I think mode of transportation is something to consider; for those of us in South/Eastern Ontario, most of the cities are relatively reachable within a few hours by ground (excepting Sudbury, unfortunately).
However, for those out-of-province coming via air transport, Kingston is at least 2h from the closest major airport (Ottawa). [NB: don't get me wrong; as a Queen's graduate, I love Kingston very much]. So, in the name of practicality, one of the larger cities -- Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal -- probably makes the most sense. It may be a bit less interesting for some, but at the same time, we could always pick one of the smaller cities for our second meet-up. Just my $0.02CAD. MJ PS. for air travel, Porter airlines is an excellent regional carrier, servicing Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Newark, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, and Toronto (among others). On 2010-01-20, at 10:05 AM, Edward M. Corrado wrote: > I agree that the sooner a space and date can be decided the better. While > Sudbury would probably be nice, it would be a tough sell because of the > distance from me (9.5 hrs). The others are all doable. Any ideas on how we > should decide? Some sort of ranked list? I personally would enjoy going back > to Montreal and I'd like to visit Ottawa, but Kingston is the closest. > > As far as dates, I'd personally like it to be on a Monday or Friday, this way > I would only have to take one (or 1.5) days off from work, and, I can take > the weekend to explore. (BTW: I'd like Monday better than Friday, but either > would be better than a Tuesday or Wednesday (Thursday being my third choice). > I guess I could do a weekend as well, but I would think most people would > rather it be during the week, > > Edward > > > > David Fiander wrote: >> So far on the wiki the proposals for the location range from the >> center of known space to "let's all visit Dan!": >> >> - Toronto >> - Kingston >> - Ottawa >> - Sudbury >> - Montreal >> >> Given some of the far-flung people who have expressed interest in the >> meeting, including some people in Wisconsin (!), it would be >> interesting to figure out the weighted average travel time required >> for all of these locations, but I suspect that that would just mean we >> end up in Toronto, again. >> >> I just added Montreal to the list, just because, hey, it's Montreal! >> But then, we'd have to find somebody at McGill to act as our host. >> >> If we're going to be meeting in April/May, then it's probably time to >> start the discussion about site selection so that when the decision is >> made, the hosts will have time to make the arrangements and so that >> people travelling have enough lead time to make cheap travel >> arrangements. >> >> - David >>