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oy.... so for quite a while i've been wanting to do a night time jam. but the city of rochester seems determined not to allow any kind of happy dancey music event in their parks.
i sent a message to a guy who runs a drum circle in town. i would love love love for there to be some live drumming. but all the parks have rules against music that travels more than 50 feet. but i did some clicking around and found out who i should get in touch with for a restricted use permit. i feel like getting around the music thing is the easy part.
the difficult part is the fire spinning. the parks have rules stating you can't kindle a fire except in the provided fire pits. i think by kindle they're implying that they don't want you to build a fire on the ground. like any old where, burning huge circles into the grass... i'm obviously not going to do that. but im afraid our misc spinning will be ended by some kind of authority figure using that rule against us.
i had spent some (confusing) time a while back reading to see what i could come up with to defend our activities. i'm struggling how to word this! i'm looking for a law/regulation to make the distinction between our fire spinning and the park rules against kindling a fire outside a fire pit. i had started my reading one day on nafaa.org, ended up reading some complicated laws i didnt fully grasp at the time. some kind of regulation about fire performance/rehearsal being different than building a fire in the park. so that if a park employee or police officer came and said that was against park rules, i would be able to give them some other rules that prove that what we're doing is completely different and not really applicable. does that make sense?
i realize that's not fool proof, and they could still tell us not to spin fire, but i think that's probably my best chance. what do you guys think?
i had been tossing this idea around for a while, and when i first started reading on nafaa i wasn't ready to get serious yet. it might be difficult (if not impossible) to organize this kind of event in rochester ny, but i'm not ready to give up yet! i'm going to read more seriously on nafaa, but is there somewhere else i can study? anyone have a similar experience that can offer me any advice?
i sent a message to a guy who runs a drum circle in town. i would love love love for there to be some live drumming. but all the parks have rules against music that travels more than 50 feet. but i did some clicking around and found out who i should get in touch with for a restricted use permit. i feel like getting around the music thing is the easy part.
the difficult part is the fire spinning. the parks have rules stating you can't kindle a fire except in the provided fire pits. i think by kindle they're implying that they don't want you to build a fire on the ground. like any old where, burning huge circles into the grass... i'm obviously not going to do that. but im afraid our misc spinning will be ended by some kind of authority figure using that rule against us.
i had spent some (confusing) time a while back reading to see what i could come up with to defend our activities. i'm struggling how to word this! i'm looking for a law/regulation to make the distinction between our fire spinning and the park rules against kindling a fire outside a fire pit. i had started my reading one day on nafaa.org, ended up reading some complicated laws i didnt fully grasp at the time. some kind of regulation about fire performance/rehearsal being different than building a fire in the park. so that if a park employee or police officer came and said that was against park rules, i would be able to give them some other rules that prove that what we're doing is completely different and not really applicable. does that make sense?
i realize that's not fool proof, and they could still tell us not to spin fire, but i think that's probably my best chance. what do you guys think?
i had been tossing this idea around for a while, and when i first started reading on nafaa i wasn't ready to get serious yet. it might be difficult (if not impossible) to organize this kind of event in rochester ny, but i'm not ready to give up yet! i'm going to read more seriously on nafaa, but is there somewhere else i can study? anyone have a similar experience that can offer me any advice?
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Rochester
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Wed, May 27, 2009 - 5:38 PMOur policy in San Luis Obispo was always ask for forgivness rather than permission. The police only ever hassled us a few times even though we had similar laws about music and fire. It never became an issue. Especially because our group size was fairly small. We did keep a copy of our fire insurance on hand. We'd say we were insured professionals and this usually satisfied the police. Good luck.
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Wed, May 27, 2009 - 6:26 PMI've been running a fully legal spin jam for 6 years. Our park has similar restrictions, but, fortunately, it's the only one that's not directly attached to a residential zone, so we have a little buffer. My solution was to use a tiny little system like this:
www.amazon.com/Think-Outs.../ref=sr_1_1
and plug an ipod into it. You can have drums, trance, rock, whatever.
The down side to drums it that you can't only have just one. As soon as you allow a drummer in, you get 12. And if that first one was playing softly, a dozen will create ground tremors by comparison. You really don't need _loud_ music, just something to create an atmosphere that's loud enough to sync up the spinning.
My biggest weapon when setting up our space was fear. I told them that we could either gather all the fire folks up in one spot, teach them safety, and have people watching each other, or that 150 people could be scattered around the city in back yards and kitchens, doing the same thing without safety training, or people watching their backs. THAT got their attention.
You CAN take the "beg forgiveness" route, or you can do the work. Figure out what you have to do to get it right, and have a golden pass for paid events that you actually need a permit to do. It means that you'll have to learn the names of your local fire marshals, and it just might mean that you have to find a park just outside the city limits of Rochester (Like Culver City is to Los Angeles), but I think you'll prefer the results in the long run.
