TREEWEEK
My dear friends and family, from Twitter, and all the other places.
You’re invited to TREEWEEK!
TREEWEEK takes place from Sep 24 — Sep 30, 2024, at Seegut Blaue Blume, near Berlin.
As of 8 August 2024, 4pm CEST we are SOLD OUT on room tickets.
You can still buy camping tickets as per availability and join the wait list for room tickets that might get released later (when people drop out for example).
>>> BUY YOUR TICKET / JOIN WAITLIST<<<
All the deetz:
What is this?
TREEWEEK is an all-inclusive summer camp, hosted by your friend Simon (it's me).
TREEWEEK also contains … drum roll … my 33rd birthday party! My birthday is on September 28.
This means I’m also inviting some IRL friends to the camp, and my family for the weekend, which will be super cool. More about that below!
If you’re a non-Twitter friend of mine: There is a very cool scene that developed on Twitter where a bunch of people are talking to each other and getting to know each other. Like me, they care about philosophy and living well. A wise man once called them “friendly ambitious nerds” and I agree with that. As my friend, I would bet you wouldn’t mind being called a “friendly ambitious nerd”, I think all my friends are sort of like that, and that’s why I think you’ll all get along and I can’t wait to see you all!
If you’re a Twitter person: TREEWEEK continues the line of Vibecamp, Jesscamp, Xiqweek, Vibehole etc., as a relaxed, idiosyncratic Twitter (TPOT) friends and soon-to-be-friends meetup, that’s mostly self-organized, i.e. some activities, hanging out, getting along, having fun and cooking. The goal is: being, together.
When?
TREEWEEK takes place from September 24 to September 29 in this year of our lord, 2024.
TREEWEEK is a summer camp in early autumn, call it an early autumn camp. I have a 100% track record of sunshine on my birthday, so (I dearly hope) we will have very nice weather. The TREES will also look VERY nice.
Arrival is on Tuesday (24 Sep) and departure on the subsequent Monday (30 Sep), so Sunday can be a full day of final conversations and extended goodbyes, without the pressure of having to leave.
There is an art to saying goodbye, and I think a solid goodbye can really help form a subsequent relationship. And that's what we're here for: for friendship!
Where?
Seegut Blaue Blume is a gorgeous manor with great amenities. When I found out about the location I was struck by their philosophy:
"Es geht uns um nichts Geringeres als die Wiederverzauberung der Welt."
"Our aim is nothing nothing less than the re-enchantment of the world."
I don't know about you, but I'm on board with that.
I envisioned a place with water, earth, fire, air, and an inside space, so we can vibe in all sorts of biomes and temperatures. I also wanted camping to be an option. Guess what? We got it all!
- Water: There is a lake on the property. I heard it might be a bit better to go to the other one that's 20 minutes away for swimming.
- Earth: Plenty of TREES, forest and outside territory, campground with plenty of space.
- Fire: At least one, if not two saunas, a fireplace inside, and I'm sure we can make a fire outside.
- Air: Fresh autumny lake-territory air, and the beauty of conversations with your friends.
If you're trying to become the Avatar, master of all elements, TREEWEEK might be for you!
Seegut Blaue Blume houses 50 people in beds, offers 25 spots for camping, and 5 spots for RVs. So the total capacity of TREEWEEK is give or take 80 people.
^ This will be us!!
Travel & Logistics
From Berlin Airport BER, take the FEX (direction Berlin Central Station) to Gesundbrunnen, and change to the RE3 (direction Stralsund) to Prenzlau. We will run a van shuttle between Prenzlau and Blaue Blume.
This RE3 also departs from Berlin Central Station.
The journey takes two hours by train, and 30 minutes by car. Please book your flights / travels in and out accordingly. Be in Berlin early so we don't have to pick you up at 1am or something. The same goes for your return flight / trains. Check the train journey from Prenzlau to the airport / train station and book late enough flights on Sunday or Monday. When in doubt, contact us about your itinerary.
If you come by car, come straight to Seegut Blaue Blume. I'm very happy about some people coming by car! We'll need to do some shopping tours and picking people up, so drivers and vehicles are welcome.
