Just been confirmed that I Crane can come up on the 20th March 2007. Thats a Tuesday. We need a find a venue. Better to do Leeds this time, because we have already done Bradford.

So please look out for a venue - I shall put the word out to.

how about the same venue we held up for annie and david? that pub

That would be ideal ...dont know the state of play with that one.

Though, this its no fault of anyones - but its short notice.  

--Last edited by Riaz A on 2007-03-06 12:17:49 --

Brudenell, I'll call them tonight, looks like they've the night free according to http://www.myspace.com/brudenell - that's probably the best idea actually, we can poster and flyer Hyde Park pretty quickly and easily, unless anyone knows of any better venues in the centre of town?

What would be the plan for the event? Dispensing with a film showing, or not? Get Egokillers involved? Putting it on at the Brudenell shouldn't be any bother really, but publicising it may be.

I have no problem at all with Brudanell social club and it's cheap. Some people have raised concerns about its location, capacity and status. This however ignores the fact that it is central to the LS6 community and student area and it's not really that hard to find. The problem with anywhere in the centre of Leeds, besides cost, would be parking for the punters and to be honest I would rather drive around Hyde Park looking for somewhere than try and negociate the Leeds one way system, especialy if I didn't know it.  

I have contacts in Leeds uni which could be a good option as it's not in the centre of Leeds but most people I speak to shy away from approaching anyone official about 9/11 truth arrangements.

Publicising will be a rush, though we know where there are places we can drum up support around hyde park like me and Ed did last time - Hyde Park Social etc...

Ed please tell me the outcome on messanger later if possible.  

The Brudenell is a great venue. Main problem is that it's not multicultural.
Maybe not for Ian, but for other presentations, the Hamara Centre in Beeston is a nice and sympathetic venue,thematically significant.

Indeed it is dh, have you had dealings with them previously? I'm always up for venturing to pastures new, but at such a short notice, all new venues could be very problematic in terms of publicity, or am I just a panicing old mare?

Maybe there in the future dh (another Shayler talk would do well there, perhaps), but we know the Brudenell, and all the take aways, taxi firms, sympathetic shops, etc around it too. So it gets my vote.

Useless - what about the sound arrangements? Is your's back in town? The Brudenell has a perfectly adequate system in place for about £50, including the services of a sound guy (and hopefully s/he will be a sound guy) for the entire evening. Just a thought, what do you reckon? Please inform me of all this before I try to contact, and book it, if concensus demands it of course.

I've contacted a friend who works at Leeds Met Uni and ask her how we would go about booking a lecture theatre. She has been to some Skipton events expressed an interest in helping where she can.

I'd just like to mention this now since we are looking for a venue with some urgency. I want to discuss the success of the William Rodriguez tour and lessons we can learn from it at the next meeting. However, one thing that stood out was different types of venues that were used throughout the tour.

More than half the venues I went to were lecture theatres at colleges, universities, librarys etc. They had the advantage of adding to the credibility of the event by giving a professional image to the campaign. With the exception of Bradford (which had the highest turnout anyway) the purpose built venues proved to be the most successful and also allowed for easier set up of the Audio/Visual presentation.

I managed for example to do all of the audio/video stuff by myself with the exception of Bradford where I wasn't able to do that. This was mostly due to the other venues already being equiped for presentations of this kind.

I think, if we are able to find one, we should choose a lecture theatre to stage most of our future events - unless of course we have a venue on par with carlise business centre for example.

If we are going to have a low cost or donation funded event I think we should consider spending a little more on a venue of this kind in order to improve the event for the audience. Thus further encouraging donations/sales to help cover the costs.

Any comments?

Yes - you are quite right in what you say Antz. We shall discuss Pros and Cons and what we have learnt from Williams tour.

But I can say is that we could have doubled the figures at Carlisle Business Centre with william. I know this , because people had complained that the event was mid week and many other reasons. But thats no fault of ours , plus we were only insured for 250 I think at that event!

The main thing is that we had plenty of time aswell to advertise and hit lots of media aswell.

Ooh... and we can always use Carlisle Business Centre for a venue when it comes to Bradford events. I am sure that Zaf / Ajiab can come to a deal (cash discount) with the management there.


