Re: [Debconf-team] DC14: parallel activities for families with kids
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor
<dkg@fifthhorseman.net> wrote:
> On 08/19/2013 11:32 AM, Hector Oron wrote:
>
>> I would be interested to help on planning parallel activities for
>> families with kids, so it is possible to ease Debian Developers attend
>> conference while their families keep entertained.
>
> I plan to attend DC14, and i also want to help with this. While
> external sites sound great for specific outings, I think having a
> kid-friendly space available within or near the conference is important.
>
> If we want to do this well, it'd be nice to get an understanding of
> which kids might be attending, how old they will be at the time of DC14,
> and what sorts of things they're interested in. All kids are different,
> and a childcare space for a half-dozen three-year-olds is a very
> different space than one for two 10-year-olds.
>
> Anyone on the local team interested in bottom-lining this, if we can get
> sufficient volunteer commitments and/or local childcare providers lined
> up beforehand?
>
> To any debian parents who would like to bring their kid(s) but aren't
> sure if that will work out: what kind of support would be most useful to
> you and your kids?
So, this I've spoken to my wife, and we are planning to attend as a
family. (My wife and our two kids ages 10, and 8). The 2 bedroom
suites with a shared bathroom, are practically ideal, but we could
stay at a nearby hotel if accommodations are limited. (In our case we
would have almost certainly opted for a hotel if the bathrooms weren't
private, but other families might be comfortable sharing with one
other family, and yet others might be comfortable with other
arrangements).
- The key requirement for many families with two working parents, in
the region of the world I am in (NYC) is the need to make summer camp
plans 6-9 months in advance. Knowing the date as soon as possible,
would enable planning a family DebConf trip. (Generally camps open
registration some time in the fall after the school year begins, so
that parents know the school schedule. That said I believe most
parents would be fine if they knew they date of the conference by the
end of the preceding year.)
- Help finding day care. For many parents where both are both
interested in attending talks, or single parents, it would be amazing
if we could help them find all day daycare, especially if families can
share the costs. This is a bit tricky since the caregiver to child
ratio varies by children's ages, but help coordinating would almost
certainly be welcome.
- In our case, there are likely only to be a few talks that my wife
would be interested in attending with me, and she would likely be
looking to explore the surrounding areas with the kids the rest of the
time. I suspect that there will be a group of families who plan to
only have one of the parents attend talks, and if these families could
be connected, we might be able to arrange shared child care. (Either
coop style, where parents help each other out, and have "play dates"
or connecting with local caregivers who could manage more than than
one family's children.)
- Taking this a bit further, I feel that a "debconf-families" mailing
list where families can get to know each other before the conference
and start planning playdates, child care, and other family friendly
activities would likely be really helpful. (Hopefully with some local
orga team members also on the list to answer family oriented
questions.) We'd likely want to set this up way in advance, and make
sure people knew about it. (Perhaps include the list details when the
date of the conference is announced.)
- Finally, it would be pretty cool, if one of the evening social
activities was "family friendly". (With the mailing list, this might
even be something the families themselves could coordinate.)
It just occurred to me that I recall reading that the average age of
the Debian Community is slowly increasing. I couldn't find where I
read that, but with the small 4 year data set spaillard has
collected[1], it looks like the data backs this up. Although we likely
don't have any data on this, one might reasonably guess that Debian
Developers are also more and more likely to have families as the years
progress. Perhaps, sometime soon, it might make sense to poll the
larger Debian Developer community to find out whether or not more
efforts by Orga team to make DebConf a more family friendly conference
is an effort/goal that makes sense in the context of increasing
participation. (I also think distance required for travel, will also
be a big factor for whether people chose to attend with their
families, as I know that transoceanic flights for a family of four can
be quite expensive, especially during peak season.)
Cheers,
Brian
[1] - http://people.debian.org/~spaillard/developers-age-histogramm/
> --dkg
>
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