Let's start again #2

[lovingboth]

Hello lovely people. Here are some questions which I think are reasonable regarding BiCon 2001. I'd like to hear people's answers to them.

#1 Do you think that paying £2,200 to rent the accommodation for Monday night was the correct decision?

#2 (If you are a 2001 team member...) What alternatives were considered?

#3 Do you think that concealing this from everyone at the time was the correct decision?

#4 I have suggested that those of us - I'm one of them - who paid to stay elsewhere on the Monday night deserve at least an apology. Do you agree?

#5 Do you think that paying the full cost of the flight and other expenses for someone from Australia was a reasonable decision?

#6 (If you are a 2001 team member...) What financial planning was done that persuaded the team that it was affordable?

#7 What should 2002 and subsequent years do to avoid a similar situation in future?

Comments

[aegidian]

These were their decisions to make. And they are not accountable to you. And there is very little good to be had from grinding this axe any further.

Inevitably you have to put your trust in whether your registration money will pay for a good BiCon in the team that are organising it. You've said before you had a good BiCon in Coventry, knowing how they spent their money seems to be the only thing invalidating this for you.

I've paid for 2002, I don't care how *you* use my money as long as I get a good enough BiCon. If that leaves *no* money for BiCon 2003, then it'll be my job as part of 2003's team to do as best I can in that situation, not to waste my time berating 2002's organisers.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That's certainly an interesting and striking position. I encourage you to express it in uk-bi as well, since like giolla I think of that as the "real" debate.

[aegidian]

Sorry, not a mailing list I'm subscribed to, but feel free to post the URL for here.

[lovingboth]

Who are they accountable to? Just the bank?

Once we start talking, the 2001 team and I are much more polite in private email than we are to each other in public.

It's a mix of things. Part of it's going 'argh' at the various better ways the money could have been spent, for example, rather than giving it to a venue that messed them around in various ways or to some airline.

Part of it's that I would have been so much happier if the loss had been announced as soon as it was known. What was one of the lessons of IBC2? - oh yes, if you screw up, tell people as soon as possible. (I'm still amused by the graphic you or Alison did for my report in Bifrost by the way.)

The idea of spending all or even half of the remaining money is tempting. You could go wild on the entertainments, for example, or you could book an expensive London venue and subsidize the cost... Bit tough for next year though, unless you end up making a profit too.

[aegidian]

Who are they accountable to? In the end, in real life, no-one. They supplied the service requested of them by the attenders and could have walked away with any money at the end of it. Unless the money passed to them was a loan with someone to be repaid at the end of the con, they had no other obligations.

Everyone is working on trust these days. You trusted 2001 to make the right decisions to make a good BiCon. They did what they thought was best at the time. You've no time machine to correct the decisions you think they could have made better. And I've no pillory we want to stick them in, even though you seem intent on constructing one.

And of course you're free to be as obnoxious as you like about decisions made by other people (and if I haven't made clear how obnoxious I'm finding your continual public carping on this, let me tell you, you've lost a great deal of respect I previously had for you).

I'm convinced of only one point you labour, I'd much rather have heard the 2001 team talk about their experience of running BiCon, warts and all, than to hear it from you.

[lovingboth]

You and me both Giles.