Ok, for those who attended the outing today, you know that we cannot hold our meetings at the coffeeshop anymore.

Pam has very generously offered us the conference room at his place for use. It's air conditioned and private. I would say it would be PERFECT for our purposes. Even possible to set up a projection screen for group viewing of close up work.
Only problem is it is a little out of the way. It's in Bukit Timah area, and the nearest MRT is Bukit Batok and you have to take a 5 stop bus from there. But i am definitely keeping this option open.

Ideally, I would like somewhere centralised. Anybody has any suggestions for how we can do it?
Today, after leaving the coffeeshop, I actually went into Youth Council building to see if they have anything for our purposes. I got some contacts and I will try to follow up with them to see if we can work something out. But i suspect even the best deal we can strike up with them we cannot afford it (yup, it wouldn't be free).

Suggestions please everyone? We need a place badly.
HELP!!

could we get a room in a community centre?

bukit batok would be perfect for me....hahaha.....i'm in yew tee ^_^ ........but some of d guys live in d east :( ..........sigh...

Is there a centralised and accessible community centre we can use?
How much would the costs be? I'm pretty sure it's wouldn't be free?

Suggestions?

you know the 'lobby' at city link mall?

there's a lot of hip-hip dancers there sometimes. that's a free place right?

but no chair
no table
got floor

if you dont know where that is, it's the place you pass by when you're walking thru citylink mall on the way to the esplanade.

maybe we could bring tables and chairs

but im very receptive to the conference @ condo thingy-ma-jig

I am hoping to make meetings organised, or at least some portions of it. So a room of some sort would be great.
BUT, beggers can't be choosers so I am not insisting on it.

The place has quite heavy traffic thou, and can be quite noisy. But yes, that's a possibility.

Anymore suggestions everyone? I'm just consolidating all the possible venue before making a decision...

The underpass at the Esplanade is quite ok and air-conditioned too. The jugglers always meet there, the break dancers too. I've heard that sometimes, the police will stop them.

Besides having no table (which I think is a minor issue, there's always the floor), our group might be considered illegal gathering.

I've got a suggestion which will solve the problem.

The food court near Raffles Place MRT "China Square". This food court has 4 levels. Food stalls are at the basment and level 1. Level 3 is a restaurant. The second level consists of small shops and is virtually empty most of the time.

There're tables there, air-conditioned too. If we were to use it for future meetings, I think it'll be good if we can patronise the shops there and also clean up after we finish.

Peninsular Plaza or Funan Food Courts are other possible options too.

Both places are not too crowded and are also quite accessible.

Hmmm, the Esplanade there, I think it's not very good there, because you have to walk quite long to the shops at CityLink Mall. And, CityLink Mall only has cafes which sucks blood, so you have to go to Raffles City mall, then you get a foodcourt and fastfood. And the empty space at Esplanade has no tables... We'll have to sit on the floor etc.... Doesn't sound good for me....

I think that China Square place is rather good. There's a Macdonalds there and some stalls open. And, there's virtually no one there nowadays.

Hiazzz.... troublesome....

for the esplanade:

Pros:

Free
Publice Exposure

Cons
MOSQITO :P
NO TABLES AND CHAIRS
May Not Have Space To Sit Down

p.s
police only stop skateboarders B)

Magicdow, didn't see you at the meeting yesterday... B)
Tinkle, do join us for the next outing :)

The China Square food court sounds like a good alternative. I will check it out when I'm in town this week.

Ok, we have a few suggestions and alternatives now:

Pam's place
Youth Council (pending)
Esplanade
Peninsular Plaza or Funan Food Courts
China Square Food Court


Any more?

morph, perhaps we should seriously consider the possibility of acquiring a private place to hold our gatherings? that would be cool.

and maybe any fast food chains or food courts will eventually 'evict' us yeah? so we might have to hop around - a different food centre for each outing.

or a picnic. at west coast park, east coast park, sembawang park...

but i'd definitely look for a private place. it makes SMC look so...

pro.

china square will be nice too ^_^

i think to be fair to every1, we should use different venues.

so we dont use 1 venue all the time, and when the shop owners get irritated, we will get chased out.

I wanted to go but I had guest in my house so........
Anyway, the China Square's 2nd level is always empty as there are no food stalls there. But I think there might be diners using the tables during lunch hours. There's even a massage shop there B)

If were using a public place, we can hold a magic competition, that has no prizes just for the fun of it. and audience could vote informally. hahas.


im find with anwhere. :ph43r:

Hi, I had used citylink area for grp meeting b4. It is free n big but quite noisy and distracting too.

:wacko:

Cool I haven't met any other soul from yew tee in a long long time.
Anyway, the roof terrace of Esplanade is great and free. But no tables, and the cards might fly away or something haha. And I don't know if this is a stupid question...but what's wrong with the place we relocated to ytd? Conference rooms are nice, but they can't beat a space out in the open!

hmm..
the citilink space is sometimes quite empty..
i guess it depends when you go there.

and yeah, i support wy's idea!
except that the place would have no air con, but the wind will make a good subsitute.

i vote for;

Pam's place and chinasquare

:g: empty? :!!:
mabey onli on sundays
the other days are packed with break dancers and other types of dancers
chiors :!!:
sometimes stunt bikers and skateboarders
not a good place IMO
got alot of mosquito sommore
our own room would be good
but if not
i'll vote for chinasquare

take in consideration tat there wont be any laymen around if we meet in a private place.. thus no showing of talent..

maybe strike a deal with a boss of a cafe to allow us to be dere and sometimes do table hopping? juz my 2 cents. :P

We're getting pretty big, so I think it would be great if we could all fork out some $$ to rent/buy/steal a nice place that

-Is in a convenient location

-Has tables, ladders, and chairs

-Has air-conditioning

-Is pretty scarce of nosy laymen

-Can fit all of us and then some

What say you?

