Convention Planning

Lytteltonwitch came round on Sunday to pick up her jacket (which she’d left behind on Christmas Eve), and while chatting, we realised how much work there still is to do planning the convention, and how fast Easter is approaching. So we set ourselves some deadlines: we’re going to try and get everything costed out by the end of January, so that we can ask people to formally register and get some definite numbers (the only definites we know about so far are the Australian contingent, who have all booked their flights and motels already!). Lytteltonwitch is in charge of trying to find caterers for the dinner, and I’m taking charge of the day trip arrangements. I was starting to worry that a day trip would be too expensive, but I spent yesterday morning contacting bus companies, and I’ve got quotes ranging between $400 – $700 for the possible destinations we were thinking of (I won’t say here where we’re going, because we haven’t decided yet whether to keep it as a “mystery tour” or not, and I’d hate any of the convention attendees to stumble across my diary and have the surprise spoilt), so if we can get 20-30 people to sign up for the trip, we should be able to keep the cost around $20 per head (and maybe give a discount for family groups). I’m not sure what people will be prepared to pay, though – personally, I wouldn’t find $20 too much of a hardship, but for poor students like rarsberry who will be on a strict budget, it might be too much. If we took the $400 option, then we could make it a lot cheaper, but that company just use ordinary city buses for their charters, while the others use proper coaches, and I know from experience that travelling long distance on a city bus is very uncomfortable (especially for anyone who suffers from motion sickness!), so we might want to balance out cost against comfort. Anyway, we’ve got a meetup tonight, so I’ll take the quotes along and see what everyone thinks about the options.

I also spent some time yesterday PMing new members about the meetup, and had a few positive responses, so we might actually get a decent turnout tonight (which reminds me – I haven’t booked us a table yet! We’ve got so used to having a small turnout that we haven’t been bothering to book, but I’d better actually ring the restaurant and make sure they set up a big table for us this time)

Currently reading: The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lilian Jackson Braun