This is great! Thank you very much for writing this up. I’d be extremely excited for more local groups to self-fund retreats like this. I have seen similar events have large impacts on people’s goals/career choices/etc. and they seem pretty viable to do without a huge amount of planning/money.
Thanks for your thoughts, Caleb! Yes, I come from 10 years in orgs where most retreats are self-funded, and we always had a good time—learning that in EA retreats are funded was a culture shock for me. For bigger conferences, I still think it is important to be able to give free tickets and even food and travel subsidies in part or full because diversity the of thought and inclusion of those who cannot afford it matters a lot. For something this small, where I expect we can recognize such cases, I think self-funded events are quite great.
This is great! Thank you very much for writing this up. I’d be extremely excited for more local groups to self-fund retreats like this. I have seen similar events have large impacts on people’s goals/career choices/etc. and they seem pretty viable to do without a huge amount of planning/money.
Thanks for your thoughts, Caleb! Yes, I come from 10 years in orgs where most retreats are self-funded, and we always had a good time—learning that in EA retreats are funded was a culture shock for me. For bigger conferences, I still think it is important to be able to give free tickets and even food and travel subsidies in part or full because diversity the of thought and inclusion of those who cannot afford it matters a lot. For something this small, where I expect we can recognize such cases, I think self-funded events are quite great.