So you’ve been selected to coordinate retreat, congrats! Below is a general guide to what you need to do for this position, along with a link to the emails I sent as coordinator and other useful goodies.
Essentially, you are in charge of:
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Airbnb is your friend for finding locations, and hosts tend to be okay with a theater group from MIT. Given the fact you’ll probably have 16+ people, the host will probably reach out to ask questions about how many people and the purpose of the visit. Be honest, say we are the Shakespeare Ensemble, mention why we are going on retreat and also definitely mention that it is completely dry. Sample images of my conversation with the hosts from last year are below (also, these hosts really liked us and would probably be willing to host us again).
When finding a place, make sure to find out if there’s a kitchen (cooking is more economical and fun than ordering food), how many beds there are, if there seems to be a nice common room for hanging out and SWANKY, if there’s car parking, and when quiet hours are. Other than that, just pick a place you’d be happy spending a weekend and people will be happy.
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Once you have a weekend, location, and final headcount, it’s important to make sure we can get to retreat. This is usually done via cars, although horse-drawn carriage or running are also viable options. This is the page on how to rent from Budget or Avis using the MIT code and such, which I always copied into the email I sent to drivers. I expanded upon it a bit when I emailed the drivers to tell them to reserve cars, and the exact expansion I used can be found in the email templates below. We’ve found that one or two more normal sedan-sized cars ends up being much less expensive than any number of SUVs, so unless you REALLY need it, I would recommend more smaller cars (also check pricing to see if it’s changed, this is just my experience). Also note that those who reserve a car need to have someone with a credit card there to pay for it; Budget and Avis don’t accept Debit cards when renting cars. Have the drivers reserve the cars for when they can pick them up, and if you can, at this point try to assign people to specific cars so you get a sense of how many cars/drivers you’ll need. Once the drivers have reserved their car, have them forward you the reservation email and mark how much it costs on the budget doc you are totally keeping.
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And that’s how to plan a retreat. As mentioned, below are sample emails, chats to Airbnb owners, and other potentially useful documents for you to use if you feel like it. Enjoy coordinating!
Useful Info: