Greetings, Epic Skill Swappers!

We, the ESS organizing team, have some news to share with you all: Due to low registration for Weekend A (May 26-29) and overall lower numbers signed up this year, we have decided to cancel ESS Weekend A. After deliberation and helpful feedback from folks registered for the first weekend, it was clear to us that it will be better for this year’s and future events to pour our energy and resources as a community and as a committee into one epic weekend.

We are sending a separate email today to those registered for Weekend A with instructions for cancelling (with full refunds, of course) or changing their registration, and we hope and anticipate that many will be able to join us for Weekend B instead, which will mean an even more full and vibrant weekend for all!

Don’t forget, registration is still open for Weekend B (June 9-12)! The draft schedule may change a bit as we incorporate migratory workshops from Weekend A, but never fear, the weekend will still allow for all the planned workshops, late additions, and relaxing/singing/storytelling/swimming/napping/socializing you’ve been looking forward to. Please do continue to spread the word and grow the community!

We are really bummed to have to make the difficult decision to consolidate the weekends, but grateful as always for the enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and support of this amazing community. And we are REALLY excited to see everyone who can make it to Epic Skill Swap 2017, June 9-12 at Camp Wilmot!

Sincerely,

Your Epic Skill Swap organizing team:
Alison, Annie, Dana, Eliza, Eric, Ethan, Meghan, Onnie, and Rachel

All-camp photo from Weekend B 2016.

We’re excited to announce that this year, we have hired Laura Keeler to head up the kitchen for both Weekend A and Weekend B!

Laura has cooked for college students, wedding guests, Buddhist monks, and more folk dancers than she can possibly count. She found her footing in the kitchen at Pinewoods Camp and then discovered that baking pies could be a full-time job and a great way to stay warm in New England winters. Now working in scholarly publishing, she still thinks kitchens are the best places to make friends.

While Laura has a wealth of experience cooking for groups of all kinds, she’s new to Epic Skill Swap. So please get ready to give her a warm welcome and also enjoy fabulous meals at Skill Swap this year.

Dear Friends!

My name is Eliza, and I’m the newest member of the ESS organizing committee. I’m writing to ask a favor: If you’re planning on attending Epic Skill Swap this year, it would be extraordinarily helpful to us if you would register ASAP. This will help us to do our planning (and will also ease our minds a little, since the cost of Skill Swap is split among the attendees, and so the more people we have registered, the more affordable ESS is for everyone).

Additionally, I wanted to address something about the two weekend model that we adopted last year: ESS Weekend A and ESS Weekend B are not quite the same. The nature of Skill Swap is that the experience is formed by the people who attend. The organizers aren’t trying to manicure two identical weekends, and so each weekend is always unique.

For example, you may have noticed that this year, Weekend A has fewer workshops on the schedule than Weekend B. Put another way, Weekend A has more space to evolve as it happens. If you didn’t get a chance to propose a workshop, or if you proposed two workshops and one was not selected, you can (and we think should!) bring that workshop to Weekend A! Speaking from my experience last year, a weekend that evolves as it goes is a really cool experience. Weekend B will also be cool and have some space for last-minute workshop additions, but will probably be a little more structured and predictable.

If the idea that the two weekend are going to be different is just killing you, because you don’t want to miss out on either experience, why not come to both? (Remember, we have a sliding cost scale!) If that’s not an option, but you haven’t decided which weekend to attend, then we ask that you consider attending Weekend A, which will need lots of cool attendees with great ideas to help fill in all those inviting open workshop slots!

Please also remember to share the wonders of Skill Swap with your friends and networks! If you know someone who would just love ESS, now is the time to send them the link to the registration page!

With Skill Swap it’s not just “the more the merrier.” It’s that as a community, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and the more parts, the greater the whole.

We can’t wait to see you at Epic Skill Swap 2017!

Eliza — and the rest of the organizing team: Alison, Annie, Dana, Ethan, Meghan, Onnie, and Rachel