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memevectorLeicester Pride yesterday. Went early to set up the stall, and spent most of the day there, accompanied at different times by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wandra, the_maenad, lovingboth, and Adrian from Derby (who had organised booking the stall). We sold lots of badges, and gave away some unknown number of BCNs and BiCon booking forms. There were lots of people there, and I thought the festival had good vibes, although as so often there was a very noisy dance tent booming across the site, with hardly anyone (sometimes nobody) dancing in it until about 5pm. It was the most multi-cultural main stage lineup I think I've ever seen at a Pride.
One of the community stalls was an organisation called the National Coalition Building Institute. I'd never heard of it before but it looks v cool. They do all kinds of anti-racist and anti-prejudice-in-general stuff. I want to go to one of their workshops, although they do cost fifty quid. One of the topics is learning how to do a good intervention if someone makes a prejudiced remark out of the blue. I want that! It's so crap when you can't think what to say at the time and then later you wish you had! The workshops are in Lancaster, Lincoln, Peterborough or Leicester. If I do one, it'll be Leicester. Anyone been to one already? Anyone fancy it?
While we were sat at the stall,lovingboth and I had some negotiations about me doing a Single Bass gig on the Friday night of BiCon, and that looks set to happen. We still need to sort out some details like PA stuff.
Partly because of that, we went off at one point to the BiCon venue which was just up the road. We looked round, andlovingboth counted all the steps for the access information.
I can confirm that the place is indeed leafy! :-) The gardens start literally at the edge of the car park, a couple of minutes' walk from the hall's front door. If the weather's reasonable it is gonna be gorgeous hanging out there. Mm mm. And no mistake.
We were lucky enough to meet a rather helpful mature student who had keys, so we went inside as well. The main reason I'd tagged along was to look at the social spaces. There's a large not-too-echoey hall for the dancing, and a separate bar not right next to it, and a library next to the bar which could possibly be used as a non-smoking chillout place. It's hard to guess how much overspill noise there might turn out to be from disco to bar: if I remember correctly, they're across an outdoor walkway from each other (separated by 2 x windows and maybe 10 feet of air, plus the odd plant). I am cautiously optimistic that civilised conversation will be possible during the disco.
[Lack of a comfortable talking zone at the disco was my least favourite thing about last year's BiCon - in fact I can't think off hand of a BiCon I've been to before where there was actually somewhere nice with comfy chairs as a nearby but relatively quiet alternative to the disco. Maybe the bar at Cambridge? but that had music on too I think. I do like loud music but not for a whole evening. I like to dance and then talk to people and then dance.]
Connecting the dance hall and the bar is a largish entrance hall with a couple of sofas. The bedrooms are in the same building*, and so are most (or all?? not sure) of the workshop rooms - i.e. no split site this year, hooray.
[*Update: No they're not. Seeciphergoth's correction below.]
Having glanced at one of the kitchens, I predict a possible annoyance for this BiCon of lack of fridge space... depending on how many people go to the supermarket as opposed to eating takeaway. Maybe people who've got cool-boxes (you know, the insulated kind) should bring them. It's not really a self-catering hall so the kitchens are a bit feeble.
All in all, I am quite optimistic about it as a venue, and starting to have pleasant anticipatory thoughts along the lines of "ooh! It's BiCon soon!"
Also had an interesting conversation at the stall with Adrian about newbies at BiCon and how to support people in meeting people. I never really had the total newbie experience myself, because before my first BiCon I'd already met quite a few people at other things. But Adrian had seen more of that side of it, and met quite a few people at past BiCons who were struggling, and told me a sad story about a couple who'd left Manchester 2000 after a day because they hadn't managed to talk to anyone yet. It's not like there isn't already stuff with new people in mind, but it just made me think about what else could be easily done that would be helpful.
After Pride, went home on the train withwandra and the_maenad and on to Pizza Hut for food & conversation - v nice. When the bill came, they'd added VAT to the prices on the menu. Surely that's not normal? Somebody tell me if it is. I certainly don't think that's ever happened to me in Pizza Hut before and I've been there loads of times over the years. At the time I just went "Oh!", but this morning when I woke up I thought about it again and I think it's a swizz! I'm gonna complain about it I think.
