Re: [activities] Trial a new venue?

(obdisc: I'm mostly wearing my "Googler who extended the offer to host" hat
in this email, but you may detect hints of my "Committee member" hat peeping
through the holes)

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 6:50 AM, Erik de Castro Lopo
<[email protected]<mle%[email protected]>
> wrote:

> Jeff Waugh wrote:
>
> > <quote who="Sridhar Dhanapalan">
> >
> > > We are considering trialling a new venue for our May meeting. Google
> > > Sydney has offered us a meeting area in their new offices at Level 5,
> 48
> > > Pirrama St, Pyrmont.
>
> I have held two Fp-Syd meetings at the new google offices and here
> are my impressions.
>
> > Two thoughts / questions:
> >
> >  * How large are the meeting areas in their new digs?
>
> There have two rooms with a divider that can make two rooms into
> one large room. The first and most easily accessible room is not
> much larger than the one at Atlassian. In  some ways Atlassian
> may even  be a better fit.


For SLUG, we'd use both rooms. The larger room is twice as large as the room
fp-syd uses, and is where we'd have the General talk. We'd use the smaller
room for the second half, when we split into two streams.

The larger room is just as easily accessible - but from the end of the
building opposite the games room, so you probably haven't noticed the
entrance :)


>
>
> >  * How bureaucratic is the entrance process?
>
> Before 6:30pm, its nowhere near as bad as IBM, you can walk right
> to the entrance to the Google play room (pool table, guitar hero
> etc) and people at that door can be seen from the meeting  room
> if the door is open (we had to close it last time due to noise).


The games room tends to be quieter on Friday nights. Regardless, we'll be in
the big room for the first half, so farther from the noise :)


>
>
> After 6:30pm access is actually worse than IBM :-). Late comers
> with have to phone (with a mobile) someone inside the meeting
> and someone will have to come down and let them in. This is
> a major pain.


The revolting door is *meant* to stay open till 7pm. We're still working on
making that actually happen - hopefully it will be solved by the time SLUG
has a meeting

Even if it doesn't, we'll have more helpers at a Slug meeting than at an
fp-syd meeting, so it will be easier to arrange for someone to be waiting at
the entrance until a bit past 7.

However, the security is also going to be a problem for smokers. We don't
have anywhere they can pop for a smoke without being locked outside. We can
arrange a smoke break in the intermission, but people aren't going to be
able to come and go as easily as they can at Atlassian.



>
> On another note, the laptop projector setup is awesome.
>
> >    Will everyone have to
> >    sign NDAs and not look at the walls (as is usual for Google events)?
>
> Nope, no NDAs.
>
> FP-Syd has a tradition of drinking beer after the meeting. This is
> well catered for at Pyrmont. I don't think the food/meal situation
> will be quite as easy to fix.


There are plenty of restaurants in Pyrmont, so it's not an insoluble
problem.

According to gMaps the walk to Golden Harbour is 1.8km, compared with 800m
from Atlassian, so the difference is significant.


>
> Erik
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Erik de Castro Lopo
> http://www.mega-nerd.com/
> --
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