, Music, Slides, BAWT Videos

Saturday- April 3, 2004

Breakfast and Registration
Workshops to date Include (more to come…)

AM Session-

• First Aid Scenario's I and II- Jill Greenblat, TR Amsler
• Fire Building with Bow Drill- Jeremy Hartje
• Baking in the Backcountry- Todd Cooley

PM Session

• Panel Discussion- Cultural Conceptions of Wilderness
• Teambuilding Games- Matt Hitchcock
• Affinity Groups (e.g. South Bay, Group Home Staff, etc.- TBD)

Organic Dinner
- with catering by Back to Earth

Volunteer awards

Bid on great items
- in our Silent Auction

Live Music
- with Carvel Wallace and the Original Intentions and much more....

Fire Dancers!

Dancing
- music and merrymaking!

Sunday- April 4, 2004

Big Pancake Breakfast!
Creative report backs, evals, next steps
Closing Game and Clean Up