I am totally in agreement with Melinda. Either meetings are important,
or they are not.
At this point, its clear that having meetings somewhere as part of the outreach
program is, but that
clearly is not optimizing for the existing attendees.
To that end, I’d rather have meetings in a few locations regularly that
can fit the entire attendee list, rather than working this plan to have the
IETF in strange and odd locations as part of some “outreach” program to
increase participation; its clearly not. The odd/off-the-beaten path location
situation is becoming a real problem given the added costs (time/money/etc…)
for people, as well as clearly causing issues for people who regularly attend
the meetings to progress ongoing work and are trying to stay in the meeting
venue hotel. This is now the second time in a row where this is happening and
its a real problem. If you can’t stay in the main venue, you have added travel
costs (as Melida pointed out) not to mention the likelihood of added hotel
costs due to increased, non-negotiated rates once the relatively few rooms in
the main hotel are exhausted.
—Tom
On Dec 16, 2015:11:59 AM, at 11:59 AM, Melinda Shore
<melinda(_dot_)shore(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
On 12/16/15 7:52 AM, Ted Lemon wrote:
Why are we continuing to have hotel issues meeting after meeting
after meeting after meeting?
Because we can't force hotels to give us large allocations.
We already have a list of hotels which will.
Either meetings are important or they're not. If we're
going to continue to treat meeting participation as necessary,
we need to make it easier logistically. Instead we keep throwing
up barriers to participation. The closest overflow hotel
is nearly a mile from the Hilton - how's that going to work
out for people with limited mobility? I'm very happy having a
walk each morning and evening but I'll tell you that it can be
a huge PITA for breakfast meetings for people not staying
at the headquarter hotel. Getting work done should be one
of the primary considerations, here.
Melinda