leading a group for the first time... help

[SirVincent]

Ok so i'm leading a group for the first time, at first it was just me and one other but Now i'm up to like 9 people. Anyway my question is do any of you guys have any ideas on how to make this easier. oh a side note I did manage to get hotel rooms for all of them but have not done air fair yet or gotten the money for Pre-registration. oh and one more thing I'm the only one that has been it fanime before. So any ideas on things to do places to eat or ways to make the trip better be be very helpful. 

[Dany]

9 people..it's crazy, but not impossible :) Not sure if this is just a group meetup or perhaps a Masquerade entry..for now, I'll assume the latter and you can adjust advice as necessary.

First thing is first..to some degree, you may want to offset certain responsibilities back on your counterparts. Based on what you've said here, you're doing a lot of stuff for them, which is great, but could put you in an awkward situation if you are not assertive, not to mention stress you out a lot, which is no fun for anybody.

Put a firm deadline on when they need to get you the reg and hotel money. That deadline is up to you, but it should be sooner than later. If they need alternate arrangements, make them, but hold them to it. I suggest preferably by the first day of the convention on hotel and sooner on reg cost. You don't want to be held responsible for more of the hotel bill than you can afford.

Let them take care of a few things on their own. Airfare? That's DEFINITELY something they need to figure out on their own. You can give them any info that they will need (airport code, transit info, etc), but I would not deal with their air travel beyond that beyond answering questions on how they can arrange things. Also, let members of the group work together as well. Some of them may come to the same airport around the same time, so they can all take the same cab and split the fare, for example, or they can schedule the airport shuttle to the hotel at the same time.

As for ideas for the group: there are probably a few threads here that have food options and which ones can accomodate all of you. Be prepared to make advanced reservations if all of you will eat together, as the size of your party might take a little prep. I've found doing it on Friday was good for me with my last group, because we could kick back and relax after rehearsing for our skit, and it was one of the few times outside of masquerade itself that we were all together.  Otherwise, you're probably a lot more flexible.

Beyond that, my suggestion would be to stay as organized as possible. If you don't have them already, get cell numbers for your group and program them into your phone before the convention so you can call/text if needed.  You can also make a schedule to send to folks pre-con with times to meet for various things, and otherwise leave people to their own devices.

Good luck and hope it goes well!

[Junon]

I currently lead the group of 6 that come to Fanime every year. There are two sub-groups. 1 group = 4 friends of mine. The other is my GF and I.

I take on the responsibility of ONLY acquiring hotels for the group of 4 and myself. The first thing I did was make sure all the money was in place (or at least the ability to collect). I set up a PayPal account so that everyone could dump money into it. I allow them to put in part of the cash in little by little so they didn't have to splurge all at once. Making them splurge all at once often causes delays and sometimes puts them off. I think psychologically speaking, putting in about $30 every 2 weeks until they hit $100 before May works for them best. Don't wait until ConDay to get their money, someone always happens to not have enough! But I always make sure to have FULL payment by the time May 1st comes around.

So after the paypal setup, I calculate the costs of the hotel rooms based off previous years. For about $100 a night for 3 nights, that's about $300. I also then tax that amount based on city/county taxes. I then tax it more for hotel fees (up to $20 more per night). I then tax it for parking for 1 car (usually mine since I do all the driving), which can be about $25 a weekend. So that $300 ends up being about $370. Since 4 people will be in a room (excluding my GF and I, as we have our own room), everyone pays  $370 / 4 People = $92.50. I will round that number up to $100 each because I am going to assume there will be other fees that are unknown to me as hotels can be tricky that way. So far each year I've been very close to cost, usually I overestimate about $5. Any money left over I would split between everyone.

That ends my responsibility for the group. I make sure that everyone knows they need to buy their own $55 badge and that they need to bring money for food and other things. I calculated a base amount needed to enjoy a 3-day weekend @ Fanime which is about $200 which includes room, badge, food and booze (important). Everyone is responsible for getting to the con. They are responsible for leaving the con on their own dime.

I coordinate this all through Myspace and Facebook as they all check those regularly. I shove PayPal down their throats until they choke up the money. If someone new joins or someone leaves the group, I just re-calculate and let everyone know the changes. It's pretty easy.