Anyway, all in all a very good day.
wandra, the_maenad, lovingboth, and Adrian from Derby (who had organised booking the stall). We sold lots of badges, and gave away some unknown number of BCNs and BiCon booking forms. There were lots of people there, and I thought the festival had good vibes, although as so often there was a very noisy dance tent booming across the site, with hardly anyone (sometimes nobody) dancing in it until about 5pm. It was the most multi-cultural main stage lineup I think I've ever seen at a Pride. One of the community stalls was an organisation called the National Coalition Building Institute. I'd never heard of it before but it looks v cool. They do all kinds of anti-racist and anti-prejudice-in-general stuff. I want to go to one of their workshops, although they do cost fifty quid. One of the topics is learning how to do a good intervention if someone makes a prejudiced remark out of the blue. I want that! It's so crap when you can't think what to say at the time and then later you wish you had! The workshops are in Lancaster, Lincoln, Peterborough or Leicester. If I do one, it'll be Leicester. Anyone been to one already? Anyone fancy it?
While we were sat at the stall,
lovingboth and I had some negotiations about me doing a Single Bass gig on the Friday night of BiCon, and that looks set to happen. We still need to sort out some details like PA stuff. Partly because of that, we went off at one point to the BiCon venue which was just up the road. We looked round, and
lovingboth counted all the steps for the access information. I can confirm that the place is indeed leafy! :-) The gardens start literally at the edge of the car park, a couple of minutes' walk from the hall's front door. If the weather's reasonable it is gonna be gorgeous hanging out there. Mm mm. And no mistake.
We were lucky enough to meet a rather helpful mature student who had keys, so we went inside as well. The main reason I'd tagged along was to look at the social spaces. There's a large not-too-echoey hall for the dancing, and a separate bar not right next to it, and a library next to the bar which could possibly be used as a non-smoking chillout place. It's hard to guess how much overspill noise there might turn out to be from disco to bar: if I remember correctly, they're across an outdoor walkway from each other (separated by 2 x windows and maybe 10 feet of air, plus the odd plant). I am cautiously optimistic that civilised conversation will be possible during the disco.
[Lack of a comfortable talking zone at the disco was my least favourite thing about last year's BiCon - in fact I can't think off hand of a BiCon I've been to before where there was actually somewhere nice with comfy chairs as a nearby but relatively quiet alternative to the disco. Maybe the bar at Cambridge? but that had music on too I think. I do like loud music but not for a whole evening. I like to dance and then talk to people and then dance.]
Connecting the dance hall and the bar is a largish entrance hall with a couple of sofas. The bedrooms are in the same building*, and so are most (or all?? not sure) of the workshop rooms - i.e. no split site this year, hooray.
[*Update: No they're not. See
ciphergoth's correction below.]Having glanced at one of the kitchens, I predict a possible annoyance for this BiCon of lack of fridge space... depending on how many people go to the supermarket as opposed to eating takeaway. Maybe people who've got cool-boxes (you know, the insulated kind) should bring them. It's not really a self-catering hall so the kitchens are a bit feeble.
All in all, I am quite optimistic about it as a venue, and starting to have pleasant anticipatory thoughts along the lines of "ooh! It's BiCon soon!"
Also had an interesting conversation at the stall with Adrian about newbies at BiCon and how to support people in meeting people. I never really had the total newbie experience myself, because before my first BiCon I'd already met quite a few people at other things. But Adrian had seen more of that side of it, and met quite a few people at past BiCons who were struggling, and told me a sad story about a couple who'd left Manchester 2000 after a day because they hadn't managed to talk to anyone yet. It's not like there isn't already stuff with new people in mind, but it just made me think about what else could be easily done that would be helpful.
After Pride, went home on the train with
wandra and the_maenad and on to Pizza Hut for food & conversation - v nice. When the bill came, they'd added VAT to the prices on the menu. Surely that's not normal? Somebody tell me if it is. I certainly don't think that's ever happened to me in Pizza Hut before and I've been there loads of times over the years. At the time I just went "Oh!", but this morning when I woke up I thought about it again and I think it's a swizz! I'm gonna complain about it I think. Anyway, all in all a very good day.
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Hiya
Glad you had a good time at Pride. It was nice to meet you. :o)
I didn't get to see the National Coalition Building Institute, but I think it sounds really good... Did you get a contact number for them, or find out when they are holding workshops? I would definitely be interested in going to one.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-23 02:44 pm (UTC)Glad you had a good time at Pride. It was nice to meet you. :o)
you too!
I didn't get to see the National Coalition Building Institute, but I think it sounds really good... Did you get a contact number for them, or find out when they are holding workshops? I would definitely be interested in going to one.
