- Logistics Committee Meeting Notes
July 14, 2009
6 – 7:45 Café Con Leche
Notes by Dianne
Members present: Dianne, Lauren, Sharon, Shirley, Topeka & Lizzy (who stayed for first point)
1.COMMITTEE STRUCTURE—Shirley was willing to be chair for the next time period with Lauren as co-chair (Shirley will not make the August 4th meeting;.)
2. HOUSING Have 500 beds set aside at WSU. Chris Basso will finalize details/contract later. We have a letter of intent on file.
Want to make adjustments in the proposed contract for 200 rooms at the Marriott and 50 at Courtyard Marriott across the street.
Topeka spoke to the Holiday Inn (193 rooms) for $89 a night, Omni (40 rooms with king-sized beds) for $99 a night and Atheneum (25 rooms) for $129. Shirley spoke to ShoreCrest Motor Inn (40 rooms) at $82 (or perhaps a bit less) a night. In these cases, it looks like we will not have to sign contracts, but that rooms would only be held until May 31st at quoted rate.
Earlier Dianne met with Sales Manager at the Doubletree/Fort Shelby. He talked about setting aside 150 suites ($129 a night).
Shirley will send Topeka the hotel information sheet she’s made up and Dianne will send out the sheet listing rooms used in downtown Atlanta hotels for 2007USSF. It shows 4 peak nights with 640 rooms on Wednesday, 715 on Thursday, 725 on Friday, then dropping to 624 on Saturday. (Monday was 150; Sunday was 103.)
3. TENT AREA for Youth Camp and perhaps Poor People’s Camp Shirley has been in touch with Parks Department but has not heard back yet. Will keep working on this. We would like to find a place very near to Hart Plaza and Cobo.
4. TENTS/COTS Sharon has been investigating tents and cots. Vets say they can make several hundred cots available to us.
5. TRANSPORTATION—Our biggest problem: getting people from the airport to downtown and back! Of the 12,000 who came to Atlanta, 3900 were picked up by hotel vans. People Mover—Topeka got a $1.25 unlimited use for one day; Maureen asked her to go back and see if that could be lowered to $1.
DOT—Topeka called to find out a price per day. We thought that people would need a maximum of no more than three round trips a day.
SEMTA—We discussed Topeka and Sharon seeing if it might be possible to put on express buses for several days during the USSF, perhaps a schedule of 3-4 times per day. We were thinking we’d need the express buses for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (coming into town) and going back to the airport on Friday and Saturday. Problem: How many buses could be put on? They would only be full one way!
GREYHOUND—Topeka was told that Greyhound runs from the airport to downtown. Want to investigate this. What is possible? How much does a round trip cost? Also interested in finding out whether Greyhound could offer a group rate to the USSF if areas chartered buses.
METROPOLITAN SERVICES/METRO CARS—Topeka will do more investigating to see what services are offered from the airport to downtown, and prices.
AIRLINES—Shirley contacted Northwest, Delta and Continental but learned that they are really not giving good group rates. Group rates are only 10% off of a standard fare and best bet is to book in advance for low fares.
VANS—We know that many churches have vans so this is something that the religious outreach will help investigate. This is especially important for people with disabilities getting from hotel to conference site(s). [Dianne met with Bill Wylie-Kellerman to discuss how Religious Outreach might help with Logistics. We identified a) learning from how they have handled transportation when having big conventions (esp. Baptists, who just held a convention of 30,000), b) several downtown churches might have space for meeting rooms and/or mass housing, c) their parishioners might be interested in helping with solidarity housing, d) they might be interested in helping with the bike program—collecting bikes, having youth learn to repair and thereby earn a bike.]
TRAIN—Did not discuss this yet.
CHILDREN’S PROGRAM—Lauren and Dianne will discuss.
NEXT LOGISTICS MEETING: AUGUST 4TH 6PM AT CAFÉ CON LECHE