I'm going to have to start commenting on stuff as I work my way down the thread, there's too much for my puir wee brain to remember!

Charlie, we used to have cabin "style" preferences on the registration form, didn't notice if they were there this year. We asked about late-night vs quiet after 10pm; kids; men-only and women-only; snoring/non-snoring and whether people snore (some people lied though....) AND, we asked if there were specific people you would like to share a cabin with. (Sorry, we do NOT ask if there are people you'd rather sleep in a gravel pit than share a cabin with :-) but if you end up with one of those, there are always plenty of empty bunks in other cabins.)

If you don't see those questions on next year's forms, holler at us and we'll fix it. (This is the royal or editorial "We," since it's Charlie who will actually do the work....)

I believe that one reason some people feel a bit uncomfortable with the Mudcat presence, is that we have had to move the camp much farther from Washington and also raise the price a bit, and a number of people can't make it, especially if they have lots of kids. Day-tripping has gotten much harder because the travel time is closer to 2 hours now than 1. So we are missing a lot of people who used to be regulars. Don't know what we can do about it but we're going to try to improve the situation for those people.

I've been trying to think of good places to officially designate as late-night jamming areas. In the old camps, it was easy: we had plenty of spaces that would work, and were close enough together to walk to comfortably. The White House is only good for the quieter types of music after 10pm, because one reason people end up staying there is that they need their rest (me, for example....)

Any suggestions? Is there a close-in cabin we could suggest? How about the handicapped cabins, if they aren't being used in a given year? Is there a cabin we should reserve for late nights? Maybe it should be a central cabin, so people can stagger back to bed without getting lost....

[As I read more of the thread I saw that Jennifer suggested the same thing....]

There's no point in trying to specify what kind of music/jams/ballads/singing will take place in a given location. You can lead a folkie to a venue but you can't make 'em sing if what they want is pickin' and vice versa. We'll just try to suggest some good locations.

About joining FSGW and getting a newsletter, Jennifer, you are closer to it all than I am, but I know we have a LOT of out of town members, I can't believe it's any problem.

Oh. And, Charlie, would you ask the camp if we can somehow put a light and a sign in the long driveway, or at the gazebo-or-whatever-it-is, to give people some idea how to find the dining hall at night?

Back to my article. Have wasted two hours picking out photos to go with it, now I have to write captions and I'm supposed to be making a few wood things for Saturday's show.... how time does fly.