[Noisebridge-discuss] Date/location for fundraiser

[Christie Dudley]

It's exactly this sentiment I'm trying to address by bringing up the
dilemma.  Even if it's not significant "work" going on or learning
experiences occurring, I think we all know from our youths that it's a
frustration to be excluded from events when everyone else is going.

The way I see it is we stand very little chance of making much money
if we don't sell alcohol in a space such as Cellspace.  I'd love to
see someone put together numbers that would prove me wrong.  If we
can't come ahead, then I see no reason to do this.  So the question
remains...  Do we do this at all and exclude people or just skip it
and move on?


Rubin may be able to come up with a better answer once he hears back
from the Entertainment Commission.  I suppose we could go that route
if it sounds reasonable.  We could put that DJ booth to good purpose,
then move all our stuff in later.

Christie

---
Pigs can fly given sufficient thrust.



On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:54 PM, Seth David Schoen<schoen at loyalty.org> wrote:
> Christie Dudley writes:
>
>> When talking to the cell space folks about the all ages vs. alcohol,
>> we will need to choose.  We either don't serve alcohol or don't let
>> people under 21 in.  If we don't serve alcohol, then that's a
>> significant amount of revenue we pass up.  The bulk of the money made
>> at every fund raiser I've been a part of that actually came ahead
>> involved alcohol sales.  I'm going to continue to discuss this with
>> them, but I'm not hopeful.
>
> I brought this up at the meeting on Tuesday in connection with the
> sponsorship of LoveTech, but most people on the mailing list weren't at
> that meeting, so I should probably mention this concern here.  I think
> it sends a bad message for Noisebridge to organize or sponsor events
> that have age restrictions.  Almost everyone in our community got
> interested in that community and started trying to participate in it
> as a young person.  We might have gone to DEF CON or a hacker camp
> as a teenager, or attended trade shows or technical conferences or
> university lectures.  Almost all of us encountered one or another kind
> of discrimination or resistance or exclusion because of our age.  Many
> people, like Jon Johansen and Aaron Swartz, did significant things
> before reaching college age (or legal majority).
>
> As we passed magic legal thresholds, those concerns may have become
> less concrete to us as individuals (although I think I remember that
> we inducted one Noisebridge member who was then under 21 and couldn't
> legally buy alcohol in California, and I imagine we will induct more).
> But we can do the right thing by the next generation of hackers by
> doing our best not to exclude them from our events because of their
> age.
>
> --
> Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Qué empresa fácil no pensar en
>     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | un tigre, reflexioné.
>     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |            -- Borges, El Zahir
>