I had hoped that we would, by now, have been able to announce the next Funding the Future event. We have been working quite hard on this and initially decided to hold it in Leeds. That idea has now been abandoned because we have been unable to find a suitable venue that meets our needs at a price that provides a reasonable likelihood of covering our costs.
As a result, we shifted our attention to Sheffield and have found a potential venue, but we are still negotiating terms, because in my opinion, the world is a very uncertain place at present. I do not wish to pay for up to 600 coffees upfront now, with no right to cancel, if the cost of fuel or rationing makes travelling an impossibility for many in the meantime.
We have indicated to the venue that we are willing to take a risk on room hire, which is the smallest part of the cost, but not with regard to consumables, the cost of which they would not in any case incur if we cancelled because people could not attend.
If we can resolve this issue, then Sheffield on 27th June is the plan. If we cannot, we will have to look again after the summer, though I am not optimistic about that.
I will keep you posted.
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Buy me a coffee!
If you wanted to do one towards the SouthWest at some point, you should find a number of Lib Dem leaning voters who are supportive of your general thinking
That is an idea for the autumn, which is on our agenda
How about Birmingham? It has good train connections to most of the country including the south west. I’m sure I could get a few of my Herefordshire Green colleagues to attend.
And very expensive. Coventry would be more likely.
Just ‘up the road’ then for me this time.
Yes, if we can get things sorted
Well, my offer to proof read stills stands and if you need a hand on the day I’m happy to pop up early? It is a Saturday after all. No task too menial for me at all.
PSR
Thank you. Much appreciated and I may get back to you on proof reading, soon.
Let’s see about Sheffield.
Richard
Would you consider a webinar?
Yes
A webinar or livestreaming on YouTube would be great for me as I am never able to physically attend these events. Can I also ask if you might consider having someone like Steve Keen or Zack Polanski as a guest speaker, or would not be appropriate for ythis kind of event?
On the subject of meetings, I wonder what your thoughts are on the recent DiEM25 event which brought Yanis Varoufakis, Jeremy Corbyn, Zack Polanski, Grace Blakeley and Brian Eno together on stage for a wide ranging discussion?
I did not watch it.
It is rather long (>2 hours) and has too much time (imho!) with the audience whooping and hollering! However you can skip to the substantive part with Zack P, Jeremy C and Grace Blakeley (which gets it down (!) to an hour or so.) That said, I felt it was too much – as so often – critique; and not enough concrete policy ideas and practice.
Time I will not get back! At least I was doing chores in the background, since there are no slides, just ‘talking heads’.
I get bored by critique and no ideas
I think Fringe events are worth a look. A major organisation carries the burden of hiring a big venue, but away from the main conference hall many smaller organisations put on interesting debates. There’s an on hand pool of possible speakers and people coming to your event can check out other stalls.
The Fabians having an event within the Labour Conference in Liverpool springs to mind.