Cruise Dinners - Need Your Help!

Jeff Wagg

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Jeff Wagg
Joined
Sep 24, 2003
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Location
Chicago
Howdy,

So there are about 70 of us going on the cruise. While everyone coming will have plenty of opportunity to meet and greet with the speakers, dinner is complicated.

We have five dinners together. Everyone wants to sit with the speakers. We do this often at TAM, and we have the speakers rotate to differnt tables periodically.

But on the ship, things are much more complicated. It's assigned seating, and all the seats are full. That means that my original plan of having the speakers sit at a different table each night won't work. There will be more tables than nights, and sometimes the speakers have someone with them and sometimes they don't.

:(

So, what to do? How do I decide who gets to sit with Randi, Banachek and Wife, Hal Bidlack, and Michael Shermer?

Well, I'm soliciting input. Here are some ideas:

1) Random drawing. You sit where the dice tell you to. (with your partners of course) this is the default.

2) Have the forum people sit together without any of the speakers, theory being, we're so entertaining we don't need no stinking speakers. This would mean all the other tables have one speaker. [I think]

3) We just do what we can, but one night, we eat at the buffet where everyone can sit where they want to. (Probaby Cozumel night). This also has the advantage of being a night were folks can wear whatever they like.. shorts and t-shirt are fine.

4) Someone cleverer than I comes up with a better solution.

Keep in mind that this is only for dinner. Breakfast and lunch are catch as catch can. Even if you don't have a speaker at your table, you will have many other opportunities to interact.

Any brilliant ideas out there?
 
Auction off seating w/ the speakers to raise $ for the JREF.

MHB
 
ooh_child said:
Auction off seating w/ the speakers to raise $ for the JREF.
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That sounds like the American way let the people with the money to spend have all the fun.


I am not even going on the cruise but is it not the custom to think of women and children first while at sea, or is good gentlemanly behaviour only compulsory if the ship is about to sink?

My suggestion would be to make one forum table and let those from the forum who do want to sit with a speaker gamble for the seats. That way you can test people’s loyalty.
If there are people who feel that they do not need to sit with a speaker it would be best if they do not take a seat from someone that feel that they have to. So ask people first and draw sticks later if necessary.
 
As this is largely a fund raising excersize (more so than TAM), there will be NO additional fund raising attempts on behalf of the JREF for the entire cruise. It just doesn't seem right.

So auctioning off, which does have a level of fairness to it, will not be an option.

I like the "performing Out of This World" idea. :)
 
KARAOKE CONTEST!!!

Jeff, in all honesty, I'd say just do the best that you can. As long as you make sure that everyone can be seated with a guest at least once, you've done your job. I'm good with whatever.
 
Why not swap seats among ourselves to allow for speakers to rotate. Sure - the seats are assigned by the cruise, but we can swap among ourselves, right? The cruise police aren't going to come over and reseat people.

Example:

Table 1: Randi, Shermer, 4 Jrefers, 4 members of general public
Table 2: 6 Jrefers members, 4 members of general public

Then next night, 2 forum members from table 2 swap with Randi & Shermer.

And so on and so on.

Could be convoluted, but if we know the arrangements beforehand, then we could figure it out so we maximize the amount of 'facetime' everyone gets with our guests. Probably won't be possible to be totally fair to everyone, but might be able to at least get an evening with some of the guests at every table.

The buffet option is OK, particularly later in the cruise - as my experience with cruising is that the quality of meals goes down later in the cruise as the stocks of grub get a little more dated.
 
Jeff Wagg said:
As this is largely a fund raising excersize (more so than TAM), there will be NO additional fund raising attempts on behalf of the JREF for the entire cruise. It just doesn't seem right.

So auctioning off, which does have a level of fairness to it, will not be an option.
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Especially since this would amount to changing the rules after any chance of cancelling our tickets has closed. We paid a pretty good chunk of change for this cruise, and were promised a certain amount of access to the speakers as part of that deal. To remove that access at this late date, whether an extra, hidden, fee is involved or not, is more than just "not right," it may amount to fraud.

And there is no "fairness" to the idea at all. I know you have rejected the idea and are trying to find an equitable solution to an unexpected problem, but I get pissed when people blithely assume that "ability to pay" and "equitable" are interchangeable. Some people have more money than others, but I see no justification for using this fact of life to effectively impose involuntary class distinctions among the JREF membership.

There. I feel better, now.
 
Antiquehunter said:
Could be convoluted, but if we know the arrangements beforehand, then we could figure it out so we maximize the amount of 'facetime' everyone gets with our guests. Probably won't be possible to be totally fair to everyone, but might be able to at least get an evening with some of the guests at every table.
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Personally, I prefer the "Wisdom of Solomon" solution.
 
What I want to know is what will happen in an emergency - are people guaranteed that they will be in a lifeboat with one of the speakers?
 
What I want to know is what will happen in an emergency - are people guaranteed that they will be in a lifeboat with one of the speakers?
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Maybe that is the time for an auction.
 
Antiquehunter said:
Why not swap seats among ourselves to allow for speakers to rotate. Sure - the seats are assigned by the cruise, but we can swap among ourselves, right? The cruise police aren't going to come over and reseat people.

Example:

Table 1: Randi, Shermer, 4 Jrefers, 4 members of general public
Table 2: 6 Jrefers members, 4 members of general public

Then next night, 2 forum members from table 2 swap with Randi & Shermer.

And so on and so on.

Could be convoluted, but if we know the arrangements beforehand, then we could figure it out so we maximize the amount of 'facetime' everyone gets with our guests. Probably won't be possible to be totally fair to everyone, but might be able to at least get an evening with some of the guests at every table.

The buffet option is OK, particularly later in the cruise - as my experience with cruising is that the quality of meals goes down later in the cruise as the stocks of grub get a little more dated.
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Something like that MIGHT work, but it's complicated. There's only 5 nights and probably 9 tables. Sometimes the guest is one person, sometimes it's two. How do I ask you guys to move so Randi can sit there?

Also, the waiters are the same each night, and they tailor their service to you. Moving people around really screws them up.

However, that said... this might be a workable solution.
 
OK Jeff, here's a solution - order 8 of these and eight of these and one person at each table that Randi isn't sat at wears them. That way the waiters shouldn't get confused and if the wine and booze is plentiful should fool a few people.
 
Let's see, five meals, four guests and nine tables. That works out to 20/9 guests per table per meal. If the guests move to four different tables each meal, that means eight people will be in the 'wrong' seats for every meal after the first. Most tables will only get to dine with two of the guests.

I suggest that whatever you do has a random component, so no one can complain about any favoritism.


Darat, should people buy Hamilton wigs too?
 
I'll give up my'opportunity to sit with the speakers. The reason why I wanted to go on the cruise was not about them, they are a bonus. I'm going to meet fellow skeptics. Dinner time is only a few hours out of each day and there should be plenty of other opportunities throughout each day to meet and interact with the speakers, unless they hide in their cabins when not eating dinner or speaking.

Either way the cruise will be one of the highlights of my life just to have the chance to hear them speak and to meet everyone.

See you at the Bon Voyage party!



Boo
 
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