[xposting to gendergap as this might be relevant there]
Hi all,
I have already asked offlist some of you I know might be interested in bringing your kids to Wikimania, but I'm putting the question out again here.
The Haifa team is working on finding options for babysitting during the conference. As Liron pointed out, there are many more of us with kids now, and we'd like to make sure that people can enjoy Wikimania while showing their kids and family what this Wiki thing is all about.
As such, I am putting out a general call out there so that we can get organized with this aspect of the conference.
We need to know as soon as possible who wants to come with their kids and who would need babysitting.
We're looking at professional day-care possibilities, with a possibility for the kids to be taken care of during the day (9.00 - 17.00) on the conference site, which will allow parents to come and go with their kids as they visit sessions or don't.
If you're thinking about coming to Wikimania, but are reluctant to leave your kids behind, this is the time to speak up. The more prepared we are, the better, and the more we are, the better too, kids are going to have fun learning about the edit button :)
While we're looking for sponsors or ways to finance this, it might be that those of us with kids will have to pay a little to make this happen in the best of ways. We'll try and make sure to keep the costs as low as possible.
If you're interested, please send an email offlist to: delphine [at] notafish [punto] org AND liron [at] wikimedia [punto] org.il so we can get organized.
What we need from you is the following: Number of kids: Age of the kids: Do you need more than just day care, for example evening babysitting (note: this for now is an option, and is not what we're focusing on, so we can't promise we'll get that part sorted out within the frame of the conference babysitting options, but if we have demand, we'll definitely be looking into this)
I hope to have lots of people interested and looking at bringing their kids so that the day care is fun for all.
Can't wait to have my kids learn a few other languages ;)
Best,
Delphine