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.

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.

I think perhaps a better option would be to hard-code 2 or 3 dates, to give flexibility, and then also hard-code the survey-taking/decision-making process.

Also, the date on which the survey is launched, so that we can settle on the F2F dates and solicit proposals.

Juliana, the queries to the hotels in Philly are done through hotelplanner.com with my name and log in. Are you going to take over?

Also? I only participated as a voter and attender(er) in previous years and had no idea how much of a pain being (only slightly) more involved would be.

So this is a retro-active giant "thank you" to anyone who helped organize these shin digs in prior years. It's a pretty overwhelming and sometimes thankless task.

And I say this as someone whose previous career included event planning for a number of companies, including Oracle.