This Google lab translation thing Phoebe pointed out is amazing :)
2010/2/23 Wulfstan wiki.wulfstan@gmail.com:
Zwracam tylko uwagę, że każde małe dziecko powinno mieć opiekuna, z którym będzie się w stanie swobodnie dogadać w swoim języku.
Chyba nie wyobrażamy sobie sytuacji, w której dziecko jest pozostawione część dnia z ludźmi, którzy nie potrafią nawet zrozumieć treści jego płaczu (boli brzuch, nie ma mamy, chce do toalety, piciu, gdzie się podział ukochany misio itp).
So I'll just summarize this email in case the translation was really bad:
you're saying you can't imagine a kid spending part of the day with someone who does not understand their language.
Well, I have one kid (and a half), and frankly I can imagine that the babysitter does not speak French or German. We can't expect babysitters to speak all the languages our kids will speak, and that's fine with me. If they're good, fun people, and the kids are not all alone in their language (ie. they have a sister, brother or even just a way to talk to their parents when they need to), I think it should be fine. So don't worry too much about that.
The way I see it, is we need a few people (students, whatever) who will be there and be able to keep our kids for an to two hours at the time. I don't expect we'll leave the kids for 8 hours in a row, because, as was pointed out elsewhere, what would be the point of taking them at all to a techno-conference ;). But one hour at a time, when we are interested by one or the other presentation.
I'm ok if it costs money, but please not too much and also not per hour. I want to be able to pay at the beginning of the conference and be done with it, and be able to use the "service" whenever I want, not have to think how much the next hour is gonna cost me. For the record, I would find German prices a bit expensive while being in Poland :P
Important too would be to have the possibility of having evening babysitting (ie. people we can call if we need them to take care of the children during the time we go to dinner. That can be "separate" from the conference babysitting "fees" or "contract".
I can't imagine that there aren't students that are ready to do this for a price during the summer and who have done that before. I am not sure we need an "experienced day care" at all, especially if it's not "onsite". If help is needed from the parents, then we can also work on that, but I don't want to have to drive my kids to a daycare somewhere outside the conference perimeter. That's not why I bring my kids to Wikimania :)
Hope that helps to have an idea of what we're looking for. (cc'ing the wikimania-l list because others are there.)
Delphine