Weekend getaway!

The Reef
1

Hi there @reeflings !

Team Community Life would like to formally invite you to extend your holidays with a nice weekend away with your fellow Reeflings! :camping: :smiley:
Reasons why this is a great idea:

  • Reason 1 – Because we don’t get enough time these days to interact and connect in a meaningful way, as we are neck deep in complex practical matters
  • Reason 2 – It’s an opportunity to slow down and spend time together in a relaxed and simple way. Which will be a nice preview into when we actually live together as a community :blush:
  • Reason 3 – It’s a good excuse to get out of Brussels for some fresh air and countryside. Also it will be fun :kite: :footprints: :partying_face:, we will cook, go for walks, have chats and jokes, do games, [add your favourite group activity here]…
  • Reason 4 – It’s a chance for all of us to reconnect to our values and why we’re doing this. This is a need that seems to exist for Associate Members who have arrived at a particularly intense point in the project, but it will be nice for all of us!
  • I’m sure you can think of more, feel free to list them below!

The idea would be to rent a place outside of Brussels for the weekend of the 14-15 September (Friday to Sunday). We already have a plenary planned for the Sunday morning, but that would still give us a lot of time for other activities, and just for hanging out together.

In order to move forward with this, we need to know how many people would be interested in joining for all or some of it, hence the customary poll. If you are coming with kids, can you say so in the chat, and tell us how many and if you would need 1 or more extra rooms?
If it turns out that there are not enough people who can do something outside of Brussels that weekend, we could also arrange something in the city. But it would be very different, and for the aformentionned reasons, we will try and prioritise a weekend. So unless it’s a big bunch of people who can’t make it, we will still go ahead with it.

We would also like to know if there would be cars available, for obvious logistic reasons. If we don’t have enough to bring everybody down, we could either rent some, or have people get close via public transport and organise a pick up maybe.
We will do our best to keep the costs down though, including with the gîte.
The great logistic master @Dave_behave will coordinate that part of the organisation, so if you have idea about how to facilitate that process (places you know of for example), please share below and tag him!

As you might notice, it’s an ambitious plan, and we don’t have certainty at this point that it will all fall perfectly in line, so let’s see how we go… But we’re excited! :star_struck: :smiley_cat:

  • I will join from Friday to Sunday, Yay!
  • I would join for Friday evening only
  • I would join for Saturday evening only
  • I could come for the day
  • I would be fine to sleep in a tent
  • I can have access to a private car
  • I could only make something in Brussels that weekend
  • I can’t make it
0 voters
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2

I would finish around 6.30pm on friday night, so I could only join in later, if there’s an option to do that…

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Great idea! Thanks for the initiative :smile:

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What about the budget per person?

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@reeflings : so for the budget we are aiming for 40-50euros a night per person.
And we might end up renting cars to get there, but then it shouldn’t be much more than 25euros pp for the whole weekend (which is probably not that much more than a train ticket…).
Let us know if that doesn’t work for one or another reason…

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Hi there,

We would be happy to join and we would come with Charlie. Leaving on Friday would be quite tricky though. This option doesn’t exist in the poll (so we didn’t answer) but would it be possible to join on Saturday morning and stay until Sunday or does it make the organisation too complicated to stay only for one night ?
We don’t have access to a car by the way (but we have a cambio subscription).

Thanks !

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7

Hi beautiful @reeflings !

What’s that you’re all saying? That you’d quite like to know what’s going on with the amazing weekend away that Team Community Life is organising in September? Message received!

We have been looking for a big house in the countryside, with regard to the following criteria:

  • Can sleep 13 adults and 2 kids comfortably
  • Has enough space for us to have a plenary meeting on the Sunday morning
  • Is in the countryside and close to nature/walks/etc.
  • Is accessible from Brussels

As it turns out, this is particularly difficult to find at a reasonable price. Some of you may remember that we ended up not having a weekend away together last year because of how difficult it was. However, we’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities, one of which is definitely an option, and the other two we are waiting to hear back from.

All of them are about 35-45 euros per night, per adult, although that may be adjusted up and down if some people end up staying in tents, to provide others with a room of their own.

None of them, however, are particularly close to public transport. Therefore, we have been looking into the option of hiring 2-3 cars for the weekend, which would cost about 35 euros each for those that need to be included. Although this is an extra expense, it should be considered that taking a train to most parts of the Belgian countryside would cost about 20 euros each. Once Sarah and I have found the location, Mieke will leap into action to look at the possibilities regarding car hire (e.g. Cambio vs Getaround vs traditional rental agencies). She will also be finding out who has an abonnement already to some of these, and/or a driving licence.

