Highland Center update???

[bobandgeri]

#47050 |

Stephen

last Fall you posted:

I’m in discussion right now with Eric Jackel over at AMC about potentially using the Highland Center for our gathering next year.

Has that gone anywhere?

We were in Twin Mountain this weekend, dinner one night at the Mooseland Grill and were reminded how small it is. In looking around the area we had a few thoughts.

Chip in for a tent and hold the event outside – either everyone bringing their own food and beverages, or convince a campground in the area to cater it with our group paying for the tent, they make money of burgers and beverages.

If we want it inside – same idea but approach a few of the churches in the area.

Approach the Cog railroad and see if they would be interested in hosting it.

[Stephen]

#50654

HC is more than willing to host us. The drawback is that people want to be able to order from a menu. Whereas if we go HC or catered, that option will be taken away.

Here’s the last correspondence I had with HC:

Hi Stephen –

Hope you had a good weekend… I finally caught up with our chef today
and talked to him about the FOT48 event next year.

Basically, since some people may end up lodging here, what I did was I
took the dinner portion of our lodging rate and used that as a starting
amount for the FOT48 event. This ends up being $18/person, and would
include:

1. Coffee service throughout the event (a nice thing for people to have,
especially if it’s a colder day)
2. Chicken & vegetable stir fry entree
3. Vegan entree – vegetable quesadillas with black bean salsa
4. Red beans and rice side

As we mentioned, we’d set up a cash bar and let folks pay as they go.

If the $18 amount is higher than you had in mind, let me know. We have
other options for the menu (pizza, etc) that would bring the cost down.
I just started at this point since it’s our “normal” dinner cost, and
therefore we can substitute the FOT48 event for dinner for the folks
who’d be lodging here. (So if they stay here that night, there’s no
extra cost involved for the banquet.)

Let me know what you think… I’m sure we can figure something else out
if this doesn’t work.

Thanks!
Eric

—
Eric Jackel
Sales Manager – AMC Highland Center

Feedback, anyone?

-Stephen

[NH_Mtn_Hiker]

#50655

You want Feedback…Here you go,

I Love Pizza 😀

[bobandgeri]

#50656

More Feedback – Although not offering the multi choice of food that a resturant would have – it would be nice to have a large room to ourselves so everyone could mingle better. Pizza would be fine with us as well. Work with them to keep the price down for the meals – they will make up for it in beer sales.

Just be sure they understand that people will be arriving over a large time frame and want food when they arrive, versus a sit down dinner.

[SilentCal]

#50657

Something to think about this year. Having the post event gathering on Sunday means many folks have to drive home and go to work the next day. This is just a suggestion but how about a pre-event gathering on saturday night? Then you could just say a time and everyone who could be there, would be there and not straggle in at different times. I would think that with enough advance notice, people might make a weekend of it. Just an idea….it may need some help.

[Stephen]

#50658

I’ve already decided that I’m going to take Monday off and stay in the whites an extra night, perhaps with the family.

My preference would be to keep the festivites on the same day, hike then party. Did thie event/drive home come up on the Sunday vs. Saturday discussion? I don’t remember.

-Stephen

[bobandgeri]

#50659

Stephen – I re-read the thread and did not see any mention to the Post Eveent Gathering.

I agree with SilentCal that most people may want to drive home afterwards this year. Maybe a Sat night event at a campground – a large cookout wehre people bring there own food and beverage. Something else to discuss at the planning meeting.

[Stephen]

#50660

To keep things neat, let’s use a different thread to discuss date/time of the event, and focus on this one possibility in this thread.

Here is another update from Eric:

@Eric Jackel wrote:

I spoke with our chef and came up with some other options (I’m with you
on the pizza and beer thing, personally):

-$8/person for the “pizza bar” idea you came up with (we’d just set up a
cash bar for you)

-$12/person for the pizza bar with salad

-$15/person for pizza, salad, dessert, and beverages (soda, coffee,
juice, water would be included)

I mentioned in my reply about the time aspect. The pizza bar idea is:

@Stephen wrote:

The pizza idea _might_ be a good possibility. I’m envisioning a pizza bar with a few different types (plain, veggie, meat, works). Can never go wrong with pizza and beer, right?