As our groupchat fills, we encourage you to make travel plans together, and maybe find each other at the airport, to take the train ride as a crew. We will have to batch you in Prenzlau anyway to make sure we do full van trips. Traveling together will bring you close before the event even starts!
What’s in it for you and what are the vibes?
Meet the homies, make new friends, live together inside and outside for a week, nice food that we’ll all cook together, extra time in Berlin before and/or after, celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.
Deep conversation, games and jokes and many laughs, cool meaningful experiences, showing each other your skills and views, self-organized events and activities, lots of MUSIC! Bathe in the very real magic of many like minded people. Being together, partying together, writing a bit of history together.
Afterwards (let’s say you’ve never been to a Twitter meetup before) your timeline is gonna be WAY better because now you’re replying to real people who you have experiences and in jokes with, and it really changes the quality of everything significantly.
For those of you who have some work to do and need to put some hours in, I'm very happy to provide some daytime workspace concentration zone. We do respect a hustler. You can also find friends for coworking, or as we like to call it in Berlin, coWORMing.
Ticket Price and Generosity
The ticket tiering looks as follows:
- 725 EUR: Room Ticket Supporter
- 600 EUR: Room Ticket Standard
- 475 EUR: Room Ticket Reduced Price (for low income / poor people)
- 475 EUR: Camping Ticket Supporter
- 350 EUR: Camping Ticket Standard
Additionally, the ticketing form will include a voluntary donation field to support reduced price tickets. More about that in just a moment!
The rooms available are: 2 bed rooms, 3 bed rooms, 4/5 bed rooms and one 15 bed dorm, for a total of 50 beds. Ticket prices do not differ between the room types. Each room has a bathroom.
Campers bring their own stuff. If you want to camp but you can't bring stuff, contact us, maybe we can make something happen. There are around 25 camping spots and 5 RV spots available.
With that said, a transparent word about our financials.
We've spent quite some energy on budgeting this event, to make it sustainable. It looks very very solid now. The amazing team that's worked with me on this can come to this event relatively cheaply, and I can take a decent salary home from it, so that I'm very happy to put in my time and energy into it. For me, that's the definition of sustainability: TREEWEEK has been a joy to work on, and I would (and will) do it again with no hesitation.
At the same time, this is our first time so things can go wrong, so we've been relatively conservative and buffer-y with the budget. I hope when TREEWEEK 2 comes around (yes, we're already thinking about it (May, anyone?)) we can be a bit more economical and hopefully let that reflect on the ticket prices. Or, maybe we got it just right. We will see.
Which brings us to generosity, and our not-for-profit idea.
I want to enable as many people as possible to come here, and afford it. Camping is a good, cheap option, and there are plenty of camping tickets. Reduced price rooming is the next most affordable one. And I think even a standard 600 EUR ticket is a decent price for 6 nights, nature and sauna, plenty of good home cooked food, and, you know, the homies and all that good jazz.
For us to afford reduced price tickets, we need those of you who can to be generous! That means: buy supporter tickets, or donate small amounts that add up when many do it. We also invite you to group up with your friends directly and pool money privately to help them come to TREEWEEK. That's even better. This is all up to you but we want to promise you something:
We will not limit or cap the amount of donations and supporter tickets. But we will limit/cap our profits. TREEWEEK is not for profit, and we will guarantee the generous among you, that all extra money will go to good places, i.e. reduced price tickets. Should we sell out with a great generosity budget overflow despite having provided plenty of reduced price tickets, we will not pocket it as profit. Instead, it will serve as a starting budget for TREEWEEK 2, which we will then start with positive financials, so that we can make more generous decisions going forward. That's the plan.
Let's play a long game!
>>> BUY YOUR TICKET <<<
What's included, and what do you volunteer?
Included in your ticket is
- 6 nights accommodation
- all rooms in the house have a their own bathroom
- a buddy system for campers to use the inside bathrooms
- bedding and towels are included
- sauna every night, as much as the location allows
- unlimited tea and coffee, plenty of snacks and soft drinks
- plenty of food all day, self serve breakfast, simple lunches and cooked dinners
- our food will be mostly vegetarian and vegan
- protein will come in form of many eggs and legumes
- I hope we can BBQ and I'm aiming for 2 days of fish and meat
- we have a great head chef (my brother Lukas!), and a cool recipe system (shoutouts to Microsolidarity and Dan!), so cooking will be well structured and deliiiicious
- budget for party & bs
- Simon's birthday party with cake and many mysterious happenings I myself will be surprised by!
