oh my dear readers! I truly did not expect to start off a firestorm, but I might as well go with it.
Since ChaliceChick did some research on hotels in the area of the Hilton-Frontenac, I decided to do a little more research, both on that hotel and some others. But a little info first.
Last year, in Oak Brook, the rooms were in the $90s (I can't find a hotel receipt but do remember that much), but less than $100, at the Marriott. (I do find it interesting that we will be paying more in a suburb of St. Louis than we did in a suburb of Chicago)
In 2006, in downtown Madison, the rooms were $85.
In 2005, in Arlington Heights (another suburb of Chicago), the rooms were $74 at the Sheraton.
So I don't think it's irrational to ask this question: WHY FRONTENAC?
Here is a little info on the Hilton-Frontenac: it has 263 rooms and it's normal rate is $143.10. Yet if the district had chosen the Hilton at the St. Louis Airport, it would have picked a bigger hotel (395 rooms) and one with a lower rate ($89.00).
But even more than that......why choose Frontenac, which only has 1 choice, when you could have gone to the airport or Westport and had many?
Let's look at some more hotels at the airport.
The Renaissance has 393 rooms and a rate of $89.00. The Marriott has 601 rooms and a cost of $89.00. Both of these would have had ample meeting space. Then there are the smaller hotels if one needed/wanted to go elsewhere. And most are within walking distance
Then there's Westport (as you can see, I know a little about where hotels are clustered in St. Louis). The biggest hotel at Westport is the Sheraton. It has 2 hotels there with a combined number of rooms of 510 (300 in one and 210 in the other) and ample meeting space. There are also a number of hotels in/around Westport within walking distance of the Sheraton if people wanted to stay somewhere else for whatever reason.
So again.......WHY FRONTENAC?
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Don't know on that one. (And FWIW, if this is a firestorm for you, you should never write anything about race, non-liberal politics or how nobody properly appreciates Jesus)
My guesses would be:
1. The airport hotels already had a conference booked for the desired dates and/or charges more for conference space.
2. The Frontenac hotel, because the rooms are more expensive, was willing to require a smaller gaurantee of rooms to give some conference rooms for free*.
3. Somebody who had stayed there before is on the committee to pick the hotel. They thought it was really nice, looks like the Frontenac was willing to give them $140 hotel rooms for $105 and given that most people do not stay in conference hotel rooms alone, that made the difference in money between last year and this year pretty negligable. (Assuming the numbers most favorable to your arguement, that your hotel last year was $90, that's less than eight bucks a night if you're sharing the room with even one person. Five bucks a night, if you stay with two people, etc.)
4. The committee that chose the hotel had some environmental restrictions. Fancier hotels are more likely to serve vegetarian and organic food, use environmentally safe cleaning products, etc. I've written about this issue at GA before, and my impression is that it is why GA hotels are so expensive these days.
Actually, what gets me at this point is that a difference of $15 per night (one more time, assuming you need a room all to yourself and that you paid on the low end last year) at a yearly conference is important enough for five posts.
Again, put aside some of your business-traveler assumptions about the way you have to attend a conference, skip two hotel meals by bringing a little bit of your own food and you can make up the $15 in nothing flat.
CC
* As in, hotels say "Usually, we would charge you $500 to rent this conference room for the day, but if people from your organization rent 100 hotel rooms, we will waive that." If the Frontenac were willing to give a free conference room at 50 bookings instead, then it might be a cheaper option.
If you knew me in real life, you would know that I'm as far from a business traveler as can be.
Also, if you look at my example, you will see that I'm talking about a couple. As most couples won't be sharing a room with someone else, my example was talking about their fixed costs. Actually, my first post was about the totality of costs, which was more about the registration fee than about the hotel room.
The reason that I am now on five posts is that people asked questions that deserved a public response and I wanted those questions to get the viewing they deserve.
Finally, I just think that churches really should be paying attention to the least of these, as most of the great religions tell us that we should. That's the only reason I brought up the cost for a 3-day, 2-night church conference.
If a single post from ChaliceChick constitutes a firestorm does that make her a "Dragon Lady"? Now that would be quite an impressive Flaming Chalice Chick indeed! ;-)
FWIW If you want to avoid setting of firestorms it's probably not a good isea to poke some fun at the similarity of a particular version of the U*U Flaming Chalice symbol aka logo to the Flaming Eye of Sauron either.
"I just think that churches really should be paying attention to the least of these, as most of the great religions tell us that we should."
Well maybe U*Us think that they are exempt from paying attention to "the least of these" since, far from being a great religion (in every sense of the word "great"), U*Uism is what UUA Presidential candidate Rev. Peter Morales quite justifiably refers to as "a tiny fringe religion" on the home page of his Peter Morales For UUA President website.
Well, your insistence on anonymity makes it hard for people to know you anything about you. Be anonymous if you want, but speculating on what I would think if I knew more about you doesn't make much sense.
I don't take my husband to church conferences, I go with friends. When I went to sci fi conferences, we used to stay with our friends even though we were a couple.
At the anime conference he attended last weekend, my husband, who is in a solidly upper middle class income bracket, shared a room with three other guys. (If you've never tried this, you really should. Not only is it cheaper, it's a lot of fun to stay with people whom you don't see very often and sit up late talking about the conference.)
If you are choosing to take your spouse and have a room to yourself, then that is a choice that will cost money. (And a lot more money than $15 per night.)
Pretty much everyone I know whose church isn't paying for GA goes alone spouseless and stays with friends at the conference. At GA in Portland, the little shop in the convention center where you could get a decent sandwich for something like five bucks was full of people all the time. I think there were several days when I ate two meals a day from there. I know I ate one meal at a hotel at the GA the year before, but yeah, it's not something I do often.
Is it so unreasonable that the people planning the convention are apparently assuming that the people who can't afford to stay alone and eat out a whole bunch won't, given that neither of those matters much for the conference and there are perfectly reasonable other options?
CC
who knew you weren't a business traveler, but assumptions like "It's necessary to eat a hotel meal Friday night and impossible to get out for under
$35." sounded like the sorts of things business travelers do because the company is paying.
"Well, your insistence on anonymity makes it hard for people to know you anything about you. Be anonymous if you want, but speculating on what I would think if I knew more about you doesn't make much sense."
Says the oh so pseudonymous and thus, so far. . . quiet anonymous ChaliceChick.
If y'all can find anyplace in the Chaliceblog where I've said something like, "If you knew me in real life you wouldn't say that..." I'll mail a dollar (Canadian or American) to the odious politician (Canadian or American) of your choice.
CC
who doesn't have even half a clue who TRA is.
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