Re: [802SEC] Responses on venue for March 2009 - Please VOTE Now !!!
Buzz,
The lunch part was based on this statement from your earlier reply to my
concern about lunch and dinner spot availability close to the hotel:
"Hi Pat, Fees for facilities use are usually negotiable as part of
the
contract deal. That would include such things as pool, fitness center,
and Internet Connectivity. I would expect that we can get such items as
part of our bundled Group rate especially since we are paying a large
lump-sum to get direct access to their High-Speed Internet Access
Service Link. Breakfasts are included with the rooms, and we will cover
buffet lunches for all registered attendees."
$40 per day per lunch is not acceptable. Did the casual "we will cover
lunches" mean by increasing registration about $200?
Most of us do not eat enough at lunch to be worth that. I don't expect
our constituents will look kindly on an extra $200 in meeting fees to
get lunch thrown in. Given that and the location of the hotel, what do
you suggest we do to handle lunch?
Our normal registration has been $400. Your memo said $800 to break
even. $500 per attendee means a $300 delta times 1000 attendees =
$300,000. The treasurer's report showed a net surplus from March 2007 of
133K and a projected surplus from July 2007 of 81K and we have talked
about whether to reduce registration or use this to subsidize non-NA
plenaries. San Diego showed a surplus of $105K. So that seems do-able as
the subsidy for a low attendence turn-out.
I think it would be acceptable to kick up late registration by $200
instead of our usual $100 as well but I think 60 days out for late
registration is kind of far. I'd rather see 45 days which would let most
attendees attend their interims and then decide whether they were going
to the plenary.
Prior experience with 802.1 and 802.3 shows that we get solid attendance
at non-NA interims. Stockholm was an expensive city too and 802.1 did
fine on attendance. For those who chose to economize by staying in a
different hotel, it looked like more was available in Rome for
reasonably priced accomodation than in Stockholm. I don't believe that
the decision of those groups about where to hold their interim in
January 2007 is an indicator of turn-out for a Rome plenary. And the
decision not to go to London wasn't based only on cost. It was also
based on our other options for non-NA interims in 2007 vs a January in
London. In 2007, 802.3 had interims in May Geneva and September Seoul
and 802.1 had May Geneva and September Stockholm.
Regards,
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: Rigsbee, Everett O [mailto:everett.o.rigsbee@boeing.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 3:24 PM
To: Pat Thaler; STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: RE: [802SEC] Responses on venue for March 2009 - Please VOTE
Now !!!
Pat, Some comments on your suggestion:
I would prefer to anticipate attendance at 800 just to be safe since I
expect low turn-out from 802.1 and 802.3 based on prior experience and
their stated preferences.
You cannot get 4-days of buffet lunches for $50, not even close. The
going rate is $40-50/day.
We need to come up with $402K just to pay for meeting space. No way you
can do that with +$100 reg fee (that barely covers the increased cost of
F&B) unless you are able to take all of that out of our treasury. We
would need to raise our fees by $50 to build that much reserve between
now and March 2009 (only 3 sessions).
We can work up some options with subsidized fees if you would like but
it's still not going to look cheap.
Thanx, Buzz
Dr. Everett O. (Buzz) Rigsbee
Boeing IT
PO Box 3707, M/S: 7M-FM
Seattle, WA 98124-2207
Ph: (425) 373-8960 Fx: (425) 865-7960
Cell: (425) 417-1022
everett.o.rigsbee@boeing.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Thaler [mailto:pthaler@broadcom.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 3:00 PM
To: Rigsbee, Everett O; STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: RE: [802SEC] Responses on venue for March 2009 - Please VOTENow
!!!
Can Rome be set up with the following parameters?
Budget can be made to work with
anticipated attendance of 1000
registration fee no more than $100 over our usual plenary
registration fee
(or $150 if buffet lunch is included)
extra registration fee of up to $200 for attendees that don't
stay at the meeting hotel
difference between cost and registration fees decreases for
higher attendance
difference between meeting cost and registration at 1000
attendees is within our ability to subsidize from the IEEE 802 Treasury
And our attendees staying at the hotel are not subjected to excessive
fees (compared to what we pay at our customary venues) for the usual
hotel services. Specifically:
access to fitness center and hotel indoor pool should be free
in room internet should be no more than 10 Euros
Note: I expect that 1000 is the minimum attendance we will get. Buzz's
information memo said 800 to 1000 but looking at the past meeting
history for interims we don't have that much fall off for NA vs non-NA,
actually attendance looks pretty good at previous non-NA meetings. "our
ability to subsidize from the IEEE 802 Treasury" means using the
treasury funds we have been building up to help with the expected extra
cost of non-NA and not reducing our treasury to a point that endangers
our ability to operate going forward.
If and only if those parameters can be met, then I vote approve.
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.