FJRed
Well-known member
Here's the dilemma,
Originally when I came up with the pre-NERDS campfire idea, I had a vision in my nerdly little brain :umnik: that there would be a dozen or so people coming into town early and I could get by with a case of beer and a couple packs of wieners. Well, it seems that my little cozy campfire idea has become quite popular. As of this evening. it's looking like 50 people or so are planning to attend. :dribble: Not a problem, but slightly more complicated logistics to worry about for a crowd that size.
I'm still planning on having the campfire and all are still welcome to attend, but I'd like to get some feedback from you NERDS out there about a few things related to the event. Namely, food & beverages and transportation back-and-forth from the Hotel to my house.
First, Food & Beverages.
We can go one of three ways:
1. Bring your own. I provide the campfire, you provide everything else. Each person would be responsible to bring their own food and beverages of choice. Simplest for me - no cost, no trip to Costco for stuff ahead of time, etc. More difficult for everyone else because you would need to stop and buy whatever you wanted and bring it with you.
2. Donation jar/pay-as-you-go. We provide hamburgers, Hot-dogs, chips, pretzels, soda, beer, etc. and you (out of the kindness of your heart) drop enough money in the donation jar to cover our costs. A little more complicated (and riskier) for us, but easier for you. Just show up, eat, drink, and throw some money in the jar. The potential downside to this option is that if the jar comes up a little short at the end of the evening, we get stuck with the extra costs for food/beverages. :angry:
3. Fixed price. We provide the food and beer. You pay a flat price per person to cover the costs. We'll have to figure out exactly how much this needs to be to cover our costs, but it probably would be in the $5-$10/pp range. If there's any extra money collected in either option 2 or 3, it would go towards filling the community coolers for the NERDS BBQ on Friday night.
Second, Transportation.
Again, three options:
1. Everyone is on their own. You get yourself to my house and back to the hotel either by riding or by arranging a taxi on your own. Could be an issue for those who might like to have a beer or two (or three) at the campfire. It's about 11 miles from my house to the Commodore's Inn and at least 2 miles of that is on a very dark dirt road. Directions to my house will be posted at the Commodore's Inn. If you are planning to come here directly, PM me and I'll send you the address.
2. Pre-Arranged Taxi/Van service. I've contacted a local Taxi service based in Stowe and they are willing to provide Taxi/Van service for $30/trip (one-way). They use a 6 passenger van so if the van is full, it would cost you $5/pp each way. I know, it sounds expensive, $30 for 11 miles, but this isn't exactly a big city with yellow cabs passing by every few minutes. This option would require a lot more trips and could potentially delay your arrival at the campfire. (I think they only have two vans)
3. Party Bus. We can arrange to have a Big Yellow school bus and driver pick everyone up at the Commodore's Inn around 6:30pm and deliver them to my house for the campfire festivities, then come back around 10:30pm to pick everyone up and take them back to the hotel. The bus can hold 45 adults and would cost us $300. If 35 of the 50 people would be willing to commit to riding the party bus, it would cost about $8.50/pp for the round trip. If more people commit, the cost per person would come down a little. With this option, you could have a few beers at the campfire :drinks: and not have to worry about riding back to Stowe late at night. For an extra $30, we can have the bus make two additional runs during the evening for those who might like to come a little later, or head back to the hotel a little earlier.
The NERDS'11 event was established with the goal of being "Yankee Frugal". In keeping with this, we're trying to hold the costs down as much as possible. Before we commit to something that's going to end up costing people money, we want to make sure that it's something people really want.
So, If you would please respond to the poll indicating your preferences for Food & Beverages and for Transportation, it will help us decide what we're going to do. Since there's only about three weeks left before NERDS and we need a week or so to get things ready, it's kind of important that you respond to the poll in the next week or so.
Since I can't be sure that everyone planning to attend NERDS will see this posting, I'm also going to send an email to each of the people who registered on the NERDS website with basically the same info.
Hope to see everyone at NERDS! :yahoo:
Ed.