It took almost a year out of my life to get our park. In the process, I had to run training seminars to teach FMs about fire spinning, perform demonstrations, etc, etc. We had to negotiate with the city lawyers, figure out a fee schedule for park rental, etc. But being able to tell police to piss off is a great feeling. -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 7:40 AMhmmmm... i guess drums might not be so good. i hadn't really considered vibrations. i was actually hoping for a bunch of drummers. it would be awesome but i guess there's no real way for that to happen in this city. i was on the drum circle's page on meetup and i was looking at their pics, saw that they met in people's house and basements sometimes, now i know why. because there's NOWHERE else in this city that will allow that
oh little boom box. i was hoping to get away from canned music, but there's no way :(
i plan on doing the work. i'm not going to gather everyone only to have it shut down and nowhere else to relocate to. evening ruined. my back yard is a 12' square with half dead tree's hanging over it. not happening!
i did a lot of reading on nafaa. i just have to find out if our city defaults to those rules. which are wonderfully reasonable, and would distiguish between what we're doing and "kindling" a fire on the grass. and yesterday at whirly wednesday i was talking to someone about this, and he said that his father/brother is witht eh fire department in rochester, so he might be able to help us getting those rules accepted. even if they're not directly that person, it's always good to have someone on the inside on your side.
basically, the conclusion that i've come to, is that it's not impossible, its just not going to be as easy as i originally thought. but i have a good feeling we'll be able to get the NFPA 160 rules accepted. they're very reasonable and at this point i remain hopeful that will be the case.
thanks!
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 1:19 PMAlmost no cities default to the NAFAA regs (yet!). But presenting them as a personal code is a great way to get on a fire Marshal's good side. You can also tell them that the NAFAA regs were selected by both of our primary liability insurance carriers as the code of conduct for insured shows (that's everywhere in the US) For you, I'd recommend reading the annotated codes
www.nafaa.org/nafaa_safety_anno.html
They'll give you a lot more insight on how the permit writers think. Next, you probably should give the Fuelbusters section a read just to have a deeper basis of the common spinning fuels:
nafaa.pbworks.com/FuelBusters
Once you're personally geared up, you should consider having a meet and greet with the local fire marshal. Sit down with him/her/them and tell them who you are, what fire performance is, What the dangers are (yes, ALL of them! FMs can sniff out a coverup faster than a 2nd grade teacher), and what can be done to mitigate them. Show them footage. You are welcome to use the demo reels from Red Swan:
redswanfire.com/clients_show-info.html
And of course, f there's a lot of them, they'll want a powerpoint presentation(from the NAFAA library):
www.nafaa.org/ppt/index.htm
[I pulled the images off the website and stuffed them into my iPod. Now I can drop down a presentation any old time I want]
Once they see what we're about, usually they start to agree that we're not "kindling" unattended bonfires here. In CA, he State fire Marshal's office has declared fire tools to be modified "camping stoves" and treats them, legally speaking, the same way. So we can use them anywhere except outdoors during extremely high wildfire risk times. And that brings up another point. Any city you're in will have you under 3 jurisdictions: city, county and state. You can always defer to a higher jurisdiction if you think one's being unfair. Our State FM gave me some nice weaponry, here in CA, to use against unreasonable locals.
"canned" music, I get ya, but I must say there's a LOT of really good stuff in PODCASTS. I'm sure if you poke around you could find a tribal drum podcast. Granted, it's still in the can, but it's at least the stuff you want to hear.
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 9:32 AMIn Denver we have a Sunday night fire spin, and have for probably 8 or more years. We spin in the Confluence Park, which is ideal, since we have some separation from neighbors for sound. As far as I know, we have only once had any authority figure give us grief, and it was fleeting. It is illegal to have fire in our city park, and the primary goal in Denver for that prohibition is to prevent damage to the park. But at Confluence, we have concrete steps and a stage by the edge of the river, where any fire spin off is on concrete, and doesn't damage plant life. We have never asked for a permit, we just go and do it.
You might explore doing it as part of a "cultural" event. It depends on how you couch your communications with the authority figures. Say your doing with your raver friends, and you will get denied. But say your doing it with the local African-American cultural exchange, and you might well get a more cooperative view. And perception will rule how they decide, not fact.
I think from my experience, I would plan it out with the drummers, as a cultural event. Find a park where any fire wouldn't damage infrastructure, get some drummers to drum, in a manner that the neighbors won't disagree with, and kind of slip the fire or glow poi in slowly. Maybe even start with glow poi, and add fire later. Asking for forgiveness can work, if they see it as a positive cultural exchange instead of a flaming Rave party, which they will deny without thought. -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 11:54 AMhmmmm.... the damage to the park/foliage is the reason behind the no fire rule here too. concrete! brilliant. i'll keep looking around at the city parks see if one has a concrete surface like that somewhere. i wonder if they'd protest the partial use of a parking lot? by night time i have to imagine there'd not be many cars -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 1:23 PMYeah, that's a point, Burn Club is held on a basketball court inside a park with no residents nearby. Foliage is a spinjam killer.
