Bear blog

(Cross-posted to the Yahoo Group) 

 

I've just been down to the Brite Centre to talk to the woman who runs the room bookings there. She showed me round their hall and it was nice. Light, bright, airy. Tall ceilings, open space. Infinitely better than Mirage, at any rate. And I reckon it's big enough to get us all in there with suitable elbow room on a decently-busy night. (By decently-busy I'm talking ten of us).

 

But, of course, it comes at a price.

 

• The building shuts at 8 o'clock at the latest, so our session would have to start earlier than we're used to.
• The lighting was provided by spot lights in the ceiling and as I looked round at 9 in the morning whilst the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, I couldn't say whether or not they'd be annoying to juggle under.
• There's a booking fee.

Now, the usual rate is £8.75/hour, plus a 50% extra charge for being there after 6 o'clock. So lets call it £15 for an hour's session. But they do cheap rates for Braunstone groups. If I could wangle it that me or Pete paying for the session constituted us being a Braunstone group (and I reckon this is quite possible. The woman I talked to did seem open to a bit of negotiation) we get the cheaper rate of £5.75/hour plus the 50% extra after 6pm charge. So that'd be about £9 for an hour's session.

 

Which I personally don't think is too bad, especially on a good week. We'd be looking at paying a quid each or there abouts. Of course, the real question is are people prepared to pay significantly more than this if only a few people turn up?

 

Questions to consider then:

• Do people want a better space than Mirage?
• Do people mind paying for sessions at the above rates?
• How long do people want the sessions to be?
• Are people able to do an earlier session (if people want a two hour session we'd be looking at starting at 6pm)
• What day/s are good for people?
• Are we talking all year round with this, or just vacation times? The room would be good in summer at any rate because of all the natural light that gets in there. No need for dodgy ceiling spot lights.

If I get enough interest, then I'll go back to the woman and see about getting the reduced rate and find out what days we can get the hall (I did ask her this today, but she didn't have the necessary piece of paper in front of her at the time). 

 

I also got the name of the duty manager up at Braunstone Leisure Centre who I'm informed is the woman to talk to about booking rooms there. Will chase that up next week when she gets back off holiday.