- a rented van so we can go for a field trip here and there and have mobility for any emergency shopping trips or whatever
- and of course, many blessings and the great joy of friendship
You’ll volunteer:
- your unique spirit and your magic powers to make the event special
- your hands, head and tastebuds for the occasional shift in the kitchen
- your feet, for walking and dancing
- your care and attention, for yourself and others, to see when you and others are in need, so that you may communicate with that person (including yourself), to recognize their circumstances, and if possible / adequate, improve these circumstances, alert others, or just leave them be, for having been seen and witnessed, often makes our life better, our being more real, our soul more connected, to the infinite, and the great.
Not included:
- Alcohol: We will provide plenty of beer and wine (and I'm happy to accommodate some special orders). However, we ask you to put your name down and tally your drinks, and then pay us (at purchase price) before you leave.
In my experience there are many non-drinkers at these events and I don't want non-drinkers' money going towards alcohol.
Refunds
Full refunds available up to two weeks before the event (10. September 2024). After that date we can't guarantee refunds, but don't hesitate to reach out. If we aren't sold out it might help if you had someone in mind we can transfer your ticket to.
Friends, Family and Birthday?
My personal twist on the classic TPOT camp is that I'm combining it with existing networks in my life. We will have a big birthday party on Saturday. After all, I'm turning thirty-TREE!
I've invited some of my close IRL friends to the event. They were my TPOT before TPOT existed. They're cool, weird, unique, superpower people. I think, no I KNOW, that you'll all get along swimmingly. More about that below, under "Why am I doing this?"
On Friday, some of my family will come, among them my Mom and my grandparents. Someone asked me on the sign-up form whether that will change the vibes, or more precisely, "whether you anticipate different norms/less degeneracy when your family arrive".
My answer to that is... yes and no. My family is very cool, and I told them what they're getting into, so they will be cool. And also, this is an exercise for integration. My grandparents are both around 80, and of course we will meet them with some of the respect that is seeming for meeting our elders.
Some of that respect is that my family has a separate accommodation not too far away, so they can party with us, but also go to bed undisturbed when they want. Late night degeneracy is ensured ; )
I will also do my best to do introductions at the right time, so I will help with the integration. Not to worry. I can't tell you how pumped I am for my friends and my family to meet!!!
Why am I doing this?
Visiting Jesscamp and Microsolidarity Camp in Summer 2023 changed my life significantly, when it came to meeting people and furthering my personal development. I was also at Xiqweek, which was great as well (and Porto can hardly be beaten as a location). Before that I was part of Medley in Berlin. With the path paved by these previous camps / meetups / residencies, I feel like it’s easy for me to apply my hosting capacity and hospitality to give back to the community. I also want to help generate the gravitational field in Berlin.
I think that many Twitter friends are often great mages looking for friends that can help them unleash their abilities. Being brought together as like minds allows for new fruitious connections of love, labor and friendship. I’ve always found my friends like this, and my family is also pretty nerdy, so I can’t wait for my IRL friends & family to meet my internet friends and vice versa. I think you’ll all get along famously.
My great dream is to have many or all of my friends and family in one place and them getting to know each other. I always thought this would only happen at my wedding, but then I realized that you can just do things. I just need to create a big enough occasion well ahead of time, so many friends can come. So when I do get married one day, my friends will already have met. ; )
For example at TREEWEEK!
See you there!
We're so excited for this! This will be cozy, vibey, tasty, swaggy, and just really damn good. We can't wait!
Simon & Team
not_a_hot_girl, positive_loop, LaurenUba, jnsyaaa, ames_for_joy
Any questions? Email or DM me.
Berlin Afterburner
Sometimes the best festival is after the festival. You're encouraged to plan a longer stay in Berlin, around the event. We as a team might be a bit busy right before, and a bit tired right after, but some cozy dinners and hangs should work out. Most of us live and hang in east Berlin (Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Neukölln). Plan a stay and hit us up.
One last time but quiet:
>>> BUY YOUR TICKET <<<
Thanks <3