Also... and this won't be easy... you might get permission to have drums during certain hours. But you'll have to be extra hardline on them about sticking to the limits. If they can drum until 10:00, then 10:01 is unacceptable: one warning, then ejection from the event for a month as punishment. -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 3:33 PMthanks for the help guys!!! this is definitly going to be a process!
i already decided to nix the drums. it will just get out of hand witht he volume. and as much as i like that personally.... -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 4:19 PMI feel ya, my entrance to this whole scene was the drum circles at Hash Bash in Ann Arbor. I still make drums in my spare time. And all my best spinning happened with live music. *sigh*
Still, you have to establish why it is that you're having a spin jam. Is it for much needed regular practice, or to put on a party? if it's a party, treat it as such, if you're looking for a practice space, you'll have to give up some amenities to make it happen. When you do have a party, though, the drums will sound that much sweeter. -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Sat, May 30, 2009 - 5:45 AMi only started with fire last year. and the chances i've had to spin where i could actually hear the music very well over the fire wooshing were few and far between. small to medium back yards present similar problems with volume and neighbors.
the reason i want to get this started is because i feel like there's enough back yard spinners around town, and a bunch of the whirly wednesday hoopers are getting pretty damn good, and i'd like to give them the chance to try it and learn. just good clean (safe) fiery fun? i'd rahter it wasn't looked at as a party, but more educational fun? if that makes sense? rochester has enough people interested that it warrants coming together i feel, which will only help more people to become interested. my hooping improved and how i thought about it changed when i added light. i want to get a box of 12 hour glowsticks for people too. i used to tape them on the outside of my hoop before i had a led hoop and a firehoop. i guess my real motivation behind this over all is to get out and get people playing with light together.
i still have a lot to learn myself, and a lot more work to do, but like i said there's enough interest in rochester. and i have friends in buffalo (where im from, not far) who would be interested too. i think we should all come together and play and learn. -
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Sat, May 30, 2009 - 10:01 AMWhile not the best suggestion for our style of community (ya know, the ones who hate authority), getting a huge number of signatures on a petition to your local governing body can go a long way to getting laws changed or relaxed. If you can show a lack of harm, and a positive benefit,it becomes uncomfortable for elected officials to arbitrarily deny change. Throw in a dash of cultural education, even just showing efforts to educate people on safety, only adds to your appeal. Rochester should be big enough you could explore and find ways to engage people with he cultural side of spinning. Or the physical health benefits from vigorous exercise. It kind of depends on just how big your local tribal group is, and howq willing they are to get active on that front.
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Sat, May 30, 2009 - 11:52 AMSounds like you've got your head in the right place, diane. Explain that a couple more times until you've go the gist of it concise and complete then take it on the road.
step 1: discover structure. You'lll want to know which fire department actually has authority to permit at the park, and what part of that department. This can be different with each situation. For example, here in the LA area, The LA county fire department only expresses authority in those cities that do not have their own department (west Hollywood, La Canada, Industry, etc), and none over those with their own dept (LA, santa monica, Culver city, etc). Just south of us, Orange county authority exercises authority over the entire county -despite- other cities with their own departments. It's possible to get two conflicting permits there (though unlikely). Also, most of the folks that cover fire performance are "Fire Marshals" that work in "public assemblage" units, but definitely not all.
Step 2: introduce yourself (if you haven't already). No pressure, no agenda, just introduce yourself and fire performance to your version of the public assemblage unit. Have media, web links, etc at your disposal. Offer to have a few people light up for them, live, to show them what it's about.
Step 3: Whenever you're in front of an official, be safer than what they ask. They might even say "oh just put that down anywhere and light up", but you should definitely set up a fuel station, a dance area, put a spotter between, etc, FMs around here like to play dumb to see if they can get you to drop your guard. Don't let them do it to you.
Step 4 after you are done with the meet and greets, call them back a week or two later and ask advise about your park. Explain that you guys want to do a regular spin jam, give them your spiel, and see if they can help. They might tell you to move to a different park, or to talk to 'this guy' first, etc. write it all down and do it.
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Re: fire/glow jam in a park? grr!
Sun, May 31, 2009 - 12:35 PM"i only started with fire last year"
It's not when you start but how you start. A lot of people in the fire world grab onto what "works" and don't bother to think about what's safe. My first year running conclave, I was very junior to most of the people who showed up, but I still ran into people who'd been spinning for a decade who had never put out a wick with a safety towel.
Seriously, take a look around you and see if anyone changes their patterns once they've established them... even if they're unsafe patterns. Not likely. And when you do point out unsafe practices, odds are good you'll get some crap about 'safety third'. *sigh* Yeah, that one's a monkey on my back.
So, buck up D. It can feel a little uphill sometimes, but it's not that long a road.
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