What Were They Thinking?

[howeird]

I have to say I can't understand BASFA's fascination with pizza joints. For a long time the group met at one in the SE bay, which is why I never went till they moved to a place which served actual food. An other feature of pizza places is noise. They are not built for private meetings. People go to pizza places with their teams, for kid's parties, and in general to be loud. I'll be skipping any further pizza meetings.

Comments

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Both Round Tables we've visited go on my "unsuitable for meetings" list.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Me too!

I found out what was worse than just the normal noisy kids and loud TV. It ... was ... the ... -whistles-!

[howeird]

The whistle is a tool! And so is the guy blowing the whistle. ;-)

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

BASFA goes to pizza places because pizza places have become 'traditional' for not-small, informal outings of an unstructured kind. (Into which category BASFA falls nicely.)

Other venues (in general) don't reliably provide the sort of facilities and food opportunities to cater to a group of 'between ten and thirty people, straggling in over a 90 minute period, some of whom (and some not) will be ordering food of differing kinds in various amounts, and all paying separately'. Pizza joints seem to expect this kind of business, and (in some cases) design their restaurant layout and service plan to accomodate it. When BASFA has found other venues that accomodate our peculiar needs (such as the Hick'ry Pit) we're happy to patronize them.

I also think it's a classic case of 'Why are you only looking for new meeting places in pizza joints?' 'Because the light's better.' ^_^ Certainly our site selection committee has worked hard to provide us with a diverse selection of venues to try, but I know that, when I go 'location scouting', I expect to find suitable venues at pizza places more often than most other categories of restaurants, so I tend to remember those venues more when the time comes to suggest alternatives.

[howeird]

I don't think I'd call BASFA meetings unstructured. If we were one of those many fun groups which just wanted to get together to socialize, pizza places would be excellent. But I'd rule them out as conducive to any kind of meeting where business is conducted.

It's a tough job, finding a venue which meets all of our needs. But there are lots of similar groups (Lions, Rotary, Optimists, Toastmasters) which have the same requirements, and I'd dropped a hint at the start of our search that contacting those kinds of groups for clues might be useful.

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

What you say is true. The one group (Toastmasters) that I knew about that met in our area met at ... The Hick'ry Pit. I suppose we will just continue to go from one time and place to the next, hoping each meeting will be the meeting that brings us ... 'Home'. ^_^