🏕 Camp Chronicles - Base Camp Recap // Issue #16 (2024)

Hey Everyone,

Cristina here, writing from my LA abode :)

For the past year and a half (wow that was fast), we’ve been hosting events bringing together inspiring creatives with the mission to shape a better internet. Getting to curate a community of such diversely-minded, yet like-hearted individuals has been incredibly fulfilling, and none of it would be possible without you guys!

Last week, we spent 5 days in Upstate New York with another incredible group of filmmakers, animators, photographers, and entrepreneurs. It was awesome to see so many new AND familiar faces come together to kick off the summer. This Base Camp provided us with the space to learn from each other in new ways and challenge our creativity collectively.

A massive thank you to Patreon & Notion for helping bring this vision to life and fueling our journey to create a more meaningful internet.

This newsletter edition is a long, heartfelt update. Read our event recap, thoughts, and wins from the community down below!

Gracie Koh showing us her pre-production process (left), Campers during creative activity (middle left), Colin Dougan discussing with campers (middle right), Hike excursion in the Catskills (right)

After hosting several one-off retreats for the past two years, Max, Chris, Simon, and I realized that having a central intention to unify the community would make our experiences together so much more purposeful.

So, through Base Camp: Catskills, we kicked off a new season of themes. This event’s theme was: Sustainable Creativity.

A prompt from the “worldbuilding” session we led in partnership with Patreon.

A Backstory On Our Relationship With Patreon ✨
For years, Simon, Chris, Max, and I have held a deep admiration for Patreon and its founder, Jack Conte — a true artist at heart. We feel so closely aligned with Patreon's mission to empower all kinds of creators to live sustainably, and are thrilled to announce our new partnership with them for the rest of 2024! They’ll be fueling our upcoming retreats and some exciting new projects we'll announce soon :)

Workshop Highlight: Pursuing your dreams takes a certain level of delusional optimism and vision. Some of the most visionary storytellers (Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki, etc) thoroughly mapped out their worlds before their stories were ever told. Inspired by Patreon’s mission, we prompted campers to mind-map their “dream futures,” discuss the challenges they’re currently facing, and see where we could all help each other take the next step.

Notion fueled not only a workshop (right), but also our entire week’s schedule, logistics, & attendee profiles (left)

A Huge Thank You To Notion 🤎
We’ve been lucky enough to have Notion’s support for roughly nine months and couldn’t be more grateful. Getting to understand more of Notion’s community-centered ethos and goals for the creator economy through the wonderful reps we’ve worked with (shoutout Danielle and Lexi!!) has been so inspiring.

Workshop Highlight: As creatives and entrepreneurs, we each have very distinct workflows that work for us and our needs. But, there are always bits of inspiration we can take from seeing other people’s processes. For our workshop with Notion, we had five campers showcase the different ways they organize their professional projects, personal mind dumps, and lifestyle plans.

We were so glad to have Danielle Ito, Notion’s Influencer Marketing Lead, come out to Catskills for part of the week, join us for creative activities, and help answer any q’s!

Moments of Fun:
Outside of all the workshops, Catskills’ amazing weather allowed us to have a lot of room for fun and exploration - from meditation & morning runs to waterfall excursions. (This was the first Camp event I’d gone to where it wasn’t cold, raining, or snowing haha - thank you Mother Nature 🙏)

Check out our website for a full visual recap of the week: Base Camp: Catskills Recap.

Baron Ryan’s new book (top left), Brooke Cormier’s latest video (top right), Gracie Koh’s social media commentary (bottom left), Colleen Yu’s Lets.Ripple event (bottom right)

“I always thought my dreams would lead to happiness” - A YouTube Film by Andrew

There are so many amazing creators on the rise right now, but Andrew Paul is one we stumbled upon a few months ago and haven’t stopped watching since. It was the video above (uploaded on Dec 22, 2023) that first caught our attention.

The cinematography, writing style, music choices, and lessons portrayed in his films are incredible - giving vulnerable perspectives on his creative journey. I particularly enjoyed how much Andrew broke the fourth wall in his latest film,“do what makes you feel most alive.”

Thank you for inspiring us to create authentically and dream bigger! I couldn’t recommend his channel more.