Birds-of-a-feather lunches

[Chris Lowis]

At a recent, large W3C conference, one of the things I enjoyed was the "birds of a feather" lunches. Delegates could propose a topic during the breaktime on a whiteboard board, and then other attendees could sign up (the number was limited by the size of the lunch tables). Then we all had lunch together and talked about the topic - or in my case had a rambling 30 minute chat with Sir Tim Berners-Lee about his home automation system. 

Do you think this would work at the Manor? 

Cheers, 

Chris 

[Aleksandar Simic]

This is a good suggestion.

This would get the conversations during the lunch more focused.

Thanks for bringing it up,
Aleksandar

[Steve Hayes]

Great idea, l'm up for that

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[James Adam]

While some coordination can happen on the day, if you're hoping to meet in groups of more than 4, you might want to book a lunch venue.

On a related note, I walked around the local area to see what's open at lunchtime on Saturday:

http://beta.etherpad.org/p/Ru3y%20Manor%20lunch%20places

- James

[Eleanor McHugh]

On 16 Oct 2011, at 14:57, James Adam wrote:
> While some coordination can happen on the day, if you're hoping to meet in groups of more than 4, you might want to book a lunch venue.
>
> On a related note, I walked around the local area to see what's open at lunchtime on Saturday:
>
> http://beta.etherpad.org/p/Ru3y%20Manor%20lunch%20places

For anyone who likes Japanese food I can highly recommend Niko Niko on Percy Street. It's generally quiet enough for conversation and not that busy during the day.

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://feyeleanor.tel
http://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanormchugh

[Chris Lowis]

Good idea about booking lunch venues. 

It sounds like there might be some interest in this idea, so I'm happy to help coordinate things. Would this list be a good place to propose and sign up to attend lunches in advance, or would we be better using Vestibule for that pupose?

Cheers, 

Chris 

[Murray Steele]

On 17 October 2011 08:11, Chris Lowis <chris...@gmail.com> wrote:

Good idea about booking lunch venues. 

It sounds like there might be some interest in this idea, so I'm happy to help coordinate things. Would this list be a good place to propose and sign up to attend lunches in advance, or would we be better using Vestibule for that pupose?

 

We could publish a public google spreadsheet and tweet / blog / mail-this-list the heck out of it?

Muz

[Matthew O'Riordan]

Google spreadsheet sounds like a good idea Murray, good visibility for everyone and simple.  Chris, you want to take a stab at setting one up or should I?

[Chris Lowis]

That sounds like it might work!

Matthew - go ahead and create one, I'd bet you're more familiar with
Google Spreadsheets than I am! Send me the link when you've done and
I'll help out.

Cheers,

Chris

[Matthew O'Riordan]

Hi all

Based on my understanding that people would either like to meet up socially at lunch time with no particular agenda, or meet with a topic led birds-of-a-feather idea, I have put together a Google Doc that should help get like minded people together over lunch.

Please go to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjHX63l2KaOsdDg0MWI2Y0QxVmhaN0JWSG00VHdDZ0E&hl=en_GB and do the following:

• Take a look at the Venues sheet (tabs at the bottom) that has links to the venues on Google Maps along with directions so you can get an idea of how far it is to the venue and what the venue is like (most of the maps have links to the venue's website).  There is a column to show how many people are going to that venue to so hopefully everyone can self-manage this so that people don't end up largely congregating in the same place.  
• You can also add your own venue, please don't insert a row, just enter the new venue in the white cells and everything will just work.
• Take a look at the Topics sheet and either add a topic, or decide which birds-of-a-feather topic you wish to join.
• Finally, go to the Attendees sheet (tabs at the bottom) and enter your name, optionally your email in case someone wants to contact you prior to meeting, select a topic from the drop down and then select a venue from the drop down.  Please don't insert a row, just enter your name in the free white cells.
  Note that you will need to manage whether your venue and topic matches up, as in theory there could be the same topic discussed at multiple venues.  Simply see who is attending your chosen topic and which venue they have chosen to make your choice.

Hope that helps everyone and is in line with how everyone envisaged this working.  Shout if you have any problems and I will make any necessary adjustments.

I will keep an eye on how many people are attending each topic and venue (you can see yourself in the Venue and Topic worksheets), and we can shift people around if necessary if it looks like too many people will end up in one place.

Thanks,

Matt