Next workshops in Leicester are 25 July, 5 September, 17 October, 25 November. But I don't know yet which one I'd go to. There's an email address info (at) ncbileic.org.uk which looks like it's actually the head office for the UK, rather than just the Leicester one.
If we get four people to the same one then we get money off :-)
There's also a website (slow due to a glut of unnecessary graphics) at www.ncbi.org, and if you look under the "training" heading you can see a mention of the one-dayer I'm talking about. And if you look under "accomplishments" you can see a little mention of the Leicester people.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-23 02:55 pm (UTC)Well, the 25th July & the 5th September are out for me, because of school holidays, & other commitments, but if you go to one on either 17th October, or 25th November, then let me know, & I'd be happy to make up one of four. :o)
I've added you to my friends list, by the way... Hope you don't mind?
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-25 04:30 am (UTC)The later ones look more feasible for me too. Let's pencil them both in for now, and see if we can gather another couple of people before then, maybe at BiCon.
I've added you to my friends list, by the way... Hope you don't mind?
Not at all! I've been a bit ultra-cautious about adding people to mine in case I get too many and have to boot some off again, because even though theoretically everyone knows that there can be non-personal reasons for that, people still sometimes feel rejected when it happens. But as far as linking to my LJ, everyone's welcome to, and if you eventually boot me off again I'll try not to take it personally :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-23 03:42 pm (UTC)It's probably very useful for people who can claim expenses from VAT registered firms for the meal out. But I do get driven spare by the way that Staples catalogues and suchlike are all ex-VAT, I get fed up of doing "and about another fifth" on every figure I read.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-25 05:06 am (UTC)No, different thing - that's what we thought it was at first, but when you looked closer, the prices on the top part of the bill were the prices on the menu. And they'd added the VAT on top of that. And I don't recall seeing anywhere on the menu "Plus VAT" or "Not including VAT".
Venue notes
Date: 2002-06-24 02:57 am (UTC)I don't think the overspill noise will be loud enough for people to guess what track is playing in the disco...
The bedrooms we're using aren't in the same building, but they're all on the same site. Yes, the lack of cooking facilities could cause some irritation, which is one reason we've gone into detail on the subject on forms and Web pages...
I can confirm that the place is indeed leafy! :-) The gardens start literally at the edge of the car park, a couple of minutes' walk from the hall's front door. If the weather's reasonable it is gonna be gorgeous hanging out there. Mm mm. And no mistake.
You can see why I keep going on about the leafy goodness :-) I'm *so* hoping for good weather! But I think even if the weather doesn't hold, a nice, self-contained leafy venue will make for a better BiCon.
Thanks for going to see the venue!
(no subject)
Date: 2002-06-25 05:06 am (UTC)Hmm, well my first guess was they would - but only just... but I was being cautious in my predictions :-)
The bedrooms we're using aren't in the same building, but they're all on the same site.
oh right. Better in one way, if that means they're further from thumpy disco noise.
Yes, the lack of cooking facilities could cause some irritation, which is one reason we've gone into detail on the subject on forms and Web pages...
yeah, not knocking the info you've already done, just wishing to add to it...
My reason for zooming in on fridges is that (for me anyway) cooking is optional (esp in summer), 'cause there are lots of cold foods I'm happy to eat, whereas cool storage is harder to create alternatives for. Ideally I don't wanna be back at the supermarket every day, I just want to get a load of stuff in on the Thursday. & I'm thinking that whether that's possible or not depends partly on how much fridge space is my share. I forgot to ask the kitchen-to-people ratio (d'you know?), but from other things said by the helpful student, I had the impression it might be 10 or even 20 people to one kitchen, which is what conjured up the scenario I was concerned about. Admittedly, in normal daily life, people generally shop for more than three days at a time, but I share a house with four other people and we have two fridges, know what I mean :-) Of course if I'm lucky, everyone else on my corridor will decide to eat takeaway all the time and it won't be an issue.
so that's what set me thinking about cool-boxes and insulated bags & suchlike. It's not a complaint, just a tactical thought. & I thought I would broadcast it because if a few people (e.g. those who happen to own one and are coming by car) did bring cool-boxes, everyone potentially benefits. Besides, they're useful for picnics :-)
You can see why I keep going on about the leafy goodness :-)
<grin>
yes indeed :-)
Thanks for going to see the venue!
Oh well it seemed like an obvious move, once we started talking about the gig possibilities. Much easier to say sensible things about PAs & such having seen the rooms.