Camp!

[pensnest]

I've posted this to the relevant communities, but some of you may read here and not there, so.

You know what? Next year will be the 20th Anniversary of Camp Sparkle.

nopseud and I reckon that we have mostly, as a group, grown away from Camp, but we also think it would be cool to have One Last Camp to celebrate our very special and strange little fannish community, and also, it would be so nice to see you all again.

So, what do you think? Would you come to Camp if we run it next year?

Could you make it whenever, with enough notice, or are there specific times in the year when you would be able to make it?

Do you have any other specifications? Is there somewhere in the UK you'd particularly like to visit, or even re-visit? Would you like to bring a partner? (Beast and the Head Tech Elf will no doubt be there; we'd like a clear idea of numbers before we start house-hunting.)

People aren't so much on LJ/DW these days, so do tell any and all Campers you know that it could be happening, and we need your answers. And anyone who hasn't been to Camp and would love to attend, this is probably your last chance!

Comments

[yourivy]

May I ask what exactly Camp Sparkle is? I'm curious :)

[pensnest]

It was born from the convention where I first met nopseud at which she introduced me to popslash, and the 'sparkly weekends' she used to run where a few UK fans (and occasional guests) would meet to get fannish about our beloved Sparkly Dancing Boys, watch footage, read the Lava Lamp Story, and so forth.

So we set about creating a little popslash convention, and 21 of us went to a large and splendid holiday cottage in Shropshire in late February 2007. Most of the attendees had met *someone* but nobody had met more than a handful of the others before—we had people from Finland, Germany, Switzerland, I think a token American, and so forth. It was intense fun, and we decided to repeat it the following year with a weekend of popslashing and the rest of the week for more regular tourism. It developed traditions like the Add Five Words Story and the requirement for Afternoon Tea. The Icelandic volcano could not stop us (though it tried), but Covid was too much and our 2020 Camp was postponed, but popslash fandom is no more so the incentive for more Camp is much reduced. But it was wonderful while it lasted, and I think I'll always be happy to see those people again.

[yourivy]

That sounds really lovely, I hope you can make it happen again.

[dine]

I obviously never attended, but greatly enjoyed Camp reports from my friends who did - I hope you can put together one last good hurrah for the group