Amy, do you have a copy of the RFP? It includes the parameters for Prom.

I would say 20 rooms is safe. I wouldn't go beyond that given the poll numbers.

wrt to prom, you need to find out what space they have for a reunion room on Saturday night. Important questions include what the room will cost (this is often offset by what we buy for food/beverage), how much an open bar is per hour, what the food options are, if they have a sound system, etc. We also need to know If we can schedule prom 9-1 ish given how much noise we will make or if they close at midnight.

Crap, I forgot the RFP. I do have that. Thanks!

I think I might submit the RFP to a few other hotels, quickly. One of the initial ones is apparently completely non-smoking now, and also only has one bus into Center City, and no other type of public transportation. It's actually across the Schuykill, too, so walking is not really option.

I'm not sure how long this will take, but I'll do my best.

Hey, guys, someone else needs to take over contacting the Philly hotels. Amy can't do it right now, and she is too nice to say so, so I am saying it for her.

makes resolve face towards Fulton, NY.

I've got it.

Also, while I'm poking my head in here, I'd like to propose that we standardize this F2F procedure. There's a lot of info about each F2F floating around that isn't easily or readily accessible, the terms of our rentals/RFP isn't always clear (or the reasoning isn't always clear), and this process always causes a lot of angst every year.

We are an institution at this point - we should have an institutional memory for our annual gathering.

Of course, I am proposing this, but I am in no way currently equipped to a) spearhead the proposal wording and b) lead the most-likely inevitable discussion/committee formation.

I know the timing might seem off - like we should finish hammering out this F2F first - but I actually think this is the best time. I know from experience that planning a F2F will burn a body out, and the last thing I wanted to talk about post-F2F was another one. I think the best time to codify our procedure is as we're going through it.

So. What say all y'all?

I think that's a really sound idea. We do this every year, and it never seems to get easier. Nobody wants to bulldoze everybody else's input, but everybody's so polite it takes forever to define and refine procedure. Having one in place will streamline the process and direct energy toward productive results, rather than the annual rehash. My opinion, anyway.

I think it would be fantastic.

What I think would go best is:

Pick date by _____ date.

Give pimpers time to gather info for their particular city and present their bids by ____ date.

Vote by ____ date.

(Of course, it may just be because I just found it to be such a PitA to get good hotel info without a date that I think it should go date first.)

Pick date by _____ date.

Another thought is that we could just hard code the date (3rd weekend in May or 2nd weekend in June sort of thing) so that we already know the date each year and can schedule around it.