Hey everyone, Chris here! I’m currently writing to you guys from an airport in Finland. This is the first “blog” or “newsletter” that I’ve really ever written so please bear with me :)

We’re trying something new! We wanted to create a space that would allow us to communicate with everyone and give updates on what’s going on in the camp universe!

For hundreds of years stories & laughs have been shared around campfires. I am hoping this will serve as our digital campfire where we can share each other's stories, funny moments, and keep you guys in the loop.

So without further ado. Here are some recent wins in the community!

Huge Announcement from Geller & your 2nd Favorite Chris 🎵

After ~5 years in hibernation, Geller is going to be performing live in LA on October 11th. It’s going to be a mixture of some oldies and his new EP which can be found here.

Any campers in LA? Go grab your friends and show some love! Seriously one of the most talented composers out there. I know you wanna go so here’s the link for tickets :)

The one and only Chris Swag Kelly announced that he’s taking a gap year to really take a stab at music.

In addition to dropping out for a year Chris & his band, Edgehill, just dropped 2 new songs on Spotify yesterday.

Go give them a listen!

The Trip That Made It Out the Group Chat 🌎

Rachel (@Sunnray) has been on a multiple-month road trip from Mexico To Alaska with her dog Fado. About 2 weeks ago while in Alaska she met up with a a native, Annemarie Chase, to go rollerblading!

This week Rachel took off on an adventure that she’s been planning for some time now. A group trip to Iceland with 15 people from her community. She hosted the trip through a platform called Trova Trip that allows creators to host trips, set a price range, and select/approve specific candidates.

We’ve known Rachel since Creator Camp 1.0 & it’s been super cool to see all of the adventures and growth she’s had in the span of just one year. She told us the trip is going incredibly well & that everyone has become such good friends.

If you’re thinking about hosting a trip or wanna know more about Trova Trip definitely hit Rachel up for advice!

Onto The Next Adventure 🎓

Donovan Beck, aka (@themindofsol) one of the best spoken word poets that we know, recently announced that he’s going to MIT.

Yes, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of the most prestigious and renowned universities in the world.

He’s not attending as a student but rather as a part of their community. Donovan accepted a role as a marketing & communications coordinator where he will be working with entrepreneurs and startups from underrepresented countries.

Donovan has played such a fundamental role in our community & has shown us nothing but love. We wanted to highlight this HUGE achievement.
Those of you on the East Coast you have a good one headed your way!

Leadership Updates 🔥⛺️

• The whole team is back in the USA (except for me). In about a week, we’re all moving to Austin together which is gonna be the start of a new chapter 🙂
  
  We’re super excited about Base Camp. We have 55 slots secured and about ~10 remaining. We’d love for people to host activities at Base Camp whether that's a songwriting session, a meditation, a poetry class, or a hike. It can be anything! If you’re interested let us know and please also if you guys have ideas for what else you’d like to see at Base Camp just give us a holler!
  

• This week during our weekly meeting we had a lot of conversations about how to communicate with the community effectively & how we can involve everyone in what we’re doing & the direction of Creator Camp. Throughout the process of building Creator Camp, one the biggest values we try to uphold is to ‘make decisions from their perspective and not ours.’ It’s all of our first times running a real “business” — and we’re not in this for a quick fix. We’re trying to build a world that you’ll all love and hold onto for a long time. So, we’re all ears when it comes to ideas & feedback.
  
  I believe this little blog is a step in the right direction!
  

• We’ve also been having convos about how Creator Camp can sustain itself financially haha. It’s been an ongoing question for us as most of our projects have thinly broken even. We’re committed to always having our flagship Creator Camp event be free. But, as we try to grow, we want to find more balance with giving a sense of involvement and ownership.
  

  From the start, our motto has been “Just do the right thing and the money will come”. We very much still believe this. The equation we’re trying to solve for is something like the following:

  
  How do we develop a model that allows us to earn a living? Allows us to host our events without charging the community and with zero or minimal outside sponsorships so we can keep it as pure as possible. And most importantly serves the community?
  

• Starting in the next weeks we’re gonna start hosting group brainstorms for those who want to be more involved and we’ll also be sending out recordings of our weekly meetings in case any of you are interested!

Fun Little Things 🙌

• We started a Creator Camp running club through Strava. Last week our winner was Nate GL with 18.2 km - you can sign up and run with us here!
  

• Collectibles! We have ~20 extra hoodies from Camp 2.0 that we won’t be restocking. They’ve been sitting at my house for some time so we thought we’d put them out in the world along with a “more than content” poster featuring Needle Rock Lodge.

Thanks for taking the time to read my first blog. That is all for now, catch ya next week!

Much love guys,
Chris Duncan