2024 Pricing
1 March - Normal Registration 10AM EST
Full access to the event: $150
Student (K-12, undergraduate, graduate) full access to the event: $50
Student (pre-K or younger) full access to the event: Free, but please register for logistical purposes.
School Groups
Throughout the long history of the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the underlying mission and philosophy has simply been to bring people together to fellowship, form connections, bonds, and friendships through a common interest focused on spreading curiosity, knowledge, appreciation, and education of natural history, biology, ecology, conservation, and land management. To ensure this happens to the fullest extent possible, we work annually with school groups to create special programs for them aside from normal programming. Please send requests and questions to Joey Shaw.
Cancellation and Refund Policy
You may cancel your registration at any time for a full refund until March 29. No refunds can be given after March 29 due to expenses and contractual obligations. Should we need to cancel the entire event, we will allocate refunds based on money available after settling all debts, expenses, and contracts, or, you will have the option to defer your registration fees to 2024 for priority program selection.
Explanation
The Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the GSMNP has always been a non-profit event. It relies on massive volunteer efforts of organizers and leaders. More than 120 leaders travel each year, at their own expense and their own time to volunteer their expertise to help educate and spread information on scientific and natural history topics related to the GSMNP. Joey Shaw's time is voluntary and, in part, supported as community service by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. There are only two paid positions related to the Pilgrimage - one is that of a professional Meeting Planner to build and run the registration platform and the other is for student labor to assist for Joey Shaw at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. It should be recognized that the Meeting Planner (Shannon Gordon, since 2017) also donates significant labor on top of paid time to support the Pilgrimage. The majority of fees collected are used to cover dormitory-style housing, cafeteria-style meals, and week-long parking passes for the leaders once they are on site. There are also costs associated with the registration platform license and transportation for some programs. Prior to 2017, these costs were significantly offset by long-time partners to the Pilgrimage, so that ticket pricing only needed to capture about 30% of the actuals costs of the event. In 2017, and after several financially lean years following the Great Recession, these partners were forced to rethink budgets and our Pilgrimage was forced to become financially independent.
Questions?
Contact Joey Shaw
Director of the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage Organizing Committee
Department of Biology, Geology, and Environmental Science
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
or
Shannon Gordon
Meeting Planner for the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage
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