2008/12/1 Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
On Mon, December 1, 2008 08:03, James wrote:
Manchester or Birmingham would be a good bet I think - nice and central to the whole UK, so everyone can get there without travelling too far.
Locations can be so problematic though. I went to the founding meeting of a national organisation years ago which was held in Manchester (Salford, in fact) because "it was central and fairer to people attending from all over the UK".
Turned out though that *everyone* attending had come up on the train from Euston (though I'd got on at Watford) which meant that after the time that had been booked at the venue we carried on on the return train to London and then in the facilities at Euston for another few hours too!
Whilst not wishing to suggest that London would 'automatically' be the best venue on the grounds of easy and fast access from all directions, getting a pre-indication of who might be most likely to attend and how their finances / timings are for getting to the possible locations might be useful (the graph exercise in reducing the overall cost by selection of location is left as an exercise for the student).
The other issue to consider is that distance is not at all what we want to minimise. We want to minimise time and/or cost. For me in Durham, Manchester is 95 miles away and London 235 miles, as the crow flies. However, if I look at train tickets to both places for Saturday 24th January (a plausible date for the AGM), I find that Manchester will take about 2.5hrs each way and cost around £34. London on the other hand will take around 3hrs each way and cost around £67 (slightly less if we get a firm date and venue decided in the next couple of weeks so I can book advance tickets). So, in terms of distance, London is 150% further away, but in terms of time it's just 20% longer and in terms of cost it's about 100% more. So Manchester is a better choice for me, but not by anywhere near the amount you would expect from looking at a map.