-Kev

I really agree with kevin.. We are big can't we just at every outing fork out a bit of cash to rent a room or something.. this outing our group hit 30 pple and I guess if everyone fork out 5 bucks I think we can rent a place for our outing lol... :D

I support the idea of getting a place. It does more seem practical and better.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Coz with money, comes responsibility and management.
Then we are talking about membership fees and such, which is a MAJOR step which I don't think we are ready to take yet.
Buy/Rent a place is definitely NOT possible in the near future. At least till our dream of a "magic diner" comes to pass ;)

I will see if it's possible to get anything out of Youth Council in the meantime.

Anymore bright ideas?

i doubt the citylink space is empty.. once i was there at 10+ on a tues night, where all shops are virtually closed and not much people were "supposed" to be walking around, ... there were breakdancers and jugglers there! :wacko: but ya.. it would depend on the time i guess.

does anyone know where the petal gardens is in bedok reservoir? okay, it's not really centralised. but just a suggestion.. it has chairs and tables which are permanent, one BIG empty space, and a "stage" like thing which is quite huge, and it's shaded at the stage. (so you can run in when it's raining or when it's SO HOT.)

it's mostly empty except for the people who are playing basketball and soccer..

but the problem is it's not centralised. haha.

just a suggestion :) don't really know what all of u need :g:

Hey Morphine, set up a poll and see how many people want which location. Settles stuff faster that way. ;)

Then, the top 2 places, maybe we can try them out someday...

:)

For me now, I'll take China Square. We'll liven up that virtually dead place!

- Ling

I actually wouldn't mind Bedok Reservoir as it is near my house. But can anyone say selfish? For that matter, can anyone say sell lobster? Ha :P Just joking. Seriously, it would only be convenient for me. I would ony be selfish by choosing there. So I think somewhere else would be better unless for some reason everyone like that idea. :)

I strongly protest to Bedok Reservoir!! If it's so far to the east, might as well make it west; there's a fantastic pavillion and void deck just at the 1st storey of my house...-.- I could even open up my house for extra space. -.-

IMO penisula plaza(the one tat ang house of magic is at.. sry if i got iot wrong) is quite a good place... quite empty most of teh time.. its not like jam packed... any thus not muhc lay pple around...

Bottom line is, wherever we go. We had better buy some food each...

Chinatown MacDonalds

Clark Quay (Very Quiet) - Can meet at the satay club area. They will open shop around evening.

Park Lane MacDonalds (At basement one) - Wekend should be little /no people.

SIM - where i study , quite big during the weekends. But its far from the central.

Problem is we are trying to find a place with no management, as Youthpark do have management but their turnover isn't very good on saturday night but they still do not let us stay around too.

Hope to get a nice place for our outing lol me and winder will try to hunt it hopefully to find a good location may take a camera and take the pic of the place if we have time and we will decide lol :D

Hey fellas...

Man... what happened on Sat? Why were we booted out? Details pls, for someone who only heard about it yesterday through SMS... did we buy drinks or did we just use the space and acted like we're having some major illegal gathering, thus scaring the boss of the cafe?

Hmmm... there's 2 ways to do this.

#1: Working out an agreement with the boss
Giving his place publicity as the local magician's hangout joint on every say, first saturay of the month. We can also call New Paper of some other press to give him that kind of publicity. If it works, we get the place FOC and he'd be happy as people may come to see what's up. Downside for us of course, we've got to work on not exposing anything by accident.

#2: Finding a DECENT place of our own
Reviewing the places we have suggested, magicdow's suggestion in Chinatown seems good... but dependent on lots of issues, it may just become like a Youth Park Cafe thigny where we're driven out later.

I personally second MagicalPam's (thanks Pam!) generous offer of his condo/ apartment's facility hall. It's free, and proper - best of both worlds because it also has air-conditioning and it's clean, no worries about dropping your cards on wet dirty floors and there's also chairs and tables.

Like Morphine has said, we can be too picky really. We just choose what we have. SG is small, not like Thailand where you need to take 2 hour car rides to go places (yes, I've dne that before so travelling from one end of SG to the other is nothing compared to that!!!).

That's just my 2 cents worth. I'd vote for Pam's place if we want something stable and reliable in the long run.

Hi all,
We are in a democratic country ( I supposed ), so let's vote,
we may have to consider these factors when voting
1) Location
2) The place must be ideal place to meet and perform
I would not personally like a public place, there are so many people who think that we gamble and even ask the questions
also for some practice we may want to do it between us first before we show to public
actually I have started magic only 2 years ago, and I feel that I progress because I perform so many times in front of others
so, what I encourage would be the place is private and has stage so we could encourage all the members to perform
Any place will do, as long as it meet these 2 requirements

So what's the final decision? I was wondering if it has to be a commercial area...if not, why not just a function room / club house in a condo / community centre? Private and air-conditioned, plus booking fees should be practically negligible, esp if we split it as a grp.

I think rental of a place to hold our meetings would be better..

firstly, SMC has grown bigger due to the publicity from friday weekly. More people join and more people coming to outings..

secondly, a private place would prevent exposure to other laymen from outside.

hm..if all else dun works.How about we book a room or smth in the comunity centre. :)
Heres some of the benefits:its cheaper to book for a room in a CC
No nosy laymen will be around
There are plenty of CC around SG to book
Its air conditioned
The space to fit in all of us shud be fine
Quiet
Lastly,i stil tink Pam place is better since its a house of 1 of the member around us and more quiet.But if you guys wud lik to pick up tis suggestion,i dun mind checking the fees and Places for our meeting.
Cheers~ :g:
-Ming