FL>Ocala>Buck Lake>January 17-21, 2014>4TH ANNUAL FLORIDA HANG
Here it is! The post you have been waiting for since FH3! We are so excited, pleased and proud to announce the planning of FH4 (FOURTH ANNUAL FLORIDA HAMMOCK HANG) has begun!!!
Scheduled for JANUARY 17 to 21, 2014 (yes, we added one more day!), and to be held once again at The BUCK LAKE CAMPGROUND in Florida’s OCALA NATIONAL FOREST. Slap yer grandma and calm her down, mark your calendars and start your planning, tell your friends and families, line up the leave time, start staging gear in the garage, start dieting, plan different packing arrangements for the car now so you don’t have to do it last minute, and put yourselves in a general state of readiness!
We are expecting 100+ participants and with the biggest and best raffle*, the best weather* and the most (and easily the best) food*, The Florida Hammock Hang has clearly become THE don’t miss, OMG, OMG, OMG, big deal event of the HF social season*. It has drawn HF members, vendors and others from all over this great land of ours in impressive numbers and promises to keep on growing and growing. Report threads from the last three FHs are on the Forum—you can get a good handle on what the hang is like. In short, we have a great time eating at the DO epicenter of the known universe*, sharing cooking and camping techniques, examining gear, sharpening and growing our outdoor skills (and cooking skills), taking day hikes, paddling long and short kayak river trips or scooting around Buck Lake, eating, swapping tales around an endless camp fire, vying for raffle prizes, and of course, eating! The Florida Hangs are gatherings of hardcore backwoods campers and trekkers, kayakers, and car campers in and around a trail-laced campsite that enables folks to stay close to cars and toilets or push off into a secluded spot—the choice is yours. But no matter where you love to hang your rig, the Florida Hammock Hang will have something to offer. I'm not sure what the weather will be like but I promise we'll have some.
The planning committee has been hard at work getting things in line, but this is very much an ongoing process with the door wide open to anyone with ideas, vision, or a desire to help out. Just PM any one of us. Our model is to have scheduling for those who like to have things planned out while also enabling lots of space for free spirits to come and go as they choose. As of now though, and given precedents from previous years planned activities include:
Group hike on the Florida Trail
River kayak excursions
Gear show and tell
Gear swap meet
Hammock Varietals petting zoo (bring your fave rig, test out others)
Tiny stove cook-off and Water boiling race
A BIG raffle (gear, great and small from many of your fave HF vendors and buds)
Children’s (and big kids) workshops and raffle
Survival Classes including navigation and foraging
THE BIG GROUP SATURDAY EVENING GROUP MEAL
Dutch Oven World (they don't have this many DOs in Holland!)
And of course—hours of socializing with your fellow hammock hangers.
And more….
DIRECTIONS too! I 75. Exit 93. East on Rt 40. South on Rt 19. Right (back westward) on a small dirt road with the sign Buck Lake Campground, then second left to the lake. There will be HF signs as well along the dirt road.
Maps and More Here> https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&l...02122&t=h&z=19
By now you must be asking yourself, "Where do I sign up!?" Please take a moment to sign up on the spreadsheets. It may be tedious but it really helps the planners meet expectations for a great event. For convenience, this post will also link to the forum main calendar along with all spreadsheet and directions links.
Attendance Spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...uSVlka3c#gid=1
Planning Spreadsheets https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0TjJXX3c#gid=0
Funds: Timberrr & I will handle the funds again this year and we are open to someone stepping up to take this over for next year. We feel that the same one or two people shouldn't get too comfortable handling the money year after year. But for FH4, we're it. So if you would like to make an advance donation, please Paypal (as a gift) to [email protected].
Raffle Tickets: This year we are making raffle tickets available in advance. As before, they are $5 each or 5 for $20. If you would like to acquire advance tickets, you can Paypal a gift of the appropriate amount to [email protected]. If you don't send the funds as a gift, the service charge will be deducted from your funds and you may end up with fewer tickets than expected. Let's avoid the confusion by gifting the funds - in exchange we'll gift you your raffle tickets with your name badge upon your arrival.
Vendors: Any vendors planning on coming this year, please shoot me a PM letting me know how I can best serve you.
Ready!? Let the Planning Commence!
*IMHO
