What Saja and I have had to deal with the last 3 weeks has reinforced something WoW has taught me these last few years: You can only please some of the people some of the time.

To recap: For this year's guild meetup we have a fee of $35 to attend, covering the costs of 2 full days of activiites. This covers the cost of things like:

1. The provisions for the first party
2. Reservation fees for the park on Saturday
3. The copious quantities of food at the park on Saturday
4. The provisions for the party Saturday night
5. Gas money to help out the people who ended up playing taxi for 3 straight days
6. A guild t-shirt since that was the NUMBER ONE THING REQUESTED AS PART OF LAST YEAR'S MEETUP

This seems pretty fair and we worked hard to get an accurate estimate for the cost. Since the cost is quite variable (shirt cost goes down per number printed, keg per-capita cost lowers with more people etc, park reservation goes UP stepwise with more people, gas goes up with more people) this is actually on the low side.

I'd also like to fill you all in a big "secret" about last year's meetup: The VAST majority of the costs were footed by about 3 people. We're talking HUNDREDS of dollars donated EACH. The cute little donate jar? It covered a bit of food and a couple six packs of beer. EVERYTHING else was because of a few generous people. We won't have that luxury this year, thus the cost must be spread fairly and evenly this time around.

That brings me to the subject of fairness. Fairness is paying your part, evenly. Fairness isn't bitching about finally having to play your part.

Don't want a t-shirt? After having the majority of people complain that the shirts weren't ready last year, we thought we'd pitch them in as part of the cost. Apparently, the extra $15 for the shirt is the sticking point for some people. In the spirit of flexibility, if you don't want a shirt, just paypal $20 to my email account (bloomcb AT gmail dot com, the account that is handling all this aggregation of funds)

I understand that things are tough for some folks and that some people are nearly hitchiking to be able to make it. I, too, feel your pain for I am one of you. Leave the t-shirt off and do the $20 fee mentioned above.

Now, here's where I lose my shit. A couple of folks have decided that because they donated a six pack last year - and that magically made everything happen - it's OUTRAGEOUS that they be required to pay more than this. Some have gone so far as to accuse me of fraud, overcharging on purpose.

I have one response to this:

FUNDA

If you'd like to manage and plan and schedule this, design the tshirts and haggle a good deal with a local printer, build the ecommerce interface to the website to manage payments (with a paper trail), buy the entire list of food and beverages and work out the sleeping arrangements I'M MORE THAN HAPPY TO FORWARD YOU THE BALANCE OF ALL THE PAYMENTS SO THAT YOU CAN MANAGE THIS MEETUP YOURSELF AS WELL AS NEXT YEAR'S.

Please, be my fucking guest.