Prickly relations with Thistle
We are back at the Thistle Birmingham City for 2010, though
with the convention still on a growth curve it won't be long
before we'll have to consider somewhere bigger.
The hotel industry is having a bad time of it but according
to the hotel Birmingham is a hotbed of activity in the middle
of November thanks to the German Christmas fair in the city
and the recent revamp of the city centre, and so we are having
difficulty persuading them to hold the reserved rooms for as
long as we would like. This year, more than ever, it might be
wise to book your room early.
If you have any suggestions regarding suitable venues for
the con, get in touch. We'll
consider anywhere in the Midlands that has suitable convention
rooms, residential accommodation and a bar.
Earlier start on the Friday
The Wroxton Suite (and for all I know the Ariel too) will
be available from 11:00am on the Friday for the early birds
among you. They are charging us for a full day on the Friday
these days so we might as well grab the rooms earlier.
Price increases
It did cross my mind not to mention these but some of you
have been coming for so long that you might be stuck on
auto-pilot when writing out cheques to book the registration
fee, so it is probably best to mention them.
The convention fee has been increased by £2 for the full
week-end. It's the first increase in the convention fee in
some time and reflects the increased cost of hiring the
convention rooms, the subsidised coffee flasks provided in the
convention room and the cost of hiring a room for the Bring
& Buy.
The single room rates have also been bumped up while the
shared room rate is slightly lower this year.
Dates confirmed
MidCon will take place on the week-end of
19-21 November this year. It's a bit later than normal this
year but we like to avoid clashing with Remembrance
Sunday.
Con booklet
The 2009 booklet is now
available for download. It is in duplex PDF booklet format. This means you will need Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view it, then a duplex printer to print
it (or you could just print both sides manually). It now
incorporates the maps, though you might need a magnifying
glass.
The best reason for printing off the convention handbook is
so you can contribute updates to it. If you found a
particularly good restaurant or a free place to park or you
have a nugget of information that would be useful to other
attendees, please send details to
us.

Peter Berlin, Richard Beattie
& John Harrington leave a French restaurant in Birmingham,
the name of which escapes me ...
Other places to stay in Brum
All information correct as at 2:00pm, Saturday, 7 November,
2009.
Arc
Apartments, The Arcadian Centre, Hurst St, Birmingham
B5 4TD. About 1.2 miles away from the hotel. £22 for two
nights (i.e. £11 a night per person), with car parking space.
Birmingham
Central Backpackers, 58 Milk Street
Digbeth B5 5NH. Mixed dorm. From £16 a night.
Hatters,
92-95 Livery Street, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, West
Midlands, B3 1RJ. About half a mile away. Double bed, private,
en suite for £32.50 per night. Mixed dorm en suite £19.50 a
night (6 bed dorm) or £16.50 a night (12 bed dorm).
City
Quarters at Burne Jones House, 11 - 12 Bennetts Hill,
Birmingham, B2 5RS.
Campanile
Hotel, Chester Street,Aston , Birmingham, B6 4BE.
About 1.5 miles away. I am not going to quote a price because
they have a special 'book 5 days in advance' offer so it will
probably be gone by the time you read this.
Those are just some ideas. You will probably be better off
trawling the web yourself, in which case the following sites
may prove useful:
Laterooms.com
Bookings.com
Superbreak
Bring & Buy
We'll be doing the Bring & Buy again.
Games that will be on offer
If you want to give punters advance notice of the games you
will be bringing along to sell, contact John via http://fbgames.co.uk
or, if you can't be bothered to visit that web site you can
probably work out his address by rearranging the following
elements into the right order:
- @
- john
- fbgames.co.uk
Clue: Put them in the following order: 213, with no spaces
in between!

Since the Diplomacy
tournament died, convention supremo Jeremy Tullett has had to
console himself with registration duties
If only you did T-shirts
Hard though it is to believe, we still have some MidCon T-shirts
so
they will be on sale again.
These are high quality jobbies, because we know you like to
make your clothes last for decades ... The cost will be £12
each. The shirts will be available in navy blue, cardinal red,
olive and charcoal in sizes ranging from Small to XL.
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