Setting up this FUDCon has been an exercise in hair-pulling. With only about $15K to work with, it’s also been an exercise in corner-cutting. I have the option of blowing away the “refreshments” part of the FUDCon budget — the money that would pay for drinks and snacks during the hackfest days — to bring a couple more contributors to the event. This wouldn’t affect FUDPub, which is still on for Saturday night, Jan. 10th, and which is where we’ll cover dinner and possibly a beverage for each pre-registrant.
My personal feeling is that people are probably not showing up for the snacks. It’s helpful, though, to have them at the site because then people can easily stay and work even the need for water, caffeine, or a nosh strikes. If someone is hacking at the Tang Center, how easy is it to find sodas and snacks when s/he gets the urge? Because if the answer to that is “relatively easy,” I’d really like to fund a couple more people to come for the event.
There are drink and snack machines on the 3rd floor of E51 with a variety of stuff. A block away are some sandwich type shops like Au Bon Pain. So probably counts as “relatively easy”.
Please ditch the snacks. 🙂 I’d rather be untempted!
Yeah, I think that having more people at the event beats having snacks in the same room…..I’m fat and lazy, but a block, come on! It makes a lot of sense for folks to pay for what they use anyway, IMHO.
I would give my abscessed upper left molar to have a way to create a FUDCon travel grant process which could take in community donations and help support volunteer community members who burn vacation time to participate at FUDCon.
-jef