Balug Admin:
With the help of Alan Duboff and Steve Lau, we have secured a new location for the September meeting. (As a reminder, the Four Seas cannont host BALUG on 9/16/08) The new location will be at Songbird's office at 585 Howard near 2nd street. The location can hold aprox 75 people.
Three questions: 1)Given that the speaker (Ian Murdock) is likely to be quite popular and we have a limited amount of space, should we enforce a mandatory RSVP?
2)Given that we won't have the goodwill from the Four Seas kitchen, I'll probably windup fronting the cash for food. Pizza/soda seems like the logical choice any objections?
3)Given that dinner is likely to be pizza/soda should we lower the cost of dinner to say $8 or $5?
-Andrew
-- Andrew Fife Untangle - The Open Source Network Gateway www.untangle.com/download
650.425.3327 desk 415.806.6028 cell
2008/7/2 Andrew Fife afife@untangle.com:
With the help of Alan Duboff and Steve Lau, we have secured a new location for the September meeting. (As a reminder, the Four Seas cannont host BALUG on 9/16/08) The new location will be at Songbird's office at 585 Howard near 2nd street. The location can hold aprox 75 people.
Nice; beautifully appointed spot and very friendly hosts.
1)Given that the speaker (Ian Murdock) is likely to be quite popular and we have a limited amount of space, should we enforce a mandatory RSVP?
If more than 75 people RSVP, then we may have to turn folks away at the door.
2)Given that we won't have the goodwill from the Four Seas kitchen, I'll probably windup fronting the cash for food. Pizza/soda seems like the logical choice any objections?
Of course this is acceptable. I would like to make an alternative suggestion though. Some months ago I was at HackMeet, a very low budget event. The organizers procured a whole platter of Vietnamese sandwiches (aka bahn mi) for lunch. These were a big hit and very inexpensive (retail for about $2.25 a pop, maybe cheaper in bulk). If there is interest in going this route, I would be happy to check in with some of the local Vietnamese sandwich shops.
3)Given that dinner is likely to be pizza/soda should we lower the cost of dinner to say $8 or $5?
It would be reasonable to make some such adjustment, naturally keeping in mind that you have to over-order a bit to make sure there's enough.
BTW, what is a typical ratio of RSVPs / attendees these days?
BTW, what is a typical ratio of RSVPs / attendees these days?
Depends when the cut off deadline is. At the last meeting we had about 25 RSVPs the day before the meeting. If you include RSVPs that came in all the way up until after the meeting had actually started, it got closer to 45 RSVPs. We had 55 people attend, with 52 eating. I typically leave for BALUG at 5pm and the RSVPs at by that time are typically +/- 10%... Though usually have to give the Four Seas a forcast Monday morning.
-- Andrew Fife Untangle - The Open Source Network Gateway www.untangle.com/download
650.425.3327 desk 415.806.6028 cell
1) yes, some meat, some vegie 2) and plain old H2O 3) yes
On Wed, 2008-07-02 at 13:22 -0700, Andrew Fife wrote:
Balug Admin:
With the help of Alan Duboff and Steve Lau, we have secured a new location for the September meeting. (As a reminder, the Four Seas cannont host BALUG on 9/16/08) The new location will be at Songbird's office at 585 Howard near 2nd street. The location can hold aprox 75 people.
Three questions: 1)Given that the speaker (Ian Murdock) is likely to be quite popular and we have a limited amount of space, should we enforce a mandatory RSVP?
2)Given that we won't have the goodwill from the Four Seas kitchen, I'll probably windup fronting the cash for food. Pizza/soda seems like the logical choice any objections?
3)Given that dinner is likely to be pizza/soda should we lower the cost of dinner to say $8 or $5?
-Andrew
-- Andrew Fife Untangle - The Open Source Network Gateway www.untangle.com/download
650.425.3327 desk 415.806.6028 cell
BALUG-Admin mailing list BALUG-Admin@lists.balug.org http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-admin-balug.org
My quick thoughts:
Keep the price the same (thus simpler, avoid confusion, etc.)
Get better quality than cheap(er) pizza. E.g. instead of Extreme Pizza (which is farish, but gets borderline painful if it becomes too familiar a dish) or worse (perish the thought of Dominos), go for North Beach, or Goat Hill Pizza ... something a bit more quality and/or upscale, ... and include some salad(s) ... costs would then work out about the same (and people would probably like the food better). Also, if the food source (e.g. North Beach Pizza) is explicitly mentioned, that can also help increase the draw. Pizza isn't the only possibility, but for something that's easy to deliver or cater to a 40 to 75 person crowd, pizza (and salads and sodas) would work well. There might be some other things that could work well and still around the $13*/head charge *($12 for food/tax/tip + $1 for BALUG).
RSVP "mandatory"? No, ... not quite, ... I'd be inclined to use appropriate "strong" wording, perhaps somthing roughly like: RSVP - PLEASE RSVP to rsvp@balug.org As we have limited space at this venue, priority will be given to those with confirmed RSVPs and who arrive to the meeting on time (6:30 P.M.). Can you come if you fail to RSVP? We may, or may not have space, but we're glad to accomodate those without RSVPs if we have remaining capacity.
Since this will be a different venue, may be good to put up a web or wiki page for the venue (location, directions, transit, parking, etc.). Since that date is still a fair ways off, perhaps by then we'll have the web site reorganized a fair bit, so that could at least go on a separate "upcoming" page ... if not putting the venue information on it's own totally separate web or wiki page.
Quoting jim jim@well.com:
- yes, some meat, some vegie
- and plain old H2O
- yes
On Wed, 2008-07-02 at 13:22 -0700, Andrew Fife wrote:
Balug Admin:
With the help of Alan Duboff and Steve Lau, we have secured a new location for the September meeting. (As a reminder, the Four Seas cannont host BALUG on 9/16/08) The new location will be at Songbird's office at 585 Howard near 2nd street. The location can hold aprox 75 people.
Three questions: 1)Given that the speaker (Ian Murdock) is likely to be quite popular and we have a limited amount of space, should we enforce a mandatory RSVP?
2)Given that we won't have the goodwill from the Four Seas kitchen, I'll probably windup fronting the cash for food. Pizza/soda seems like the logical choice any objections?
3)Given that dinner is likely to be pizza/soda should we lower the cost of dinner to say $8 or $5?
-Andrew
-- Andrew Fife Untangle - The Open Source Network Gateway www.untangle.com/download
650.425.3327 desk 415.806.6028 cell
BALUG-Admin mailing list BALUG-Admin@lists.balug.org http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-admin-balug.org
BALUG-Admin mailing list BALUG-Admin@lists.balug.org http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-admin-balug.org