We have over 300 institutions making up CMLE’s membership, so literally hundreds of cool, interesting, and fun people are around us all the time. So we like to hold member events to chat with you, and to give people an opportunity to chat with each other.

We floated this idea out there a while ago – and a surprising number of people got enthusiastic about going camping as a group! We are campers here, so this seemed like a fun thing to get underway.

So. We are not looking for any firm commitments at this moment – but as those of you who camp in the lovely Minnesota State Parks know: you have to get on those reservations pretty quickly!

Let’s get a date set, and then we can make more finalized plans as we get closer.

WHEN??? WordPress has changed and we can’t put in polls to vote – so please leave a comment below with your preference (or lack of preference!) or send an email to us at admin @ cmle.org. We will announce the final date choice later next week, so everyone can start making plans!

• June 14-15
• June 28-29
• July 5-6

WHERE are we going? As this is our first group event, we don’t want to go too far from home yet. So we are going to go to Lake Maria State Park. Here is their photo tour.

We are going to reserve their Group Camping site. It’s probably not the most beautiful in the park – but we will have plenty of room for everyone to pitch a tent and enjoy some outdoor time! And there will be lots of beautiful things for everyone to enjoy.

WHAT is happening? We will reserve two nights: a Friday and a Saturday. We will take names of people who want to come and hang with library people, so we know who to expect. You can come for either night, or both. You can even just stop by for an afternoon, to enjoy some outdoor time with a lovely group of people – or just to enjoy the park! (Mary will be on-site the whole time, ready to answer questions or provide library-related camping thoughts!)

If you have not been to this park yet, you are in for a treat! There are several trails to hike, with different levels of difficulty to suit the interests and abilities of all levels of hikers. It’s just lovely! We will provide some hiking maps to our campers (and day visitors). There is a small, but very nice, nature center.

We also anticipate holding some informal book group discussions, so come with some books to read and to share with others! We can schedule some other library topic discussion sessions, as people express interest in different things. This would be a great way for day-visitors to come and be part of the fun, even if you do not want to do the camping parts!

There will almost certainly be s’mores in the evenings. (I mean: is it even a camping trip without s’mores?? Seems unlikely.)

HOW??? I know we have a lot of camping people in our membership – great! (It’s not a requirement, of course – we embrace diversity of all sorts, including in the camping area!) So if you want to give camping a try, but are not filled with equipment, we can work on finding some to borrow from people not able to attend. I find that people who camp tend to have excessive amounts of stuff – and that camping people are nice people who could be persuaded to share. (Heck – I have three sleeping bags and two tents myself, so we have at least a couple of people covered right there!)

WHO?? Come alone! Bring a friend! Bring the kids! (Note on that: Yes, we would be happy to see your family and kids! But we will count on you to know whether sleeping outside is too scary, or whether a day visit is more fun for younger people.

We anticipate this will be a nice group of library-related people, and that we will get a chance to meet some new people and have some less-typical library fun!

Wrap It Up: We will have plenty of time to work out all the details, to give everyone the best chance to have fun on this member event!! It will be lovely to see you – for a night, for two, or just a few hours on Saturday! Library people are always fun, camping people are nice; put the two together and I think we are going to have a lovely member event!