Child Care at Anaheim USENIX/Disneyland

[Mark Horton]

The next USENIX conference will be held this June 11-15 in Anaheim,
California.  This is about two blocks away from Disneyland, and within
easy reach of other southern California attractions such as Knotts
Berry Farm, the California Angels, sourthern California beaches,
and the like.  It seems likely that many people attending the
conference will want to take their children along and make a vacation
out of it.

The only problem with this is that you can't take young children with
you into the conference or trade show, and older children would require
a paid admission to tag along.  Babysitting is available through the
hotel, but at a cost of about $7/hour, plus room service food for the
child and the sitter, you can run up a big bill fast.  (4 years ago at
the Disneyland Hotel, I found the cheapest thing on the menu was a $12
hamburger.  There was a decent diner a mile up the road, and we'll make
sure everybody knows where the nearest grocery store is, but the
babysitters use your room in the hotel and call room service.)

We are interested in setting up a cooperative group of parents who
would like to share child care arrangements, to keep the cost down to a
reasonble level and to provide a better environment for our kids.
Current thinking is to set up two rooms in the hotel, have members of
the cooperative sign up for certain hours they can watch children in
these rooms, and sign up in advance for the time your kids would use
the service.  USENIX has tentatively indicated an interest in helping
out by providing the rooms, cribs, a TV and VCR.  We would need to
provide organization, people, toys, food, etc.  If we can get enough
people and some degree of advance planning, we can probably make this
work.

Parents would probably provide their kids food directly in a sack
lunch, although if appropriate we might consider larger scale meals.

Persons staffing the room for more hours would be entitled to leave
their children for more hours than persons volunteering for less time.
Persons who do not volunteer their time might be allowed to use the
service, on a space available basis, but would be expected to pay a
(hopefully reasonable) hourly rate.  There will be expenses (paper
plates, diapers, snacks, drinks) which would be paid by the parents in
some equitable way.

We will want some advance idea of your schedules and needs.  The
conference program will be available in early April.  By early May
we'll need a tentative committement from people.  2 weeks in advance
we'll need a firm committment, and possibly a cash deposit.  Changes
later on will be possible, but will depend on special arrangements and
may cause you to pay a higher rate.

Note that this is NOT a licensed babysitting service, but a group of
parents cooperating informally.  Everyone would have to sign a paper
promising not to sue anybody.  If you want a licensed babysitter
available on a day or so notice, the $7/hour people are available.

If you are interested in possibly participating in this, please send an
email note back.  If you need to discuss it with a spouse first, print
this out and take it home, I'll repost it in a few days to remind you.
(The repost won't go to news.announce.important, just to the other
groups.)

	Mark Horton

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You don't have to make a committement at this time, but please give us
a rough idea:

Would you like to be on the organizing committee?  (This would be an
email mailing list to plan the details in advance.)

How many kids do you have?  How old are they?

Which days do you plan to attend the conference?

Which days (and what times, if you have any idea) do you think you
would need babysitting?  Tell us numbers of hours if you have an idea.

Which days (and what times, if you have any idea) would you be
available to babysit?  Tell us numbers of hours if you have an idea.

How early in the morning, and how late at night, might you need the
service?  (In other words, taking into account the time you get up and
the kids bedtimes, what is the earliest and latest the service might be
useful to you?)

Do your children have any special needs that the group should address?

Do you have any special things you could provide, such as toys, video
games, laptop computers, VCR tapes, or other things to keep kids
amused?  (A UNIX box and some terminals to play UNIX games such as
rogue would probably make some older kids pretty happy, if a vendor
would like to offer some equipment.)

Do you have any interest in going to Disneyland (etc) as a group?