Holy crap, it’s actually happening.
On September 18th, 2014, hundreds of Nerd Fitness Rebels will descend upon the mountains in the north of Georgia for the first annual Camp Nerd Fitness: a long weekend of adventure, education, nerdiness, and an opportunity for Rebels to interact IRL (in real life, for the non-nerds) with all of the folks they talk to every day online.
This is a dream I’ve had for years, and we’re finally at the point where we can bring it to life.
What is Camp Nerd Fitness?
Camp Nerd Fitness is like a giant Nerd Fitness meetup, but at a beautiful retreat/summer camp.
We’ll be spending the afternoon of September 18th to the late morning of September 21st living and breathing the Nerd Fitness Rebellion. We want to bring together the most passionate and excited members of Nerd Fitness for an epic weekend of awesome.
It will be an opportunity for Rebels to:
- Spend a long weekend with your online Rebel Friends, whether in hotel-style rooms or in full-camp experience cabins (complete with bunks!).
- Have hands on training with proper training form and technique. If you’re not sure on your squat form or deadlift form or are new entirely, you’ll be able to get instruction here.
- Participate in fun group activities like capture the flag, water balloon fights, yoga, a fun 5k run, ropes courses, climbing walls, zombies vs humans, hikes, and whatever else we can come up with!
- Eat healthy meals (with all food included and prepared on site), while also having some fun and learning to balance the two.
- Compete in competitions and tournaments – whether it’s a powerlifting competition, nerd trivia, a video game competition, or even theme nights.
- And more! Come on, there’s always more. A lot of this will be dependent upon the people who sign up and what other activities they’d like to see. This is OUR event!
I truly believe in the power of this community, and I’ve seen some amazing things happen when I meet rebels in real life. I can’t wait to see what can happen when we’re all in the same place at the same time.
Where will Camp Nerd Fitness Take Place?
Camp Nerd Fitness will take place at the Kaplan Mitchell Retreat and Conference Center on September 18th, 2014.
The camp is close to Clayton, GA, approximately two hours north of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, GA.
We will have exclusive use of the ENTIRE property for our time at Camp Nerd Fitness: it’s a GORGEOUS campus up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains just two hours north of Atlanta. Also, it’s surrounded by the Chattahoochee National Forest.
It has state of the art facilities, bunk cabins and hotel-style rooms, award-winning dining, plenty of meeting space, and every outdoor activity you can imagine.
There are epic running trails, a beautiful pond, a ropes course, climbing wall, a baseball diamond, a gym, tons of meeting space, a library, and everything we’ll need to cover every epic adventure on our agenda.
We understand that we’ll have people of different levels of fitness joining us, so we’ll have activities and events for each of those levels.
We are planning this event to be for people who are 21 and older, so we’ll ask that you let us know if you are interested in bringing your children (with the understanding that we are targeting this to be a 21+ event and there may not be an opportunity for child care on site).
What else do I need to know?
We are currently in the process of creating our pricing plan for the Camp, and will be announcing those prices in the near future. We’ll officially be putting Camp Nerd Fitness on sale in February 2014, but we wanted to give you enough time to plan ahead.
I will tell you that this will be priced very reasonably compared to other fitness retreats or conferences, especially considering all food, lodging, and most events will be included. My goal with this is to make it as affordable as possible while also giving us a chance to not lose our asses (so we can make it into something we can continue to have on a yearly basis).
We do expect VERY high demand, and with a community of this size and a location that will only hold a few hundred people, we unfortunately will not be able to accommodate everybody that wants to attend.
For that reason, we do NOT recommend that you book plane tickets make other arrangements until you have booked your spot at Camp Nerd Fitness.
If we sell through our initial allotment, we’ll have a wait-list option for people who are interested in joining us and we’ll contact people on a first come first serve basis.
These are some questions you might have:
“Why announce it so early if we can’t reserve a spot yet?” We know you are busy and you have tons of things on which you can spend your hard earned money and vacation days. We wanted to let you know as far in advance about Camp Nerd Fitness so you can set aside the days and starting thinking about it. If you aren’t interested…no big deal! Nerd Fitness will continue as usual 🙂
“Why not do a bigger conferences in a big city that everybody can attend?” My goal is to create something that truly furthers the development of this community. With giant conferences everyone is usually scattered throughout hotels, it’s very easy to NOT run into the people you’re hoping to see. With a smaller group that has EVERYBODY staying on site, I know amazing collaborations and lifelong friendships will develop. I’ve seen it with my own eyes with my previous job at Sixthman.
This is also the first time we’ve EVER tried anything like this, so we want to work with a group size that we can properly take care of!
“What if I am unable to attend that weekend?” For whatever reason, if you don’t think you can join us for that weekend, that’s okay. I hope to be able to do more in-person regional meetups and a few other real life events in 2014. Nothing is set in stone yet, but keep an eye on NF and the boards, as there are unofficial NF meetups happening all of the time!
Where can I get more information?
Head on over to CampNerdFitness.com (or Camp.NerdFitness.com) to sign up for the email list for more information.
Over the next few months, we’ll be sending out updates to that list, including final pricing, availability, a more concrete schedule of events, and more.
This is an idea I’ve had for years, and I’m so excited to share it with you today. The future is bright for the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, both online and in the real world. This is but one step in our plans for eventual world domination!
I can’t wait to spend four days with Rebels at Camp, having fun, sharing stories, competing in nerdy and fitness competitions, and leaving with a few hundred more friends 🙂
For the Rebellion!!!
Steve
PS: If you live in the US, you’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving this week…and the temptation to slack between now and January 1st will be GIANT.
Here’s how to not suck at the end of the year and stay on target!
PPS: Remember months back when we ran a fundraiser to help build a library in Peru? It’s happening! My friend Megan flew down to Peru on Saturday and is spending her Thanksgiving break with Seeds of Hope to get everything set up! We’ll have a full report when she comes back next week 🙂 Thanks to all that helped make this possible.
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photo source: Camp Anawanna
