[Chicago-talk] Possible new meeting location

Jason A. Crome crome at devnetinc.com
Wed Sep 1 14:22:30 CDT 2004


Hello all,

I've been busily gathering information from Harper College in Palatine on
what it would take to get our meetings moved there.  So far, here's what
I've come up with.

Free rooms are generally not available unless a group is a Harper student
organization with a faculty mentor.  I can get us faculty support, but I've
been warned that CIS enrollment there has been very dismal of late, and
garnering enough student interest will be difficult.

The non-free option may or may not be palatable.  

The Wojcik Conference Center at Harper is a self-supporting entity.  They
don't receive funding from either the college or property tax, and therefore
has to generate it's own revenue.  They have a variety of rooms for groups
of about our size, complete with a projector, computer, and wireless net
access.  Typically, they charge $300 for room rental and additional if we
want to use the projector and computer.

That being said, my connection to the faculty there can get us the room for
$225.  They'll throw in the usage of the projector, etc. at no extra charge.
If we're willing to commit to something rather long-term (10-12 months),
they will probably cut the $225 down some.  If we hold the mini-YAPC that's
been discussed there, we can probably drive that cost down some more.

We can get tours if we like before coming to any sort of decision, but it
would probably be best if we went more than one or two at a time.

What do you all think?  Provided we can routinely draw enough people to make
this reasonably affordable, is anyone opposed to paying a few bucks for
meeting space?

Any updates on other locations?

--------------------------------------------------
Jason A. Crome
Senior Software Engineer, DEVNET, Inc.
E-Mail: crome at devnetinc.com
http://www.devnetinc.com



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