MA/NE BT Party January?

FYI:  Chinese New Year will be on Feb 18, 2007.  Thinking of going back to HK for 2 weeks around that time. 

Jan will be a good time for the BT gathering.  I'm not familiar with Chinese restaurants outside of China town and those in Chinatown don't usually have private rooms unless you book the whole floor for a banquet. 

There is a Japanese restuarant (actually owned by one of those Chinatwon people) in Brookline that has a couple of tatami rooms that fits 10 - 12 people.  I can ask around.  I have a friend who is close to some restaurant people. 

I'm in...where do I sign up? 

Alright....that makes atleast 3 of us..

We don't really care where we have it just so we have space and time to have fun. A private room would be super not necessary.

Any suggestions would be fantastic!

active.com? 

I have not had an opportunity to meet any of you yet (hopefully will at Feaster), but having a BT party sounds like a great idea.

On the subject of restaurants, a friend of mine owns Firefly's BBQ in Framingham and Marlboro.  Depending on the number of people, he has a few private "areas" in the two restaurants that we could use.

As a matter of fact, next week I am traveling with the team from Firefly's to a BBQ competition in Georgia, where I plan on running a 5K (my first!) and hooking up with at least one BT member from the area.  How cool is that?

Hey all,

It seems like this idea/thread has gone dormant - what's up?

We need to come up with a place, date and time.

I'd pick someplace close to me which is far from most everyone. It would be great to find a more central location.

What days in general are better...Sat or Sunday, lunch or dinner?

I was thinking mid-January. 

Scott's idea of Marlborough or Framingham might be a good one.  Close to 495 for our friends on the Cape (and Attleboro!), but not too far south for our friends North of the city, and west enough for Max!

There are plenty of places to meet in either town.  I've never been to Fireflys, but it sounds good to me...

Do we have any idea how many people might attend?  So far, 7 people have contributed to this thread.  At Firefly's, the minimum for an "official" catering event is 20, however if we have less than that I can probably work out something with my friend where he sets aside some tables and we just order individual items off the regular menu.

As far as times go, if we do something around lunch rather than dinner we're likely to have more flexibility since our group is relatively small.  Also, on Sunday they have a great brunch that we could do rather than trying to figure out what food to order.

As far as price goes, based on their catering menu it looks like we could do something reasonable for $18-$20 per person.

If folks are agreeable with Firefly's, I'd be happy to coordinate things.

BTW, I also looked into the suggestion to use Active.com for signing up, and it looks like that would work, especially if go with the full-blown catering approach, since I'll need to secure the headcount and collect money ahead of time. 

I like the  brunch idea.  But anything is fine with me. 

Brunch would be hard for me to make.  Weekend mornings/early afternoons are typically pretty busy with kid/family activities.  Personally, an "early" Sunday dinner (hook up @ 5p.m., home by 9) would be ideal.  I'd like to get my DH to come, so he can meet you guys.

Cool you are in charge...excellant. We often have 10-20 when we do stuff. The farther ahead we pick a date the more will come.

My suggestion is do something that we won't lose money if more or less folks come. I'd prefer ordering off a menu as I eat different than most folks....but that is just me. I think it will work better if we can collect money the day of the get together.

We have an off list email list we send things out to BTers...PM me your email and I can either send you the list of names or if you have an email I can send it out and then you'll be on the list as well.

How about picking out two dates that work, write up a brief idea of what we plan to do, PM me the info. with your email and I'll email it out to you and everyone and see what kind of response we get.

Folks,

Once I get the list of email addresses from KathyG, I plan on sending out an Evite that has the basic info as well as a few dates that folks can choose from.  Then, once I've heard back from folks I'll set the date with the restaurant.  I also plan on posting a link to the Evite here so that others who are browsing the forum will see it.

I did not update this thread because I had an Announcement posted at the top of the MA forum.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=62328

I figured that there was so much discussion here that people did not need to read through anymore.

Thanks!