Re: An update on GNUstep Meetup 2015: Hotels, participants, travel

[Ivan Vučica]

HI all,

the discussions with hotels have went in the direction that they would, generally, like me to submit a credit card number to vouch for possible cancellations.

Since I would highly prefer not to take on that risk myself, and at least in this instance, I would not like to collect any money in advance, I would advise that everyone who didn't book hotel books it on their own.

A reminder so you can book more easily: we are going to be in the offices near Barrow Street.

Grand Canal Hotel seems to be reasonably priced (compared to others) and is very, very close by. It's one of the hotels I've been in contact with, and they offered a decent price for reservation in advance, too (but with the catch of having to take on risk for non-appearance). 

Other than this, I have not dug deep into hotel pricing.

Let me know as you book.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 2:26 PM, Ivan Vučica <ivan@vucica.net> wrote:

I received a response from one of the hotels already and they wish to know what type of rooms we'd like (single, double, triple). I assume we want double at most!

If you are willing to share a room please let me know asap, since that may save us all some money.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2015 13:40 Ivan Vučica <ivan@vucica.net> wrote:

Small updates (therefore I won't be making a separate blogpost):

- Fred has confirmed the trip. If anyone else plans to join, let me know.

- I've just sent out an email to three hotels here in Dublin, so naturally I'm waiting for responses. These are Grand Canal Hotel, Clayton Hotel Cardiff Lane (formerly Maldron), and O'Callaghan Hotels.

- While looking at hotels, I've spotted that Grand Canal Hotel is currently reasonably priced for these dates. Clayton is also within range of reason.

- Are you willing to share a room? Please let everyone know (reply to discuss-gnustep@); it may be a way to save money (for example, 'twin room' in Grand Canal is priced similarly to a 'double room'; 'triple room' is rather reasonable as well).

Looking forward to seeing you all.

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 6:59 PM, Ivan Vučica <ivan@vucica.net> wrote:

Hello,

I'm happy to announce dates are now Oct31-Nov1. Further changes should not be happening.

List of confirmed (or mostly confirmed) participants is a bit short, but still interesting:

- Riccardo Mottola

- Stefan Bidigaray

- Gregory John Casamento

- Scott Christley

- Richard Frith-Macdonald

- Ivan Vucica

More notes:

- Fred Kiefer has mentioned interest in joining, but I have made a mistake of not sending him the personalized email everyone else received, so I am apologizing and correcting this now. 

- I have not received responses from some receipients either. If you plan on joining, you'll of course be welcome even if you mention this on the day of the meetup -- but it would be awesome if everyone knew you're coming. :-)

If you plan on joining, please let me know. It would be outstanding to meet more developers and users, and share knowledge, experience and plans for the future.

There are no specific plans yet, aside from the GPG keyparty. Personally, I'm thinking of preparing a migration path towards Git and Gerrit, which could then be presented and proposed for adoption at the meeting. (I'd prepare it so that it could be executed with a few clicks.)

Other than that, I have received a proposal to consider this a chance to get together and less of a meeting to do talks. I don't disagree. But, if there is interest in sharing knowledge, I think that can only be appreciated and should be encouraged. Effective sharing of knowledge may require preparation by sharer and focus by recipients, which is why I'm mentioning talks.  But, I'm fine with either situation -- I'm looking forward to a get-together.

Since I've had to travel this week related to studies, I did not get around to contacting hotels for possible discounts. I will endeavor to do so next week. From the few conversations I had, I do not really expect we'll get a significant discount, but I'll try to see what I can do.

Thanks,

- Ivan