-Stephen

[MichaelJ]

#50661

I think that no matter what we decide for 2005 being a Sunday, the pizza bar would be a fantastic idea for 2006.

[EricJackel]

#50662

Hi all –

My name is Eric Jackel, and I work with groups at the AMC Highland Center. Some of you are old friends from the AMC-BB and other sites… I hope everyone’s doing well!

Anyway, Stephen gave me a heads up about this forum so I registered to make myself available for any questions about either a post-hike get-together at the Highland Center and/or lodging options here. The last thing I want to do is provide any unsolicited info (Stephen’s already given you guys the run-down anyway), so I merely wanted to say hello and provide a way to contact me.

Feel free to ask any questions through the board, or email me at ejackel@outdoors.org. Calls are fine too… you can reach me at 603-278-4453, x2003.

I hope at least some of you are out enjoying this crystal-clear day in the mountains! It’s not so bad to be at work on a day like this when the scenery in Crawford Notch is so stunning.

Anyway, thanks, and happy trails all…

-Eric

[Frodo]

#50663

The Highland Center is a nice choice (Hi Eric, long time no hike! We should hook up again on of these weekends! Wish I worked in the Whites you lucky B) 😀

Like everything else we do in the organization process here, we need to set up a poll (Stephen?) and let the participants decide. I tend to agree that Saturday evening would be best for a pre-gathering (not sure if there will be much of a post gathering), but lets run a poll for a few months with all of the options so far… Either Saturday or Sunday at the Highland Center with pizza (the normal cost dinner will likely not go over to well with our crowd), the Mooseland Grill, or
a cook-out at a campground (tbd). Any other ideas?

[Chris]

#50664

Agree about the poll, but I think if you run it “for a few months” people will delay in responding. Post a poll, but offer a deadline, so it has some urgency. Or if we need to, post it in May, and leave it up for two weeks only.

My $.02, I’ve experienced this kind of phenomenon at work a lot!

chris

[TenPeaks]

#50665

@coberg wrote:

Agree about the poll, but I think if you run it “for a few months” people will delay in responding. Post a poll, but offer a deadline, so it has some urgency. Or if we need to, post it in May, and leave it up for two weeks only.

My $.02, I’ve experienced this kind of phenomenon at work a lot!

chris

A poll is a good idea, but I would suggest running it after the peak registration has begun. More people will be visiting this site as the date draws near. You may not get the full results if you run the poll too early.

[SilentCal]

#50666

Well, this is maybe where I can help out. I am thinking of mailing out a questionaire/ survey/ Thank you for last year/ invite to planning weekend to all of the hike coordinators last year.

In the Survey we could ask the following:

1. Would you be more likely to attend a post or pre gathering?

2. Did you find the sign-up process ideal and what would you recommend we do to change it if nessacary?

3. How much Publicity would you like to see this particular event get?

4. A rough estimate to your group size this year?

5. Would you mind if hikers could sign up and join your party?

6. Any other thoughts or idea to make the event better?

7. Red Sox or Yankees 😆

Many folks only check up on the site around sign up time. Say I get the surveys out by April 1st and ask to have them mailed back by May 15th. I could have all the info compiled together to pour over at the planning meeting. I’d even put in a Self-addressed stamped envelope to make it even easier to send back to me. This way we make an effort to reach everyone and give everyone a chance to have their feedback count. Thoughts? Ideas?

[bobandgeri]

#50667

Why US Postal mail instead of email? Since the only way to sign up is via Internet why not make it easy? I’d be more apt to go into details via an email versus a hand written form.

[Author]

Posts