mark@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) (03/21/90)
The next USENIX conference will be held this June 11-15 in Anaheim, California. This is about two blocks away from Disneyland, and within easy reach of other southern California attractions such as Knotts Berry Farm, the California Angels, sourthern California beaches, and the like. It seems likely that many people attending the conference will want to take their children along and make a vacation out of it. The only problem with this is that you can't take young children with you into the conference or trade show, and older children would require a paid admission to tag along. Babysitting is available through the hotel, but at a cost of about $7/hour, plus room service food for the child and the sitter, you can run up a big bill fast. (4 years ago at the Disneyland Hotel, I found the cheapest thing on the menu was a $12 hamburger. There was a decent diner a mile up the road, and we'll make sure everybody knows where the nearest grocery store is, but the babysitters use your room in the hotel and call room service.) We are interested in setting up a cooperative group of parents who would like to share child care arrangements, to keep the cost down to a reasonble level and to provide a better environment for our kids. Current thinking is to set up two rooms in the hotel, have members of the cooperative sign up for certain hours they can watch children in these rooms, and sign up in advance for the time your kids would use the service. USENIX has tentatively indicated an interest in helping out by providing the rooms, cribs, a TV and VCR. We would need to provide organization, people, toys, food, etc. If we can get enough people and some degree of advance planning, we can probably make this work. Parents would probably provide their kids food directly in a sack lunch, although if appropriate we might consider larger scale meals. Persons staffing the room for more hours would be entitled to leave their children for more hours than persons volunteering for less time. Persons who do not volunteer their time might be allowed to use the service, on a space available basis, but would be expected to pay a (hopefully reasonable) hourly rate. There will be expenses (paper plates, diapers, snacks, drinks) which would be paid by the parents in some equitable way. We will want some advance idea of your schedules and needs. The conference program will be available in early April. By early May we'll need a tentative committement from people. 2 weeks in advance we'll need a firm committment, and possibly a cash deposit. Changes later on will be possible, but will depend on special arrangements and may cause you to pay a higher rate. Note that this is NOT a licensed babysitting service, but a group of parents cooperating informally. Everyone would have to sign a paper promising not to sue anybody. If you want a licensed babysitter available on a day or so notice, the $7/hour people are available. If you are interested in possibly participating in this, please send an email note back. If you need to discuss it with a spouse first, print this out and take it home, I'll repost it in a few days to remind you. (The repost won't go to news.announce.important, just to the other groups.) Mark Horton ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You don't have to make a committement at this time, but please give us a rough idea: Would you like to be on the organizing committee? (This would be an email mailing list to plan the details in advance.) How many kids do you have? How old are they? Which days do you plan to attend the conference? Which days (and what times, if you have any idea) do you think you would need babysitting? Tell us numbers of hours if you have an idea. Which days (and what times, if you have any idea) would you be available to babysit? Tell us numbers of hours if you have an idea. How early in the morning, and how late at night, might you need the service? (In other words, taking into account the time you get up and the kids bedtimes, what is the earliest and latest the service might be useful to you?) Do your children have any special needs that the group should address? Do you have any special things you could provide, such as toys, video games, laptop computers, VCR tapes, or other things to keep kids amused? (A UNIX box and some terminals to play UNIX games such as rogue would probably make some older kids pretty happy, if a vendor would like to offer some equipment.) Do you have any interest in going to Disneyland (etc) as a group?