On 7/29/08, Tom Holden <thomas.holden(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Well there will certainly be decent social spaces in the accommodation,
with common rooms with sofas and gardens with deck chairs and the space for
a marquee. Other than booking the smaller rooms as dedicated social spaces
the possibilities for social spaces at the Town Hall are a bit limited
beyond the foyer. If people are in lectures for most of the day is just
having good social spaces near the accommodation (5-10 mins walk from the
town hall) sufficient?
That's certainly better than nothing - though it's definitely preferable to
allow for as many opportunities to bump into people as possible - which
diminishes when you have the social spaces removed from the presentation
spaces. And really, don't presume that people will be in lectures all day -
there is usually a lot of activity outside sessions with spill-over
discussions from previous sessions, press interviews, mini-presentations,
and many other impromptu pow-wows and chats. In fact (and this is the case
with most conferences), many people find the most interesting discussions
for them personally take place outside scheduled sessions. So - just how big
is that foyer? :-) It doesn't look so substantial from what I can see from <
http://www.oxford.gov.uk/leisure/Venuehire.cfm>gt;. And that ice cream place
wouldn't be anything like what we need as a genuinely social, malleable
space. So this lack of convenient social space is still a concern for me
with this proposed venue - and I know other Wikimaniacs will be thinking
along the same lines.
That's good to know about the public transport - though I wonder if it might
still be an idea to look into additional shuttles around the peak times of
anticipated arrival/departure?
Cheers,Cormac