When shopping for a retreat for your group you will want to consider:
Location – How far is everyone in your group willing to travel to reach the crop location? Use this as a guide when selecting which houses will work for your crop. Is everyone in your group local or will some of them be driving or flying a long way to reach the crop weekend? You may need to find out how far the house is from the nearest airport or large city.
Amenities – Do you want to be near the beach, ocean, shopping, have a swimming pool, hot tub, or sauna? These are all things that you can find at certain locations, you just need to decide how far you and your group can travel and pick the location that best meets your needs.
Cost – Find out how many people can be accommodated by the location that you choose. You can then divide the weekend rent by the number of people in your group. Un-hosted retreat weekends can be much less expensive than a regular hosted scrapbook retreat, however they will require someone in your group to be the organizer. This person will need to confirm a commitment from each person and collect a down payment to secure the reservation. As a group you will need to decide what happens if someone must cancel at the last minute – will you each pay more, or will that person still be responsible for covering her share of the rent? With a little pre-planning you can make this part of your weekend away go smoothly for everyone and you will be thrilled with how much money you all saved on your retreat.
Meals - Sharing the menu is a great way to handle the food for an un-hosted/un-catered weekend away. If you will have 5 meals (Friday night dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Saturday, and Sunday brunch) and ten people, you can have teams of two people work together to plan, prepare, and clean up just one meal for the whole weekend. Each team would be responsible for bringing all of the food required for their meal. Be sure you agree ahead of time what type of meals your group wants to have for the weekend. Do you want to keep it super simple with pizza for dinner and bagels for breakfast? Or do you want to have fancier meals that you don’t get to try at home with picky eaters in the house? Either way, by dividing and conquering the work the meals will be quick and easy.
What to Bring – Decide who is bringing things that you can all share so that you don’t end up carting in way more than you need. Thanks like I-pod speaker docks, Cricut cartridges, and rubber stamp sets can easily be shared and you can discuss via email ahead of time who is bringing what.
Games – A quick or ongoing game or challenge can inspire creativity when you are scrapbooking for hours and hours. Games can add excitement to the crop or help break someone’s “scrappers block.” You could ask each member of the group or teams of two people to “host” a game or challenge during the weekend. The hosts would be responsible for providing a small prize for their game. Be sure to pass along this link to give them some ideas for cropping games and challenges.
Searching for a DIY Scrapbook Retreat Location near you? Start in with the scrapbook retreat links here on About.com Scrapbooking.
Note from Rebecca: I think that un-hosted retreats are a wonderful option for groups of scrapbooker friends who want to get away without spending a fortune. I have visited Sunset Scrapbook Cottage with friends two times in the past and can't wait to go again. The location is amazing! The "cottage" (it is 3,000 square feet) sits atop a bluff right on Lake Michigan offering spectacular sunset views. The amenities include a hot tub, sauna, and everything a scrapbooker could want for a weekend away.
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