Villages
A village is a group of friends, like-minded people, colleagues or even families camping together at EMF. Maybe your village is a collection of sub villages, or maybe it's just your hackerspace. A village can be based around themes, shared passions and existing communities - great places in the past have been the Maths village, the HAB Village and groups like Milliways and the Scottish Consulate.
If there is a village based around something you are interested in, then you should definitely visit that village during the event to see what's going on. Or you could even join that village to help make more things go on (see below). If there's not a village based around your interests, then you can start your own village and others will probably join you.
There is no requirement to be part of a village, so if you'd rather camp on your own and just visit some villages this is fine.
Join a Village
If you’d like to join an existing village, you can request to join some villages by finding them in the list and clicking the “Request to Join” button. This will send that village’s admin(s) your email address so they can pass on details if they’re happy for you to join. (Villages are under no obligation to take on members, and if there is no ‘Request to Join’ button it means the village is private).
Register a Village
By registering your village, you'll be making the Village People aware of the fact you plan to arrive, and how much space you're likely to need, and you'll allow us to get in touch to discuss how we can support your plans and activities at the event.
The name of your village will be shown on the list of villages, and your 'Long Description' can be used to populate the page with text and links (using Markdown formatting). It's up to you how much information you include here, and if you'd prefer to just be a group of friends, you can keep it brief. If you'd like people to come and visit to participate in activities you're running, you can include information about your planned activities and links to external websites there. (We're no longer using a Wiki for villages info, so this will now be the main place to share details.)
Village admins can also use the 'Edit' page to see the details of people who've requested to join their village, and if desired, promote them to Admin status so they can also edit the village info, and add village content to the schedule. You can also set your village to Private, which means the "Request to Join" button will be hidden. You should make it clear in your village decription whether or not you're happy for people to come and join you.
Village admins may also mark the location of their village on the map if they wish. To do this, make sure you're logged in on the main website, and go to map.emfcamp.org. There should be a white plus button in the top right corner which you can use to set where your village intends to setup camp. Please be aware that this does not guarantee you a spot, and just lets people know roughly where you intend to be!
What can we do as a village?
Villages are great as you can share ideas, equipment and space! The sharing doesn’t stop there - it lets you share resources too. You can come up with a cooking and cleaning rota as a group to reduce waste, make the camp cheaper and interrupt your day with a change of activity. Some people spend all their time cooking for others!
Maybe you are working on a group project and want to show off the final result, or you want to spend the weekend building something. Doing this as a village is good fun, and you often find that new friends will appear to share their ideas, opinions and time with you.
Some villages bring pre-made games and activities for other people to take part in, and some run events and parties during the weekend! Some of our favourite village activities from previous years include:
- Barbot: a cocktail-making robot build by Nottingham Hackspace
- Karaoke nights hosted in the Scottish Consulate tent
- The Maths Village with a drop-in tent full of mathematical puzzles and activities
- Demoscene competitions at Field-FX
- Drop-in board game sessions
More generally, villages run all kinds of content - technical presentations or lectures, skill shares, drop-in sessions, Q&As, roundtables or informal 'jam' sessions (not necessarily musical!). Activities can be open to all EMF attendees or private for the village, and we'll circulate details to registered villages of how to add your content to the main schedule.
A selection of villages will be workshop villages, and will run and host workshops that any attendee can propose via the CfP alongside content organised by members of the village. These have already been selected and designated, and all Workshop Village content will be listed in the main programme.
If you're planning to bring something especially big or in need of lots of power to your village, please let us know beforehand so we can provide you with what you need. If you have any questions about workshop villages or hosting content, you can email the Village People.
The Village People
The Village People are available to support making things happen in your village. If you have a cool idea, but need help with planning or logistics of doing things on site, please contact us beforehand. The earlier you let us know your plans, the better we can help you. You can contact us by emailing villages@emfcamp.org and we will be very happy to discuss anything you might come up with!
Village Furniture
To make things easier for villages, we will offer the opportunity to book a marquee and furniture through us, which will be set up and ready for when you arrive on site. Details of how to book these will be circulated to registered villages once they're available, with reminders nearer to the event.
We're happy for you to bring your own tents and furniture for being social in and cooking in. We ask that you remove everything you’ve brought at the end of the event - it’s not fair on our volunteers to have to tidy them up, and it’s also bad for the environment.
Planning Your Village
When planning your village and setting up your tents once you arrive, you will probably want to set up a space to act as your 'village square' where you can get together, show off your toys, and run any workshops or other events you're planning. With the unreliability of British weather, we recommend that this area is covered - it can get really sunny and really wet at our site. We’d rather neither you were sunburned nor your laptop flooded. The village team would really appreciate it if you planned this ahead of the event and could tell us the area of your planned square, so we can lay out the site and get you the best location possible!
While EMF provides a great set of food vendors, it may be easier or cheaper for you to get together and cook. Some villages cook for upwards of 100 people each meal, but there’s no reason it can’t just be 5 people. Think about the things you’ll need - a stove, pots & pans, plates/bowls, cutlery and food. We’d really appreciate it if you brought reusable plates and cutlery, and low-packaging food. This helps reduce our waste footprint and helps the environment.
A good neighbour works with those around them so everyone has the best possible event. This includes understanding the area you are camping in and compromising with those nearby! We have both quiet and noisy camping areas. If you intend to have friends over working, partying and enjoying each other’s company until the wee hours, we’d ask that you place yourself in the noisy area.
It’s great if you can share with your neighbours too - maybe you want to group 3-4 villages together into a common theme, and share resources. This could be cooking, hardware or other items. You can get in touch with your neighbours ahead of the event and see if they want to do anything with you - it could be a shared event, or helping with their cooking in exchange for food!