There is also the not insignificant mission of organising meals for 15 people! A task force is being assembled, and a plan is being formulated to do this in a way that works for everyone, involving a roster system and communal shopping. More on that later…

It’s unavoidable that some people will be paying quite a lot for things early, but at the end of the weekend we can use one of these amazing apps that shows who owes what to who.

For the record, confirmed for the whole weekend are:
@ChrisM / @Sarah / @mieke / @Lee / @Dave_behave / @anon36120994 / @Sophie_B / @Odile / @ugne, @manuelpueyo & Ada
Coming for Saturday night:
@Perrine, @Christian & Charlie
Coming for the day:
@joannes
Possibly coming for the day or Saturday night:
@RichardB, @MariaAM & Edgar
Possible coming for some or all of it:
@els

If you have any questions, suggestions or concerns, now is the time to make them. Because in the next few days, we will most likely be paying a rather considerable sum of money to book a place and move forward with the plan…

:slight_smile:

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Sounds great!

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Manoj would also like to join if the number can still be adapted :slight_smile: (we could sleep in a tent if need be)

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Noted, and definitely doable! Although if Manoj is coming, I’m going to have to russle up some gear so that he and I can teach the rest of the Reeflings how to play cricket :wink:

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I am actually not sure I will want to sleep over, so please don’t count a bed for me.

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In the thread on the meeting frequence @ChrisM commented that we actually have a FM working meeting scheduled on the 15th and a plenary on the 19th, with a proposal to swap (i.e. make the meeting on the 15th a plenary meeting).

That of course works, but the important thing here is that we really need that meeting for a couple of very important decisions (e.g. Board selection etc). So if we’ll need to check out at the venue at some point in the morning (usually it’s around 11 am), then this is a practical problem that would need a solution. The easiest one seems to have the meeting in the late afternoon in Brussels, which also makes it easier for those sleeping in Brussels (Richard, Maria, Alberto and myself as a minimum) to attend the meeting.

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Do you have an idea about how you will get there and back, if you don’t stay over? There are a couple of potential day-trippers (Joannes and Richard/Maria) you could connect with regarding that…

I’m not totally clear on what you’re saying. Are you saying that the Full Members meeting can’t wait 4 days, or that it would be ok to swap, but that both meetings have important decisions that require maximum attendance?

Our short list was based on those places that allowed us to stay until Sunday afternoon. But if we all left the place at 3ish, we could have either meeting (Full Members or plenary) at 6pm in Brussels. Does that work?

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I’ll be driving in Saturday early afternoon and return that evening to be in back Brussels by 22:00. My car has six extra seats both ways.

On Sunday, I’ll be serving cocktails at my daughters belated 30th birthday brunch.

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Hi @reeflings !

Sad news on the weekend getaway plan. All of the gites etc. that made our short list have now gotten back to us, and they are all unavailable. Some of them were apparently already booked, despite the fact that the various sites we were checking indicated that they were available, and others booked out just as we were about to reserve them.

We are about to head into the wilds of Auvergne to do some camping, without a lot of access to devices or internet, so we aren’t going to pursue this ourselves any more. There are two options. If someone feels inspired to continue searching for a suitable place, feel free and good luck. Alternatively, we organise something nice for that Saturday in Brussels. In the event of the latter, which seems most likely, we can revert back to the original plan of having a Full Members meeting on the Sunday and a plenary the following Thursday evening.

As disappointing as this is, there is a learning for the future. Some of you will remember that we encountered a similar problem last year, when the inspiration for a weekend getaway and the date available weren’t far apart, leading to us also not finding a suitable venue in time. The lesson here is to plan this sort of weekend much further in advance (at the beginning of the year). Despite the fact that we clearly didn’t learn it after last year, next year will be different (insert emoji with serious and commited face)!

:slight_smile:

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Another alternative is to see when the gites are available and to postpone the weekend to a later date

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Absolutely right ! I’m still indulging myself regarding the disappointment, but theres’ no reason we can’t have an autumn or winter retreat. Although the choice of location changes, as we were going for places where we weren’t necessarily inside that much.

To be continued… :slight_smile:

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Hi @ChrisM & the organisational team,

Thank you so so much for trying to make this happen. We are many and September is round the corner so of course it is difficult to find something. Back to normal life tomorrow and happy to support you looking for something sometime later. Happy to have a Saturday (just a day) together to connect .

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Likewise, very sad, and thanks for going through all the trouble

but would be great to spend a full Saturday together, maybe going on a hike somewhere in foresty Brussels, getting a drink and a snack, etc.

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Sounds like a reasonable alternative.