Europe meet-up. Would you be interested?

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Wow!

Are you seriously saying that WP members are not allowed to go to Autscape?

In which case why does KenG post about it so assiduously on WP every year, publicising it with every post he makes as it is usually in his signature? If we are not in fact included in the population that Autscape wishes to attract to its event?

When you say "our members" who exactly do you mean, if not the people registered on your chat list , one of whom is now me? Do you intend to restrict membership of your/Autscape chat-list to non-WP members now?

How do you plan to distinguish between people attending Autscape who are "real autscape members" and those who would be counted as "Wrong Planet members"? What was the purpose of KenG's threads on WP if not to attract people from here to the event?

If Kangoogle's remarks the other evening had been accurate, about Autscape being for low functioning auties, I would see your point, which is why I immediately posted to KenG's most recent thread about Autscape to ask if it were possible that we would be like an invasion. But this is not the case. Autscape is a primarily high functioning aspie event.

Exactly how many WP members attending Autscape would be a problem for you? ( ... about five people have so far expressed an interest on this thread ... ) Does everyone who happens to post on WP no longer have the right to attend Autscape? Would this apply to KenG and DivaD? Or only to people planning on going to Autscape for the very first time this year?

Autscape advertises itself as by autistic people for autistic people. It doesn't say, "Unless you are also a member of Wrong Planet, ( in which case you aren't included )".

Did you in fact take the time to really think about the implications of your post? Is this something that has been agreed on by the whole Autscape committee? ... ...

I would like to know whether you will be sorting the registration forms to select for non-WP members first, whether the allocation of places and rooms will be done on a genuinely impartial basis, or not, etc? Are you in fact a private club?

Last edited by ouinon on 11 Feb 2009, 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have difficulty believing that this is a position arrived at by the Autscape committee after careful consideration of the possibility of demand for places exceeding the supply.

There are just too many logistical and political problems which would arise with the deliberate exclusion of WP members from Autscape, ( eg: our registration forms would hardly give our WP user name, and why only WP and not other online resources and communities for AS ? etc etc etc, ... and KenG would have to stop posting about Autscape on here ).

The Autscape site clearly states that places, and rooms, will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

There has obviously always been a problem matching supply with demand, but to take the feelings of frustration and pressure/stress that the committee must experience every year about this issue out on Wrong Planet members who for the first time are seriously considering coming to Autscape seems rather foolish, and discriminatory, ( perhaps Autscape is in fact a private club ).
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If your post represents the position of the entire Autscape committee then I wish to offer an apology to Kangoogle.

His posts about Autscape suggested that he experienced the Autscape site/webpage as excluding in some fundamental way. He tried to work out why, in classic Aspie fashion, and the reasons were not the right ones, but it appears that his initial gut reaction may have been correct.

I hope very much that it is not the case.

But if it is, I think that Autscape should declare itself openly/officially as a "cooperatively-run private club", rather than advertising itself as an event open to all AS.
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I would guess that Mouse8888 is not opposed to WP members attending Autscape, but to the idea of an 'event within an event', with a clique of WP members.

As we are talking of around 5 - 10 new people attending (not a 'large group') , I don't see that this would be an *extra* problem as I can quarantee that in any group of 65+ people, cliques will form anyway.

On available space, presumably there's a limit and once the limit is reached, then applications are closed so it's not like there will be people having to sleep under the stars due to those pesky WP members stealing all the best rooms.

Looks like it's back to Plan A, Andalucia or Southern France are much better than the outskirts of London Or plan C, which is tents in my back garden.

The problem with her/their attitude lies in how "other", ( somehow more "genuine" Autscape ), members should apparently have first dibs on places/rooms, rather than new members from anywhere else unless totally isolated individuals.

It suggests that there is a private club element to her/their argument in that only those likely to treat Autscape as their major AS community/connection are welcome.

I don't see why they couldn't welcome 5-10 attendees who just happen, ( because of an increasingly well established AS network ), to have prior connections with each other through one, ( big ), AS site. KenG stated that many of the other people who go have similar/previous connections with each other.


Well, it does rather, unless someone else from the Autscape committee posts a retraction/clarification. Because it does feel/seem as if WP members would in fact , as Kangoogle thought, be unwelcome at Autscape.

I like the sound of all of your suggested venues. Even tents, despite the problems with camping, ( especially in the UK ), might be a lot more fun than an event at which we would have to be careful not to get on too well with other WP members. Tents in your garden actually sounds very appealing in comparison.

How many people do you think you would have space for? I could go for that! Except that Greentea said she wouldn't want a private venue.
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How many people, ( who happen to belong to WP and "know" each other from there ), would constitute an unacceptably large "group"?

I imagine that many of your older members/"regular" attendees come almost exclusively, or at least mainly, to meet others/other AS there, ( both people they have already met and others they "know" online and want to meet in RL ).

What reasons are there for prioritising previous attendees over new ones? Is there anything in the Autscape constitution to regulate such prioritisation so that it does not become discrimination?

Why should our membership of and participation in WP bar us from equal access to an event advertised as for everyone on the autistic spectrum? ( especially as it is through WP that many/most of us have even heard about Autscape ).

Are we not in fact supposed to be spreading the word on WP about Autscape?

Best not to frighten Mouse888 away, Ouinon! It would be good to here what she has to say rather than jumping to conclusions.

I think the issue revolves around exactly what is meant by "WP Euro meet up". This could range from an informal 5 or 6 WP members who regularly share discusions on WP, to inviting every European member and having an organised event with 150 people, workshops, presentations, entertainment and dancing horses!

I think Mouse888 was assuming it was at the big event end of the scale, so she'd understandably be disturbed by the idea of it invading Autscape. . Skimming through this thread, it wasn't clear to me exactly where on this spectrum the event was supposed to be, either. Actually, it looks like due to the general difficulties of getting people from far flung places together, there would probably be less than 10 WP members anyway.

If we do organise our own Euro meet up, I'd suggest somewhere in the French, Swiss or Austrian Alps. For one, this is reasonably central for all of Europe, reducing overal travel costs. Also, late spring and summer is actually out of season for places that depend on skiing for their tourist trade. Hence accomodation prices are at there lowest, wheres the rest of Europe gets more expensive as the summer rolls around. A quick search found several 2 bedroom chalets for around 350 euros per week in May - July. Single apartments in hotels (which are apparently very quiet at this time of year as opposed to mid winter when they are packed) would be cheaper than this, I assume.

It's precisely because it became increasingly clear that getting any more than a couple of people together in one place at the same time, ( other than for completely local/regional meets ) was probably not going to happen, in view of the very varied preferences expressed on the thread, and the logistics involved in combining them, that I remembered Autscape.

I thought it would be perfect for a small number, ( 5 - 10, but still more than seemed likely to manage it any other way ), to actually succeed in meeting, in a sympathetic structured environment, with many other AS, so that there would be no fear of booking a room in a B&B somewhere only to arrive and find everyone else, or almost, had backed out at the last moment, ( and renting a house/cottages was even more out of the question because of the need for someone to commit to a financial layout with/on behalf of others, which Greentea then said she was not willing to do, and that we should not need to do).

If mouse888 had read the thread, ( rather than "jumping to conclusions", which you warn me against doing ), she would have seen that even the most optimistic estimate of WP numbers for Autscape would not exceed a dozen, and that my own suggestion of a campus venue for an independent event, if enough people were interested, ( for which enquiries I used the purely hypothetical figure of 50 people ), only one person, Greentea, showed any interest in, and only briefly.

Last edited by ouinon on 11 Feb 2009, 7:35 am, edited 4 times in total.

I do hope someone from the Autscape committee does clarify the post by mouse888, because at the moment not only does it leave a very nasty taste in the mouth, but we don't know if any of the four of five of us who have expressed an interest in going, and any other WP'ers who decide it would be fun, would be welcome/allocated rooms.
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wow, autscape elitist and snobby , wont except a few WP members

And we would be paying £180!

The thing is that she could have said "We would love for people from WP to come to Autscape, you would be very welcome, but there is only a small number of places so please be prepared for some of you be to be disappointed ", or something like that. But her post suggests that her primary consideration is longtime/previous attendees, and that any of us who go will be depriving more "deserving" people of a place.

I also think that her assumption that we could/should organise our own meet rather astonishing seeing as DivaD says it took them from the late 1990's to 2005 to arrange one themselves. We are AS too. And I'm puzzled about KenG's frequent threads about Autscape in that case too; if they weren't intended to involve people on WP what were they for?

It was/is very upsetting, and I can't believe it is the attitude of such an association which presents itself as for all AS. But I wonder whether Kangoogle may have actually got the right vibe off the site, ( exclusivity ).

What the site needs to state is that the event is already pretty much prebooked/reserved, but that there may be a few vacancies nearer the time.
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I put a thread on aspie village asking if anyone there went to autscape and I was sent a pm warning me that it was top secret and outsiders are not alloud. I am presuming from this that KenG will get told off by them too.

Wow!! !

It would never have occurred to me that an AS/Aspie site describing itself/an event that it organises as "for all AS/on the spectrum" might not mean what it says, ( I thought that was something NTs were supposed to do ).

I'd better scrub the signature/link for Autscape that I've been using the last couple of days out of misguided enthusiasm for the event. ... ... There, it's gone.

It does look as if we will need to think of, and try to organise, something else. ... ...

Keele university campus at £31.15 per night B&B ensuite single rooms in June or September anyone? ( they're already booked in August and most of July ), or a cheap hotel/B&B in France/Italy/Spain? Or camping in ManErg's garden?

PS. I just looked on Aspie Village for your thread but couldn't find it, it must already have been wiped/removed. .

Last edited by ouinon on 11 Feb 2009, 10:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Looks like your conclusions were absolutely correct. I'm so glad I didn't go along last year, as it appears that as I'm not a member of their in crowd I would have been rejected as "not one of us" sooner or later.

The comments about their being mostly 'high functioning' people there fit into place now. Aren't secret PM's and inner cabals the natural way of the Neurotypical? The next mystery is why do they bother with a web site when they don't want outsiders along? Maybe somebody wants their role as an organiser or speaker publicised for their CV? Maybe the whole thing is an excuse for a geeks dating weekend?

Have you managed to infiltrate their forum at all, Ouinon?

I still think the Alps in summer is a far better idea

No, I subscribed to their general chat-list but could never get my messages submitted, except on the temporary open-access chat-page they set up when the server went down the other day.

Though I have been able to read the archives for their general chat they don't look like they could be the whole story; there are way too few of them. The organisational, ( subcommittees, etc ), stuff is distributed over several other separate chat-lists, which I didn't manage to subscribe to.


I'm not terribly keen on the Alps myself, and I'm not convinced that they would be cheaper than lots of far nicer places, ( fewer clone-chalets in all directions ), because many of them offer hiking, parachuting/paragliding, and horse-riding holidays in summer now, all very expensive.
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Last edited by ouinon on 11 Feb 2009, 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm still reeling from the shock actually, ( re. Autscape ). I am way too trusting.
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