CoTech Retreat 2017
Aaron Hirtenstein
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Hi everyone,
I've been in touch with Wortley Hall to see if we can use the venue again for this year's event and we have a provisional booking for 3 nights and 2 days 27-29 November for 49 rooms plus the ballroom and Henry Collins lecture room - same as last year.
The rates are as follows:
£102 pp single occupancy
£87.00pp sharing in bedrooms
£35.00pp day delegate rate
£57.00pp dinner and day delegate rate
We will need to pay a 25% deposit to confirm the booking.
I will start a proposal for 1 week on this so that i can get back to Wortley with confirmation or declination.
As an aside to this, given that costs were difficult for some, we could ask Solid Fund to help with costs for those that are not a financial position to cover the costs.
Aaron Hirtenstein Mon 27 Feb 2017 11:57AM
Hi @kayleighwalsh we don't as yet other than myself and @edrussell. The next steps would be to get a small team in place. I am willing to offer a couple of hours a week to keep things moving along and I'm hoping that if we keep chipping away at things often it won't feel like such a big job - but that is perhaps wishful thinking! I would also like to catch up with you to pick your brains about what we need to organise. Hope that helps!
Kayleigh Walsh Outlandish Mon 27 Feb 2017 12:10PM
Sounds good to me, thanks for your speedy reply.
Aaron Hirtenstein Tue 28 Feb 2017 8:57AM
Hi everyone,
Thanks for pushing this forward. I've heard back from Wortley Hall. The 25% deposit will be £4177.25 and the booking is being held until next Monday 6th March. What do we think is the best way to get this paid (if the proposal passes!)?
Would Cobudget be a good way to do this? Or perhaps the bigger coops can share the payment for the deposit?
Thanks,
Aaron
Alex WA Tue 28 Feb 2017 8:58AM
@aaronhirtenstein I think CoBudget would be a lovely way of doing this and cement the collaboration of the project as a whole.
Chris Roos Tue 28 Feb 2017 11:49AM
Using Cobudget to raise the deposit sounds good to me.
Harry "Outlandish" Robbins Tue 28 Feb 2017 4:01PM
RE: the cost, it does include three meals a day which are fully catered so that everyone can take part rather than cooking and washing up. I think the challenge to CoTech is to ensure that the network generates considerably more than £300 per person per year. If its not doing that we should probably focus our efforts elsewhere. Also, there's nothing to stop us having other types of meetup - regional ones for example.
Chris Croome (Webarchitects Co-operative) Tue 28 Feb 2017 4:30PM
@harryrobbins I agree that self catering would be best avoided if possible, @asimong's suggestion of Unstone Grange does have a a self-serve breakfast, lunch and evening meal option but I don't think it would be big enough, unless used when the weather was warm and dry so people could camp and have outdoor meetings, but that would be an event of a different nature.
Simon Grant Wed 8 Mar 2017 9:27AM
I agree with you, @harryrobbins that for established partners the benefits of collaboration should easily outweigh the costs of such a venue, and the inconveniences of a lower cost venue might detract from the benefits.
The issue for me is the entry route. I would imagine that a really good way in for newcomers is to come along and participate, to find shared areas of income-generating work; but it might be hard to get their co-op to agree to such an expenditure of money and time until the income generation was established. And of course for some co-ops it might actually not lead to extra income.
Harry "Outlandish" Robbins Tue 28 Feb 2017 4:36PM
indeed - there were about 50 of us last time and we will need at least as many spaces this time (I hope)
Kayleigh Walsh Outlandish · Mon 27 Feb 2017 11:34AM
@aaronhirtenstein thanks for starting this thread. I have a clarifying question before I vote: do you have a team pencilled in to organise?