INFORMATION PACKET FULL DETAIL

The Sex Workers Outreach Project – Sacramento invites you to a Weekend of National Unity:

SWOP Unity Days 2015!!!!

October 16-18th

As SWOP begins its twelfth year as a national organization, we are finding new ways to foster regional relationships and strengthen our chapters. This weekend is dedicated to sharing ideas on chapter organization, national collaboration, fundraising, outreach strategies and more. This is a family friendly event.

Who should attend?

Chapters are encouraged to send 2-10 participants. We won’t have capacity to host more than 10 from each of the big chapters and we want to support the smaller chapters to get at least 2, ideally more out to maximize their chapter-building capacity. But we want to work with you! So if you have 15 members who are super fired-up and you don’t want to leave anyone out, by all means please contact us so we can plan for logistics.

Schedule:

Please plan to be engaged with SWOP activities throughout the day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This is not a conference with many tracks, we will all be together for the duration of the meetings.

Friday October 16th: 11am-7pm Meeting at The SWOP House (with breaks)

Saturday October 17th: 11am-7pm Meeting at The SWOP House (with breaks)

Sunday October 18th: 11am Brunch! 3pm-7pm Meeting at The SWOP House

Childcare all 3 days 10am-8pm

Accomodations:

Free Urban Camping!

Stacey and Kristen each have a gorgeous backyard with food and fruit gardens and tons of space for tents. You are welcome to camp out with us for as many nights as you’d like October 10-20.

Camping Details:

Campers will have access to 2+ toilets and 2 showers and a kitchen at both locations. You can choose where you wish to stay. For sanity, we thought it would be good to have families at Stacey’s house, where childcare and food will be available all day, and everyone else can stay at Kristen’s house, on-site where our daily meetings will take place.

Stacey’s House

~Downtown Sacramento within 1-mile walk of everything, including the State Capitol Building.
~Kid friendly with toys and play spaces ideal for kids under 5 years old. Please bring appropriate items or let us know what is needed for older kids.
~2 showers and a tub for bathing small kids.
~Full vegetarian kitchen (eggs & milk ok) plus safe storage and outdoor grill for animal products.
~2 dogs and zero cats live at this house
~Parking sucks at this house. Ideally we will shuttle in just 1-2 cars back and forth to Kristen’s each day

The SWOP House

~Arden Fair Neighborhood, walking distance to Arden Fair Mall and other eateries and shops.
~Site of our daytime meetings Friday, Saturday and Sunday
~Walking distance to DoubleTree Hotel
~Gluten-free kitchen, animal products welcome. (It’s ok to eat food with gluten at this house, but please avoid using the counters and cutting boards, etc with bread/gluten items, as she can honestly become ill.)
~1 dog and zero cats live at this house
~Tons of parking here around the house and at Arden Fair Mall

Hotel Details:

To get this rate you must book your hotel BEFORE September 14th, 2015!!! They won’t charge your card until you arrive, so get your reservations in ASAP!!

$99/night has been negotiated for October 15-21 (check out 22) at the DoubleTree Hotel. Ask for “Watling Family Reunion” when you book. This hotel is 0.09 miles from The SWOP House house, via the Arden Fair Mall parking lot. It’s super easy to walk, bike or drive. This hotel is safe and easily accessible from all the major freeways. It is easily accessible for people who live in the suburbs and work downtown during the week.

Childcare Details:

Childcare will be available Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10am to 7pm. SWOP Sacramento is paying the child care providers for 30 hours with multiple children. Parents are welcome to tip them, surely they will earn it. Avaren Ipsen, early member of SWOP USA and nanny to many Red Umbrella Babies will be coordinating. She lives at Stacey’s house too. Childcare will be onsite at Stacey’s house with indoor and outdoor play spaces and lunch/dinner/snacks. Please plan to be present with your kids for breakfast and getting their day off to a good start, and back in time to get them ready for bed after dinner. In between those times Avaren and her team will be organizing age-appropriate fun activities and feeding them. The kids will be able to garden, play basketball, tee ball, make art, etc. There’s a giant beautiful park right across the street for mini field trips and a small pool at the house for supervised water play.

Please bring your child’s favorite toys or other items from home that will make the weekend more comfortable for them, or let us know if your family has any special needs.

Food Details:

*You will be able to tell us all of your dietary preferences in your registration packet.*

Friday, Saturday: Breakfast items available in the kitchens. Lots of fresh fruit, eggs and gluten-free cereals/oatmeal at The SWOP House. In addition to those items, Stacey’s house will have bagels and toast items. Plus milk/alternatives and coffee/juice at both houses all day.

Lunch & Dinner will be catered and brought into our meeting at Kristen’s house. Stacey’s house will be stocked with lunch and dinner supplies to be prepared for the children according to dietary needs by Avaren’s childcare team on-site.

Sunday

Breakfast for families and lunch/dinner at Stacey’s same as other days. SWOP Sacramento will host a brunch for SWOP members either at The SWOP House or at the DoubleTree. Details to come. Sunday evening we will be meeting at The SWOP House and take-out will be ordered. Probably pizzas with vegan/gluten-free options from BJ’s and salads, etc.

Transportation:

Get yourself to Sacramento. We’ll get you around from there.

Sacramento is 12 hours or less driving from: Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Phoenix and even less driving from Los Angeles, Reno, SFO/OAK. Southwest has reasonable flights from Chicago and Delta/Virgin/Jet Blue have some decent flights for cross-country.

Amtrak from within CA or along the west coast/southwest is a good option too. The train station is in Downtown Sacramento.

Details about arranging airport/train station pick-ups will be shared soon once we designate a rideshare ambassador.

We recommend that chapters work together to collaborate on shared transportation expenses. SWOP Sacramento will not be seeking any funds or making any transportation plans on behalf of others, we’re focused on hosting the event. We will support you once you’re here, but it’s up to the chapters to get their people to Sacramento.

Harm Reduction

Safe Space

Sometimes the large group environment is overwhelming for some of us, we want to be mindful of self-care and privacy. There are two small rooms above the main meeting room at The SWOP House. One is the SWOP office and one is a small bedroom. These will be designated spaces for people who need to have some alone time. We also welcome participants to plan small group activities like 12-step or sobriety check-ins and other shared support meetings. Please contact us if this is something you would like to coordinate.

Substances

We as a chapter and as your hosts, we are grounded in harm reduction principles. Both houses are medical marijuana friendly. In consideration of the families and sober participants, an outdoor area away from the living and meeting spaces will be designated for tobacco and legal medical marijuana use. Please use alcohol respectfully and in a way that will not compromise your ability to participate meaningfully. If participants are coming with other substance concerns, please contact Stacey privately to make arrangements. We have an open door policy for any participant who is uncomfortable with the behavior of intoxicated people. We want everyone to feel safe. Honestly, we have rarely- if ever- seen any problems.

Registration:

To cover food, office supplies and other meeting-specific costs, we are inviting SWOP members to pay $40 per person for the weekend. We feel it’s far more important for you to participate than it is for us to worry about the money, so nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. However, we all know that food and food preparation are expensive and your fee will help offset our out-of-pocket costs. We are immensely grateful for your individual contributions and we hope chapters can band together to support participation by their members. Thank you!!

In Solidarity,
SWOP Sacramento

Please email [email protected] to register and receive questionnaire for food preferences, etc.