Speaking Of Happy Hours…Proposal For Recurring Happy Hour(s)

[creadinger]

53% of respondents indicate they are only interested in a monthly happy hour. The data suggests, I think it was Katherine’s comment, that having happy hours too often might potentially dilute attendance. Based on responses, that is potentially true.

My comment. Thanks.

@creadinger 26165 wrote:

My only concern with this fun plan is that if happy hours are too often, then they may get diluted with low turnout. I don’t think I’d be able to get to more than 1/month at best….. not that I’m the life of the party or anything though. Heh but I think the big turnout in Shirlington was because it had been a while since the last one. I think.

If they’re more than 1x/month that would be fine, as long as people are happy knowing turnout will be spotty. They don’t all have to be like the last one in Shirlington where EVERYone showed up. Also, more frequent HHs would allow people to try out different places that may not be as convenient – like Silver Spring, Vienna, Falls Church, Alexandria, or Capitol Hill.

Since my wife works for the Census I know a teeny bit about extrapolating too much info from one survey question. Most people (barely) said, they’d likely only go once/month, but that doesn’t mean they should only be once/month. I’d be more likely to attend a happy hour if it was at a cool place that I wanted to try out, versus the same old place we always go for example.

[jrenaut]

@rcannon100 26275 wrote:

…the data suggests that the center of the group is not downtown, but is in fact the river .

Does anyone have a large boat?

[Arlingtonrider]

Oops – did it again. Hit “like” when I meant to hit reply. Elcee, that’s what we had been doing in the past. I think what people are suggesting is having a regular, predictable monthly happy hour in a known place. That could (and in my view, should) be supplemented by your idea. We have a huge cycling community to draw on.

A sticky would make this easy. People could see the various options and choose among them. Like Creadinger, sometimes i’d like to go to new and different places. Sometimes i might want to go to more than one per month. We could just try to keep them on different days. A regular monthly Shirlington one might end up being smaller than it was last time, but it could stay up there as a regular monthly event along with other choices.

[culimerc]

I think we should probably keep it to 1 a month in order to keep the attendance up and not dilute the special fun factor of it.

Maybe a handful of regular places that have some sort of sponsorship or record of contribution towards the bike community. Mendocino wine bar on Capitol hill helps sponsor DCCX and some of the local bike teams. Maybe we could talk Chasin’ Tails to adopt a section of the WOD. or are there other businesses who work with Bike Arlington or WABA that are deserving of our spare pennies?? Every first Thurs at one the four or five places on a rotating basis.

[krazygl00]

@rcannon100 26275 wrote:

53% of respondents indicate they are only interested in a monthly happy hour. The data suggests, I think it was Katherine’s comment, that having happy hours too often might potentially dilute attendance. Based on responses, that is potentially true.

This statement illustrates why we shouldn’t trying to use a poll to determine the optimum locations for get-togethers. The goal is diversity of locations, not drawing the most aggregate attendees.

Put this way, if we have all the happy hours convenient to the most amount of people, then yes you will see dilution in attendance from an over-availability of events. Diversify widely the locations, and it will be more likely that people will only have one event monthly that is convenient for them to attend.

The Cyclist Goofing Off Agenda (CGOA) is an extremely important initiative and well worthy of the amount of thought-power we are putting into it

Edit:
P.S. Rcannon100: I should mention that I didn’t mean to make this sound like I didn’t appreciate your input. I really think the poll you put together was awesome, and the information we’re getting from it is extremely useful. I was so enthused to see people taking this idea and running with it! I guess I was just saying we should be wary of relying solely on the majority opinion.

[Arlingtonrider]

So, where are we? Any volunteers for this month? Shirlington can be a fallback.

[krazygl00]

@Arlingtonrider 26296 wrote:

So, where are we? Any volunteers for this month? Shirlington can be a fallback.

Arider, I thought the plan was just to start with this as a sticky:

@krazygl00 26267 wrote:

First Thursday –
Second Thursday –
Third Thursday – Capitol City Brewing Company, Shirlington
Fourth Thursday –

And then let people add to it.

[creadinger]

@Arlingtonrider 26296 wrote:

So, where are we? Any volunteers for this month? Shirlington can be a fallback.

I’ll check with Crystal City to see if we can get the fountain on Crystal Drive flowing with beer instead of water and see if Morton’s can bring over bite sized pieces of steak and lobster for appetizers. This will be a bring your own beer mug event.

Sorry. I don’t have a real suggestion.

[Arlingtonrider]

I’ll support whatever the group wants, but I think krazyg100 offers a good starting point.

[PotomacCyclist]

@rcannon100 26275 wrote:

As for guessing the right places to hold this, the data suggests that the center of the group is not downtown, but is in fact the river (this is what I would have guessed). Those locations near the river get high response rates – and the further you get away from the river, the lower the response rates. Basically, not next to the river, and the preference is less than 50%.

Matt Foley approves of this comment.

[PotomacCyclist]

@jrenaut 26285 wrote:

Does anyone have a large boat?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1398[/ATTACH]

http://www.potomacriverboatco.com/cherry-blossom.php

[PotomacCyclist]

@creadinger 26299 wrote:

I’ll check with Crystal City to see if we can get the fountain on Crystal Drive flowing with beer instead of water and see if Morton’s can bring over bite sized pieces of steak and lobster for appetizers. This will be a bring your own beer mug event.

They have Wine in the Water Park gatherings every other Friday for the rest of the summer. (Every Friday in June.) I think they go back to every Friday in September.

They have beer and wine, along with appetizers from Jaleo’s.

[MV Clyde]

Another shout out for Alexandria. I voted Crystal City and “other” for Old Town.

[Certifried]

On the shore, with fishing poles, styrofoam coolers, and red solo cups. Not all of us are sophisticated!

[KLizotte]

@Tim Kelley 26270 wrote:

Vienna Inn would be awesome for Happy Hours. They also do chili dogs too.

I was there last week: [ATTACH=CONFIG]1396[/ATTACH]

Tim, that was your lunch right?

[Author]

Posts