post-baitcon feedback

[quietann.livejournal.com]

My personal issues with baitcon are in my personal journal; however, there are a few things that IMHO need to change:

• Separate dishes/mixing equipment/etc. for any ice cream product containing meat. There are a lot of people involved who nominally keep kosher, and it's discomfiting to know that one's ice cream might have been prepared using the same equipment as, say, the chicken liver ice cream. (for that matter, I'd just ban meat-containing flavors entirely, but that's not my decision to make.)
  
• More whole wheat (not just wheat, whole wheat) bread, less white bread. We ran out of whole wheat by lunch on Saturday. (this suggestion passed on from Gregorian, who was amazingly polite about it, but still really would have preferred whole wheat bread for his peanut butter sandwich...)
  
• More tarpage for shade protection (may not be an issue if baitcon isn't at Mink Hollow anymore, but...)
  
• Re-reinforcement of the "modest dress" (ahem) requirement in and around the main area. There was one person in particular who seriously violated this. (insert serious snarkage here; I am trying to be polite.) Dancing naked in the rain, as usual, should be granted leniency.
  

Comments

Re: somewhat snarky.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Plbbt.
I've offered concepts as to how, and I've said that if I'm at the next Baitcon I'd be happy to bring coloured scoops / bring coloured duct tape / etc.

If there seems to be a need for tray tables I might be able to find some.

Right now the discussion is whether or not there's really even a need.

People need to brainstorm possibilities before anything else. Throwing out ideas, as it were.

And honestly I don't personally care much anyway - I'm completely omnivorous. But I know that there are people for whom it's a far bigger deal, and working on finding a relatively easy solution is hence of interest.

Would colour codes for Vegan / Dairy / Meat / Spicy create a lot of problems? It shouldn't be too difficult to bring some duct tape etc.

Re: somewhat snarky.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Actually, problem 1 is getting tape to A) stick to wet/greasy/cold buckets and B) getting it back off again without leaving more of a mess. Binder clips are mostly good on lager pails, but not so much on yogurt containers.

Re: somewhat snarky.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Hm.
When I was doing cleanup I remember peeling tape off of yogurt containers... Would it work any better if the colours were put on before the ice cream were packed in?

Re: somewhat snarky.

[(Anonymous)]

yes. tape sticks to the containers okay before they're packed. Every container that had tape on it, only had it because it was prestuck. We used both gaff and masking, and they seemed okay. The mystery flavors lost their tags because the binder clips fall off in a densely packed freezer. Labeling before packing is probably the way to go, though it's a change and thus takes a bit to become routine.

As other people have mentioned, old freezers were a big problem. I've been thinking about about what might help. Ideally, there could be more and smaller freezers. But that costs money and doesn't seem very achievable.

I'm also wondering about the whole color coding thing. It seems to have evolved to give people a chance to be near the ice cream table they most want. But given the batching we did, I think it doesn't really provide that. What if we had a board at each table, and wrote down the flavors that ended up on it? People could read it without having to crowd, it might provide most of the benefit, and still allow dynamic table balancing.

Lastly, I'm not sure how feasible it is to try to contain the meat ice creams. They're aren't enough to fill a table, and in the crush I expect scoops to be contaminated.

--
seph (who mostly avoids LJ)

Re: somewhat snarky.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

I think whiteboards per table would be a wonderful idea.
What about borrowing a tent table for small numbers of contaminant concern ice creams?