beer? weekend of the 24th June in London

[Nicholas Clark]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 11:34:23AM +0200, Mallory van Achterberg wrote:
> Sorry, wasn't subscribed so couldn't reply.

For future reference, that's not actually true. Non-subscriber mail hits
the moderation queue, and human non-subscribers usually then get whitelisted
so that they don't need further moderation.

Now, you likely won't see a *reply* unless you're subscribed, but that's a
different colour of bikeshed ... :-)

> We'll be in a cheapy Mccheap hotel "Sani" which is by Shepard's
> Bush (or, that's the nearest terminal), and as for tourist crap
> we dunno really.  At least the Natural History Museum and maybe
> 221b Baker Street. Further, I guess just see "London".
> 
> Since we get to the hotel late on Friday (we hope around 9pm
> but you never know with trains), I dunno if Friday night is best
> or Saturday... we're also in town Monday evening as well.

Historically Friday has proven to be a bad day for attendance.
Starting after 9pm in London on any night isn't going to work - the public
transport turns to pumpkins by midnight, even if you find a pub that has a
licence past 11pm, hence everyone will go home.

So of your options, that leaves Saturday.

> Anyway I dunno what's the best manner to pick an evening... I assume
> whichever the most people can attend? And we have no idea what a 
> "good" pub is in the area.  If there isn't one, another area should
> be fine.

Usually the best way is to get a (sort of unofficial) "sponsor" who
simply declares that it's this pub at that time, and people show up.

What actually happens is that this person:

-4: is reasonably well known (for -2 and -1)
-3: has some idea about pubs, or sounds out the IRC channel to get a sane idea
-2: can attend themself, and be recognisable
-1: has some idea about who else will attend, and gets rough confirmations

and then

0: announces it

1: arrives
2: tries to ensure that everyone else finds each other

to ensure that people actually end up in the same bit of the same pub.


It's not essential to do any of the above, but without everyone having phones
*and* everyone knowing every other potential attendee's* phone numbers (in
advance) it tends to be helpful to do it.


It happens that we have visitors that weekend, so I can't be sure that I'm
able to make it, so I can't volunteer to organise anything.

Nicholas Clark

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