Originally when I came up with the pre-NERDS campfire idea, I had a vision in my nerdly little brain :umnik: that there would be a dozen or so people coming into town early and I could get by with a case of beer and a couple packs of wieners. Well, it seems that my little cozy campfire idea has become quite popular. As of this evening. it's looking like 50 people or so are planning to attend. :dribble: Not a problem, but slightly more complicated logistics to worry about for a crowd that size.
I'm still planning on having the campfire and all are still welcome to attend, but I'd like to get some feedback from you NERDS out there about a few things related to the event. Namely, food & beverages and transportation back-and-forth from the Hotel to my house.
First, Food & Beverages.
We can go one of three ways:
1. Bring your own. I provide the campfire, you provide everything else. Each person would be responsible to bring their own food and beverages of choice. Simplest for me - no cost, no trip to Costco for stuff ahead of time, etc. More difficult for everyone else because you would need to stop and buy whatever you wanted and bring it with you.
2. Donation jar/pay-as-you-go. We provide hamburgers, Hot-dogs, chips, pretzels, soda, beer, etc. and you (out of the kindness of your heart) drop enough money in the donation jar to cover our costs. A little more complicated (and riskier) for us, but easier for you. Just show up, eat, drink, and throw some money in the jar. The potential downside to this option is that if the jar comes up a little short at the end of the evening, we get stuck with the extra costs for food/beverages. :angry:
3. Fixed price. We provide the food and beer. You pay a flat price per person to cover the costs. We'll have to figure out exactly how much this needs to be to cover our costs, but it probably would be in the $5-$10/pp range. If there's any extra money collected in either option 2 or 3, it would go towards filling the community coolers for the NERDS BBQ on Friday night.
Second, Transportation.
Again, three options:
1. Everyone is on their own. You get yourself to my house and back to the hotel either by riding or by arranging a taxi on your own. Could be an issue for those who might like to have a beer or two (or three) at the campfire. It's about 11 miles from my house to the Commodore's Inn and at least 2 miles of that is on a very dark dirt road. Directions to my house will be posted at the Commodore's Inn. If you are planning to come here directly, PM me and I'll send you the address.
2. Pre-Arranged Taxi/Van service. I've contacted a local Taxi service based in Stowe and they are willing to provide Taxi/Van service for $30/trip (one-way). They use a 6 passenger van so if the van is full, it would cost you $5/pp each way. I know, it sounds expensive, $30 for 11 miles, but this isn't exactly a big city with yellow cabs passing by every few minutes. This option would require a lot more trips and could potentially delay your arrival at the campfire. (I think they only have two vans)
3. Party Bus. We can arrange to have a Big Yellow school bus and driver pick everyone up at the Commodore's Inn around 6:30pm and deliver them to my house for the campfire festivities, then come back around 10:30pm to pick everyone up and take them back to the hotel. The bus can hold 45 adults and would cost us $300. If 35 of the 50 people would be willing to commit to riding the party bus, it would cost about $8.50/pp for the round trip. If more people commit, the cost per person would come down a little. With this option, you could have a few beers at the campfire :drinks: and not have to worry about riding back to Stowe late at night. For an extra $30, we can have the bus make two additional runs during the evening for those who might like to come a little later, or head back to the hotel a little earlier.
The NERDS'11 event was established with the goal of being "Yankee Frugal". In keeping with this, we're trying to hold the costs down as much as possible. Before we commit to something that's going to end up costing people money, we want to make sure that it's something people really want.
So, If you would please respond to the poll indicating your preferences for Food & Beverages and for Transportation, it will help us decide what we're going to do. Since there's only about three weeks left before NERDS and we need a week or so to get things ready, it's kind of important that you respond to the poll in the next week or so.
Since I can't be sure that everyone planning to attend NERDS will see this posting, I'm also going to send an email to each of the people who registered on the NERDS website with basically the same info.
Hope to see everyone at NERDS! :yahoo:
Ed.
