A Stake In The Ground

I have begun the process of setting a location and date for the first Hearthingstone PLC. I am attempting to book the hotel for January 3-5, 2020.

After touching base with the hotels in the expanded search area, I believe that one of them stood out as clearly the best candidate. It won’t allow for much expansion in-place (if any), but it’s a lovely all-suites hotel that is convenient to plenty of restaurants and other amenities. The meeting room rate is very reasonable (for Austin) and decreases by as much as half if we can book enough room nights.

It even has fire!

I don’t yet have a formal rate quote for a sleeping room block. However, their published rates for the equivalent weekend in 2019 were under $100- extremely low for a newly-built suite hotel in Austin. This same hotel charges over $200 a night during busier times of year!

All the rooms have a kitchenette.

As far as the date, I was weighing a lot of different factors, both religious and practical. This weekend kept “pinging”, despite its proximity to New Year’s Day- or perhaps because of it.

As much as possible, I wanted to avoid conflicts with holy days, though that’s nigh-impossible to do perfectly. This weekend does fall right around the end of Yule in some traditions. It is also roughly around the time that the Romans sometimes celebrated Compitalia- the festival of crossroads Powers. I haven’t found others, though I could certainly be mistaken.

This weekend is close enough to the general “Holiday Season” that many of our academics will not yet have returned to the classroom. Some of us might even be lucky enough to work at places that are closed through the following Monday.

Furthermore, January in Austin is a time of year when visitors from other parts of the country aren’t likely to burst into flames when walking outside. While the locals might wear parkas, our colleagues from more northern climes might consider it lovely spring or fall weather.

In addition, my comparison of airfares showed an average of $173 in round-trip savings compared with busy weekends like those during SXSW. There is also a large park-and-ride bus terminal less than two miles away and four different bus lines pass near to the hotel.

Finally, there is the esoteric gravitas of conducting an event like this on the first weekend after the dawn of a new year. While our various faiths and traditions may use different calendars, we all live in a society the runs on the Gregorian one. Rather than just making forgettable personal resolutions, perhaps we can put the power of this liminal time to a more holy use.

To that end, I have tentatively confirmed a keynote speaker- a published author who has a long history of service to the Gods.

-In Deos Confidimus