[lug] Summer BBQ?

[J. Wayde Allen]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Atkinson, Chip wrote:

> Sure.  How much trouble could it be?  What could go wrong?  ;-)

This all depends.  If you just want to go to the park, there is nothing
more that needs to be done.  We just pick a park and show up.  If however,
we want to reserve one of the shelters in case of rain, and similarly to
guarantee that we have one of the BBQ pits, then we have to call the
relevant authority involved with the maintenance of the Park.  That
depends on which park you choose.  It usually costs about $50 to reserve
one of the Park shelters in advance.  This is a good idea just in case it
decides to rain.  We should be able to dig up this kind of money without
any real difficulty.

If there is a desire to have beer we'd need to apply for a temporary
liquor license.  That is certainly possible, but I think I'd be tempted to
forgo the hassle.  Not involving alcohol also minimizes the possibility of
lawsuits if someone gets hurt or gets picked up for drunk driving, etc..

> One question is how much should the organizers do vs. the participants?

That is kind of up to the orginizers and how you choose to set it up.  If
you haven't figured it out yet, I like to keep things as simple as
possible.  

>  Pot luck or does everyone pay money and eat, or a combination of
> both, say a salad or desert, with burgers provided.

Either of those works.  Pot luck is almost always a good choice, unless
you feel that a bunch of geeks would only show up with bags of chips
<grin>.  The pay money idea works too, especially if you want to have
someone cater the food.  However that means that you now have to find a
caterer or buy and cook the food yourself.  It also means that someone has
to take the money, and that you have to be careful that only people who
have paid actually get food, etc..  I personally would think carefully
before doing the pay-to-eat event.  Combinations of the above are also
reasonable.

One hybrid approach I've used successfully in the past is to provide the
place, a hot BBQ pit, and drinks.  People then bring whatever they want to
cook on the grill.

I figure the logistics of this all is kind of up to whomever wants to
organize this.  It also depends a bit on what the goal of the BBQ is -
just get together and have fun, fun in the sun install fest, park wide
Linux demo day, etc..  If you want to do this, my suggestion is to be
creative and have fun.  I'll help.

- Wayde
  (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)