On 17/05/11 23:20, Michael Peel wrote:
On 17 May 2011, at 13:58, Marco Chiesa wrote:
On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 2:37 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
The current arrangements suit me, but I'm conscious that under 18s and moslems are unlikely to come to a pub. Having a loo that weelchair users can't use doesn't help either. The advantage of a pub is that provided you have a few drinkers such as myself the venue is free, but with the current state of Wikimedia UK funds I think we might be able to get some grant money to sometimes hire a different venue.
Have you ever tried contacting town councils to get a room for free? Or maybe schools / colleges / university whose spaces are tipically less used on weekends? Normally, it's mostly a question of finding the right person to talk to. Marco
In general, trying to get a room for free is a very good approach - but if it doesn't work out, then I can't see a reason why WMUK couldn't provide funds to hire the venue, particularly if there is an obvious benefit such as the "joint Wikimedia UK/Bangla Wikipedia meetup" that WereSpielChequers suggested.
BTW, I've previously tried to get a free room at the university I work at on a weekend for the WMUK AGM in 2009, but failed to get it for free because they would have to charge to open up the building on a Saturday (we had a lack of money at the time of this AGM). We ended up in a good room in a nearby pub that we hired for free - but again, it was not disabled-friendly and had several other flaws as a meeting place. Moral of the story: there are many obstacles that can present themselves when trying to get a room for free, and sometimes the best way to get around them in this business-orientated world is with some amount of money....
Thanks, Mike
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Hmm, maybe we should start drafting some ideas on the chapter site, even if its under my user: namespace or something, like links to venues and whatever... then someone could present it at the AGM if they needed to/wanted to..