Deb, I think what Trudy is worried about is that people will get enamoured of a picture of the F2F that will turn out to be not feasible, and that will take some of the shiny off what we do end up getting.

The F2Fs have always ended up being shiny, no matter what, so I can't fault Deb for being proactive here.

I think we waited too long to nail down DC, partly b/c we lacked a coordinating person for a huge part of the planning process.

It seems (though I wasn't there) that NOLA went well, due in no small part to the fact that we had such good coordinators.

It's probably good to pick the date before picking the city, but since we know we'll be discussing the city soon, and we know it's West Coast, and we know SF is a contender, there's no harm in discussing it now. And the fact that Deb can lay out for us what our potentials are is just a bonus in my book.

An assortment of dates removes a lot of the frustration, so long as it's a manageable assortment. Handing a booking agent four possible weekends is a lot less likely to result in rudeness than saying "oh, not sure, really - say any weekend between April and August, except Memorial Day."

Deb, I think what Trudy is worried about is that people will get enamoured of a picture of the F2F that will turn out to be not feasible, and that will take some of the shiny off what we do end up getting.

Since we don't even know what city it's ending up in, the shiny - or possibility thereof - is moot anyway, surely? I mean, what if it's Vegas? Vegas is ALWAYS shiny. That still doesn't promise a good time. (edta: Teppy said it far more pithily - the shiny is generally built in to the gathering itself. My feeling is to try and make it as area-centric shiny as possible, as coorindator for that particular area. Does that make sense?)

That said, I do agree that it would be lovely to not have to do hotel catering, whatever city we end up in, but I'm not sure if it will be possible. I do not like the idea of limos, as I'm a big fan of self-determination (in this case, that being that people can come and go as they please/need, which seems less possible if you have to wait for a group.)

Good point - but despite what Eddie Izzard says, there really are more than five cabs here....

I just see a lot of frustration at not having a date to do the recon with.

How is that anyone but Deborah's problem?

I just see a lot of frustration at not having a date to do the recon with

But Deb's doing the recon -- shouldn't she be free to gather what sorts of information she needs? It's not like contracts are being signed yet. If those are the boundaries she needs for a SWAG, it seems best to let her do it her way, or have someone else do it their way.

people will get enamoured of a picture of the F2F that will turn out to be not feasible, and that will take some of the shiny off what we do end up getting

I figure coordinators are going to offer up their visions in all their shiny glory in any case - before or after we have a date shouldn't affect that.

I think of picking a date and picking a city as two parallel tracks, and I'm good with having them run concurrently. (I'm big with the love for people who are willing to do the footwork; how and when they do it - totally up to them.)

I think the Prom does not have to be on-site or using their catering. We've done that in the past for ease and because the hotels required that we use their catering. Only things that are requirements for prom are cost and wheelchair accessibility.

Well, one of the reasons I set the actual Miyako meeting up for a week away is to see if we rule out - or, going the other way, confirm for numbers of people - specific dates.

Also, offering up three shiny possibilities doesn't mean one rules out the others. It's simply a question of what can be done to hand everyone who wants to come play the best possible time for the least possible expenditure, with the best possible nosh, with the least possible interference from the coordinators?

My job, as I see it, is to pull those choices together. Am I reading that wrong, or otherwise missing something?

Well, I sucked several hundred messages then lost them, so jumping to the end here since I am on dial-up.

I like picking date first because people are more important than place and some dates will be more possible than others. Of course, there are many of us that do not know our schedules this far in advance. I'll have a hint of my May schedule next May.

Are we just discussing the options at this point? I enjoy the pimping of possible locations process. I'll have to skim previous discussion in a week or so when I get home.

Are we just discussing the options at this point? I enjoy the pimping of possible locations process.

Yeah, at this point, we're just pimping out ideas for various cities. Deb's taken a big lead on San Francisco possibilites, and Susan has chimed in with some Seattle ideas.

There's been some San Diego and Las Vegas talk, but there's no point person for those cites, so until/unless somebody takes initiative on those cites, they're more inklings than full ideas.

I honestly think that unless we've got someone willing to take point for a city, we ought to leave the city out of the running. So, say I had a burning desire to do this in Vegas, rather than Seattle or San Francisco--then I'd have to put up, or shut up.