Conference info...

[Ian Pratt]

> On Fri, 2006-08-18 at 12:47 +0100, Steven Whitehouse wrote:
> > then it would be a good plan to contact them separately I think.
I'll
> > forward the individual replies as I receive them. I wasn't sure what
to
> > say on the catering front, so I've requested separate totals for
that to
> > ensure that we can see what we are getting on that front,
> 
> OK ... I'll see if I can get John's to play ball.  I know for a fact
the
> Palmerston room in the Fisher Building can be configured for the
> roundtable type setting that we use in the Kernel Summit (The tiered
> seating can be rolled back into the wall) I think it will do up to a
> hundred, although it will be more cramped than the Congress Centre.  I
> suspect it's not advertised like this on the conference site because
the
> John's conference manager doesn't like the effort involved in changing
> the configuration.

I emailed Conference Cambridge right after I got back from OLS. The
result was pretty disappointing, with only Homerton and New Hall
responding. I think a centre-of-town College would probably make a
better venue, if we can find a big enough room. In King's the only room
big enough is the dining room, but that makes things rather awkward for
providing lunches/dinners [Colleges generally want to couple hire of the
room to catering, as that's where they make money]. Trinity or St John's
is probably the best bet for large conference rooms.

If a change of format was considered, the Computer Laboratory has a
large raked lecture theatre that would actually be pretty good. It's a
mile or two out of the centre of town, which would create a few logistic
issues. [Hire a fleet of bikes? :-)]

Ian