Vegas or BUST suggestion

[Guest guest]

> Subject: RE: Re: Vegas or BUST....

> We put a white board on an easel in our hallway and left each other notes

there on where we were going.

***Great plan! We've done that as well... a cork board with pins was

provided in the hotel lobby and messages back and forth were exchanged

easily... (no phone, real name or room numbers were used since it was

public.) We had no problems with this method though.

>>>We could also make a flip-chart list of people's names, room numbers,

cell numbers, whatever, also to be housed in our conference room for greater

privacy.<<<

***Alternately, one " central " person could volunteer to be the " social

secretary " for the event. Everyone could contact this one central person and

provide them with -- room number, cell phone number, events and others could

just contact that person for the " scoop " on what's up, what's going on, how

do I reach so and so and the what's planned for tonight sort of thing....

If we use a " central hotel " (the rates are WAY better if we do this) the

front desk will be happy to hand out messages to everyone asking about the

" grad group " such as where everyone is gathering for lunch and so on. Just

calling the front desk and ask -- " What message has the grad group left for

lunch today... " and they will pass on those types of messages without a

problem.

They won't pass out multiple messages about people's phone numbers and so

on -- we should handle that internally.... A " secretary person " could be one

person for events before noon, one person for events from noon - five and

one person for events after 5 and one person who has everyone's " how to find

me " information. That way the " work " would be split up into several people

and no one person doing ALL the work of helping us contact each other.

On hotel rates: Most hotels have gone to this system now particularly with

all the on-line booking... Rooms on floors 1-3 are dirt cheap and have

almost no amenities... just a room and that's about it. Rooms 4-9 or more

for the business traveler and do provide internet hook-up (most are charging

now though) they usually are slightly (but not much) larger than the lower

floors... Rooms on the 10th floor and up are full service, much larger

complete with everything rooms -- amazingly the rates can vary from 49.95

for the lower floors to 200+ for the upper floors in the same exact hotel.

Many of the upper floor rooms are comped well in Vegas though so it is just

agreeing on a hotel, getting rates for all the rooms and putting it out

there in a poll to see what hotel we want to use. Food is cheap everywhere

(not that we aren't already cheap eaters to start with... LOL...) most

hotels do offer a complimentary " breakfast buffet " and all the Hilton owned

hotels have what is called " Hilton Kids " that provide a lot of extra's if

your kid is a member to help make traveling with your child MUCH easier --

from bonded babysitting services to a kids menu on the room service menu to

planned activities during the day your child can attend to have " kid " fun

while your having " grown-up " fun... we use this feature every where we

travel with our little one and it truly makes things SO much nicer (fridges

in rooms for children still on bottles and stuff... needing to keep milk

cold, microwaves to warm up bottles... all sorts of little extras that are

wonderful.) Their is NO charge to become a " Hilton Kid "

> >On the name tags -- we can make badges or sticky tags that have an

> > " identifier " that we talk about here and that no one else would " know "

I'm sure we have a " crafty " person who could put this idea into play for

us... I've made badges for many events and including the plastic badge

w/pin, the paper to print them and so on... each badge costs about 50 cents

total... well worth it to " find " each other... the cost has probably gone

up --it's been a while since I did that.

****Or would the hotels not like giving out messages for the " Grad group " ?

The main hotel wouldn't mind giving out 1 message at a time sort of

thing -- like " one " lunch gathering but they would probably not be real

happy about having to read off a list of... " one group is meeting at 11:30

at the <__place__> and another group is meeting at Noon at <__place__> and

.... on and on... Mostly, the front desk will answer a 1 place question from

multiple callers but not a whole list.

I think a round of " social coordinators " would be better for this. The

front desk won't even answer the phone if they have a mile long line of

people waiting to check in so it isn't all that dependable either.

They will however post a " sign " at the front desk where we could run by and

check to see what's going on... still, someone would have to be responsible

for getting that sign changed and updated.

For those willing to do some footwork either before the event or during the

event -- AND for those planning to go -- I think it is time to set up a

Yahoo Group JUST for this event and take this whole thread off the main

group here EXCEPT we should continue to " announce " the event here for the

new people every 2 weeks or so as new people join the Grads group... if that

is all ok with (????)

hugz,

~denise