Re: Re: Thank you for UKHA2003

["Paul Robinson" <ukcueman@xxxxxxx>]

From: "Mark McCall" <mark@xxxxxxx>
> What should we do to improve next time?

Like everyone else, I thought the weekend was very good. Extremely useful
(for an HA newbie like me at least!) and I'll go next year if I possibly
can.

However, I didn't have lunch on either day (apart from a couple of apples
>from
always something else I wanted to do more (usually in the main room).

I found that the informal chatting about stuff was as informative and
useful
as the more formal presentation style. But there weren't enough gaps
between
presentations - particularly (I imagine) for those people that could only
come on one day and couldn't hang around for the saturday evening.
Obviously, this presents a time problem. A two day meet is probably the
right length, so you could:
(1) Book the rooms earlier so that people can set up the day before.
(2) Start the saturday earlier
(3) Schedule something on both days around noon to 1pm where there are no
presentations.
(4) 75 minutes between presentations might be better than 60 minutes.
(5) If the schedule requires it, the Saturday could go on for an hour later
than it did. (Though I imagine extending the Sunday would be unpopular)
(6) As has been suggested elsewhere, separate presentation rooms from
non-presentation rooms.

The biggest potential problem I can see in being able to achieve this is
that it requires more money to book rooms for 3 days, and to book more big
rooms. Given that Graham only hit break-even in the bookings at the
beginning of April (!!!!) this might present a problem if the costs go up
next year because the risk would be greater. Perhaps we could persuade some
of the HA companies attending UKHA2004 to underwrite the event.

Paul