Many hotels have conference facilities, but most are limited to 200 people or so. However Peter mentioned the SAS Radisson at Heathrow, which indeed can seet up to 700 people in the Commonwealth Hall and has several others ranging from 500 down to 50. It might be worthwhile investigating this option further, maybe even approaching the hotel chains directly for sponsorship. 2011 bid? Can't we try to work towards 2010 and if we do notice that we aren't going to pull it off do 2011 (again). Ian 2008/7/29 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet(a)hotmail.co.uk>

I don’t think that’s an option. Just look at the distribution of bids: with 4+ pages from Europe (France are also considering multiple cities), 1 from the Americas (Rio, which hasn’t got a chance in hell after Buenos Aries) and one from Asia/Pacific (Melbourne). There’s a pretty strong impression that this is Europe’s year. If we lose then to Amsterdam or Stockholm (the most advanced bids by the look of it) we will be out of contention for at least another 3 years. Melbourne also has a shot on the continental rotation (which I presume is why Al has decided to support them... hmm...) but even if they won we probably wouldn’t have a shot the next year as I imagine they wouldn’t want to give it to two English speaking countries in a row. (And if they were prepared to do this I would imagine there would be some pretty tough competition from the US.) So let’s act as if this is our one shot. If by some miracle Rio wins then at that point we can think about going again, until then if you want to see Wikimania in the UK in the next few years I’d recommend you to do all you can to help our 2010 bid win. Tom From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of joseph seddon Sent: 29 July 2008 12:06 To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Oxford: new venue? There is one option which to be honest i don't think many will agree but thought id throw it into the pot. At this moment in time we have around 3 months to get everything sorted as i believe and although we have got alot of momentum, Im wondering whether its worth perhaps thinking about a 2011 bid and giving ourselves more time to thoroughly think this through and get ourselves organised. What we could do is to continue what we are doing but to use 2010 more as a proof of concept as i doubt that with WMUK not having charity status we are going to struggle to get the vast amounts of sponsorship we need. I know this is a little defeatist but I just think that id rather wait a year to put in a bid that is solid and well thought through than trying to rush to get one in. Please feel free to use the clue stick :) _____ &lt;a4359dff0807281452y4c39a617ua92a135098ffc775(a)mail.gmail.com&gt; to _____ Win £3000 to spend on whatever you want at Uni! Click <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719803/direct/01/> here to WIN!