h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I guess fords and I will be there...

well I'll bring khamsin along
I haven't shown my dear husband much of Glasgow so i guess it is about time for the whistle stop tour of sorts,

I'm afraid we won't join you for any drinking though me being "in the family way" but we'll say hello

People, eh? Splendid!

I'm looking forward to getting back to scotland,
my family (lead by dear ol' gran has desided to throw a 21st for me on the thusday... I really must print off directions

and the last meet up i went to was the alton towers meet when meetsheep died....

I should be there.

i will attempt to come but no promises yet!

Gah! We can't make it to the meet after all. Babysitter's let us down and we've both got the lurgy anyway.

How about a Christmas/New Year type meet instead?

Exclusive Meet Log:

~1.00pm Jamie Arrives

~1.25pm Zagreb Arrives

~1.50pm Jamie and Zagreb sit around discussing unlikelihood of anyone else showing-up

~2.00pm Jamie and Zagreb do separate not-expecting-much scans of the pub for anyone familiar. Find nowt.

~2.10-2.45pm Jamie and Zagreb make idle chit-chat and keep looking-around for any likely newcomers; decide that they are unspottable due to 1) pub being so big, 2) half the people in The Counting House looking like they're trying to find someone anyway.

2.50pm Jamie and Zagreb head off homeward.

Seriously, folks, this was an utter washout. To be honest, looking at the meet list it wasn't on steady legs anyway. All it took was for fords and EV to pull-out (and I know you guys had a very good reason to do so) to sink the whole thing. That's really not something built on good foundations anyway. The fact that any newcomers hoping to join-in didn't have any information about who to look for or where to look and the fact that we were holding the thing in such a massive, crowded pub when new people were likely to show really didn't help matters.

I suggest:

1) We re-schedule the meet. Preferably for within the month or nearer Christmas if people aren't too busy (which I doubt).

2) We re-schedule when people can make it and try and get *at least* six or seven "confirms". We basically had four people who were likely to show up today and only two actually did.

3) If new people are showing up we make it very clear to them what to look for. We should also try and get approximate times from people so we aren't left sitting around wondering if people are going to show.

4) We should really try and encourage new people to join us. The SRG members-list is pretty-big but the last few meets have attracted barely ten people. We've lost a lot of people along the way.

5) If we're going to meet-up in places as big and crowded as The Counting House then we might want to set-down some rules about *where* we're all going to be. It occured to Jamie and I that anyone else showing up didn't have a chance in hell of finding us in the place since it's not only huge but full of rooms. It's fine for the "veterans" but very unfriendly for newbies who might not want to go around each table asking if they're Douglas Adams fans.

Oh, and Jamie, I owe you a pint.

It used to be easy for a newcomer to spot the meet because we were all wearing h2g2 t-shirts. That and the instruction "Just look for Jamie" seemed to cover everything...

The problem is that you can't arrange to meet in a specific part of the Counting House (or the Standing Order) because it's always packed and you never know where you're eventually going to find a table.

"It used to be easy for a newcomer to spot the meet because we were all wearing h2g2 t-shirts. That and the instruction "Just look for Jamie" seemed to cover everything..."

I know. I think one problem is that we've been very presumputous regarding these things falling-together. We've always skimped on any real planning and just assumed that things will "work out". They usually do, this time they didn't. We should really plan these things based on the asumption that things will go wrong eg that people won't be able to contact other people, that newcomers won't just find us by chance etc etc. Looking back on it, something that's a bit worrying is that a few new people said they might show and yet we all did nothing to make sure they'd be able to identify us. It was just assumed it would all work out.

"
The problem is that you can't arrange to meet in a specific part of the Counting House (or the Standing Order) because it's always packed and you never know where you're eventually going to find a table."

Actually, this is very true. I think the problem is that there's no way of identifying us unless you already know who we are. We really need to organise some sort of "beacon" to make sure people know where to go.

"We really need to organise some sort of "beacon" to make sure people know where to go."

Which is where Jamie usually comes in.

Actually, you're right, we haven't put much effort into organising meets for a long time now, then we complain because the meets aren't as good as they used to be.

We should probably take this discussion to a proper thread on the SRG page, because this is still the sign-up thread for today's meet, which means there's hardly anybody reading it.