Re: the date. I don't have kids so I'm not sure if school stuff will shut this idea down, but what about March or April dates?

Pros - not as many holidays (or wedding "season") to contend with, less expensive flights, mild weather (generally), possible slow time of year for hotels, close to tax return or bonus time of year, might be early enough for teachers to take a long weekend off work.

Cons - school isn't out yet, hard to know what the weather will be like (snow, rain, etc), close to tax time of year (which is a con if you owe money), and... I'm blanking on additional cons.

What are some other cons for an earlier F2F?

School, both for teachers and students, seems to be the sticky wickett for early dates.

But flying out Friday and returning late Sunday isn't exactly an impossible thing -- many of us have done it lots of times. And while we generally keep the teacher/student demographic in mind it doesn't ever seem to end up being a HUGE proportion of the actual participants.

Aside from the T/S factor, I see a lot of advantages to an earlier date.

But flying out Friday and returning late Sunday isn't exactly an impossible thing

I was fully prepared to do that this year because of lack of vacation time with the new job, if finances hadn't finally dictated it being a huge "no" for me.

edited for sense-making

Minneapolis?

Yes! I remember it was a very close second last time.

1. Major hub for airlines
2. Mall of America
3. Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
4. Very active theater district.
5. Andi and I live 40 minutes south of the MoA.

It just seems like once school gets out that people have all kinds of plans and family trips and weddings and holidays and too many co-workers taking vacations at the same time and, and, and.

I'm not a teacher or a parent but maybe, perhaps, possibly things wouldn't be too crazy mid March or end of March to get away for a weekend with even a Friday or a Monday tacked on.

ETA: Minn and KC have both been very close seconds. I think KC lost to NO.

But flying out Friday and returning late Sunday isn't exactly an impossible thing -- many of us have done it lots of times. And while we generally keep the teacher/student demographic in mind it doesn't ever seem to end up being a HUGE proportion of the actual participants.

I agree with this. People of course should vote on the dates that are best for them, but I don't think we should exclude anything up front.

Trudy, I also liked the idea you mentioned to me about pimpers putting together a package that includes a city and the date that works best for that city, instead of going back and forth about whether we should vote on the date or the city first.

Trudy, I also liked the idea you mentioned to me about pimpers putting together a package that includes a city and the date that works best for that city, instead of going back and forth about whether we should vote on the date or the city first.

We could get some really sweet deals that way. Pimpers could literally call a cool place or tourism office and say "what is your cheapest/best deal weekend" and take it from there.

1. Major hub for airlines

2. Mall of America

3. Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

4. Very active theater district.

5. Andi and I live 40 minutes south of the MoA.

6. Generally not as hot in summer as, say, Nashville.

I also liked the idea you mentioned to me about pimpers putting together a package that includes a city and the date that works best for that city, instead of going back and forth about whether we should vote on the date or the city first.

I support this idea. Set a deadline for submissions (say October 1st? People should have a sense of their schedules by then, yes?), a week to look at them and vote.

I also liked the idea you mentioned to me about pimpers putting together a package that includes a city and the date that works best for that city, instead of going back and forth about whether we should vote on the date or the city first.

Yes, this, though maybe they could propose two possible weekends--same season or different, their preference--within their package which we could narrow down after the initial vote (i.e., in a west coast year, I could propose for Tucson April 3-4 or June 11-12; Cass might propose Portland April 11-12 or June 17-18 [dates totally made up here]; and if Portland won, we would then only have two dates to narrow down to)? And the date proposals themselves would be totally determined by the pimper, so one city might have spring and summer choices while another might be only spring or only summer. That makes so much sense to me.

And ftr, as a teacher I have nothing against a March or up to mid- April date proposal. It gets a lot trickier when we talk about late April through May because so many teachers and parents have commitments every weekend for exam grading, graduations, etc. My personal concern about earlier dates is really weather-related. If we end up in some of the states in the north, those earlier dates are so cold or, more likely, wet/snowy, that March and April is much less appealing and can cause travel nightmares. I know the heat is much less appealing for many Buffistas--I'm not so much talking about comfort level as I am logistical considerations of what we are able to do if it's snowing or miserably wet and cold. *But* that-s why I love the paired city/date[s] idea! Tucson in late spring is gorgeous, for example, but it's unbearable in July.

It just seems like once school gets out that people have all kinds of plans and family trips and weddings and holidays and too many co-workers taking vacations at the same time and, and, and.

I think that many of those summer conflicts arise because we have picked a date so late in the year that people have plans--but this is also true of earlier dates. If we follow Debet's suggestion an decide all of this in October, I think that whatever date we pick is bound to be fine for most people.

I'm excited about our forward momentum! Let's keep it up!

ETA: I hereby volunteer to handle surveys of whatever kind we need. I love Survey Monkey in a possibly unhealthy way.