Ohhh and money - we must discuss treasury at the meeting if we are to manage big events!

So, do we have the venue at the Uni then Ants? Let's get it booked with some urgency, yes - which? Because, as I've found with Bradford, it really isn't easy to get something booked at a Uni, or maybe it's just me. I think for this one, Brudenell still gets my vote for all the reasons I've listed above.

Yeah, I thinks it a good idea to keep on using the Carlise Business Centre although we should look out for other good venues too. CBC may not alway be available when we need it. Also may be necessary to use another venue in Bradford occasionally - as you say Riaz the CBC was too small for the Rodriguez talk. When we get David Shayler up again it might actually be prudent to have two Bradford events judging by the response. Clearly one of these should be at the CBC but maybe we can get him in somewhere else in Bradford too.

As for Ian Crane I haven't booked a Leeds venue for him by the way. As I said above I've just been making enquiries about venues. Thats all.  

--Last edited by ants on 2007-03-07 10:09:34 --

Let me know when we've got to arrange for Shayler again, the 2 date thing does sound a good idea, if somewhat expensive. But I shall pester Brad Uni to (almost) breaking point to try to get a lecture theatre, if we want one.

You're more than correct in saying we ought to do these events in a venue already equiped to stage such things, and lecture halls are ideal.

I'll ring the Brudenell then? Yes?

Well? What happened re Brudenell or any other venue in Leeds?
Is there some problem? Isn't time getting rather short?
Or has it all been sorted?

The last communication I had Re: Tuesday April 3rd (Shyler) at Bradford. Is this right?

Zaff/Ajaib is sniffing around for BFD venue, but no luck - wedding season for us Asian folks. Venues Booked.Romance is in the air.  Still looking....!!!  

--Last edited by Riaz A on 2007-03-08 16:11:12 --

Sorry guys, Just been on the phone with Antz - he has some pc problems. But - dont worry about Shyler. Its unconfirmed!!

Until  Shyler agrees with a date - we cant do any bookings.

Re effect of venue on credibility.  I think a lot of this is perception, what outweighs the type of venue 10 fold is BASIC technical proficiency.

For example at CBC for William running around to get the sound sorted out at the last minute makes us look very unprofessional. This was nobodys fault, simply down to poor communication/chinese whispers. I was told that the sound was 'sorted' only to find out that this was not the case.

I would have been able to rectify this had there been the correct connectors in the bag, but some of them appeared to be missing on the night. So we had no option but to rush back to Ed's to get Seans stereo making us look shambolic before a word had been spoken. This kind of balls up makes me want to withdraw myself completely from the technical side and let it be someone elses problem.

This was then accentuated by the complete faliure of the laptop during the film. This IMHO is unforgivable, to fail in such a simple task as to provide a reliable output device for the DVD. If we can't muster a reliable laptop between us we should use a DVD player.  

I'm not balming anyone for this but I feel it's pretty rude to get 200+ people down and to be as lax as this. It's not even a money issue to have a £30 DVD plaver which works. Sorry if I sound harsh but these things which are so simple to avoid that I feel very strongly indeed about them.

These are two issues which greatly damage credibility whereas I feel choice of venue reflects our modest resources and not credibility.

Re ease of setting up:

Are we still usinng that wooden screen?  If so we should ditch it for a compact one. Apart from that there should be NO issues
providing you have all the proper kit that works. See the reasons for the shambolic pantomime at CBC William event above.

Re affect of venue on donations: I think the opposite is possibly true. The more swanky your venue is the less inclined people would be to donate as they might assume that we dont need the money.  And if we are concerned about donations and balancing the books a cheaper venue makes much more sense.

You have made some valid points Uselesseater! I really dont like the idea of last minute preparations.

Infact, I see no point Shyler coming end of this month or beginning of next month. I really wanted to hit the media outlets as we did with William and spend some time advertising, instead of rushing around fly posting etc.

If we are to hit Bradford with Shyler, then I think it would be a good idea if he gave us at least a Month to prepare.

And as for other points Uselesseater, they need to be discussed at our meeting.

I think D Shayler should be put off until the end of April
What about Ian C? It's cheap and easy enough to plug him into the Brudenell even at this late date, and probably a good and appropriate response. Will somebody please answer this!!!!