Re: [guadec-list] GUADEC baby friendliness level
- From: Jiri Eischmann <eischmann redhat com>
- To: Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org>
- Cc: guadec-list <guadec-list gnome org>
- Subject: Re: [guadec-list] GUADEC baby friendliness level
- Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:41:04 +0200
We're currently exploring possibilities to have a room for mothers at
the venue. The faculty doesn't have such facilities because >95% of
their students are male (typical computer science school). But we can
definitely use one of the rooms there and equip it for such a purpose.
Having a daycare service would be a bit complicated. You need educated
and certified professionals. It's against Czech laws to run such a
service without a license. So we wouldn't be able to run it by ourselves
even if we had educated volunteers. The only way is a professional
daycare agency which wouldn't be such a problem to arrange. The problem
would be where to have it. You can't just put 10 kids in a meeting room
for the whole day. Czech laws are also very strict about where a daycare
can be done.
The agency could pick them and bring to their facilities (e.g. by bus),
but I think it'd quite stressful for the kids.
If we go for a daycare service I think the only doable option are
kindergartens around the venue. There is one with Waldorf/Steiner
education down the street (200m from the venue). Kindergartens are
usually less occupied during summer, but the question is if they accept
kids just for a couple of days.
Anyway, it'd be great to at least somehow estimate demand for such
services among GUADEC attendees. 1-2 interested people would not be
worth the hassle.
Jiri
Stormy Peters píše v Čt 04. 04. 2013 v 12:02 -0600:
The Grace Hopper Women in Computing conference does an awesome job of
child care. But even with several thousand people attending their
conference, I don't think I saw more than 15 kids in the day care
place at any given time. That said, GNOME is a very different
community and I see a lot more significant others and families there
than I do at any other conference except perhaps OSCON.
Some thoughts on daycare based on Grace Hopper's: (I used the Grace
Hopper day care one year for my son who was 4 years old at the time.)
1. It's free to attendees and paid for by a sponsor, i.e. it's one of
the sponsorship package options and the sponsor gets recognition for
it and gives enough to cover the costs.
2. It's outsourced. The conference provided a room which included
bathroom and kitchen facilities and a company that specialized in
child care of this sort flew with all their stuff, hired staff and
took care of it.
3. Hours. The hours were awesome. You could drop your kid(s) off
anytime between 7am and 11pm - any time there was any conference
activity going on. I was able to use this to attend one of the evening
parties. (I do not think anyone left their kid there all that time.
You could drop them off for a few hours in the morning, pick them up
for the afternoon and then drop them back off at night. It was
completely flexible.)
4. Fun. My son *loved* it. They had games, activities, food, movies,
blankets and pillows for nap and night time. Other kids. Several years
later he still talks about it occasionally.
5. Camaraderie. I met a few women I probably never would have met
because we saw each other every day at the day care center and
chatted. Still work with one of them.
6. Professional. The staff was very professional, very on top of day
care policies and rules and very caring. My son had a problem one day
and they some how tracked me down to my conference room.
My thoughts on whether we should offer day care or not ... it's great
if people are planning on bringing their families. However, most
people that travel have some sort of existing arrangement for their
kids when they travel. So I don't think there will ever be tons of
people taking advantage of it every time.
Stormy
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 7:17 AM, meg ford <megford gnome org> wrote:
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 7:10 AM, Karen Sandler
<karen gnome org> wrote:
On Wed, April 3, 2013 3:56 am, Alexandre Franke wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:58 AM, meg ford
<megford gnome org> wrote:
>> The Art Institute of Chicago has a nice private
space that contains a
>> chair
>> for breastfeeding/pumping and a changing table.
It's in an area that's
>> accessible to both parents, so either parent can do
feeding and
>> changing. It
>> would be nice if we had a space like that set aside
at conferences.
>
> I feel silly for asking this but I honestly have no
clue: when you say
> a chair for breastfeeding/pumping, do you mean a
special chair that
> has been designed for that purpose, or do you just
mean that there was
> a regular chair (in an area) dedicated to these
tasks?
It's not silly to ask, until recently I didn't know
anything about this. I
don't know what they had at the Art Institute of
Chicago but we're just
talking about a regular chair in a clean and private
place, preferably a
comfortable chair if possible.
Yeah, it's not silly to ask, and I do just mean a regular,
comfortable chair. The space just came to mind as a public
place with nice simple accommodations for parents.
Meg
karen
>
> --
> Alexandre Franke
> _______________________________________________
> guadec-list mailing list
> guadec-list gnome org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
>
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