World-Class Hospitality Challenge
Nothing pleases Mensans more than a challenge. Our members flock to
game competitions, they spend hours matching puzzle pieces, they dissect
words like brain surgeons searching for the Fantastic Voyage’s
Proteus, and they can enumerate a hundred different ways to
perform the same task. A huge challenge for the World Gathering 2006
committee, aside from providing exciting programs, stimulating tours
and surroundings conducive to what we do best — talk —
is to enhance all that with warm hospitality.
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Every gathering, whether it is a regional gathering with 150
attendees or an annual gathering with 1,500 Mensans, faces this
challenge. Some venues, at least in times past, have had an "anything
goes" attitude; others have placed a long list of restrictions on what
the group can and cannot bring into the Hospitality area. The WG06
venue, Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, falls somewhere toward
the more limited side.
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Our challenge is to offer an array of food items that are
nonperishable and prepackaged but tasty, nourishing and fun. How to
please Mensans who have enjoyed a plethora of foods, both homemade and
cooked on the premises, when those options don’t exist for the
2006 event? How to ensure that the Hospitality area is not only
welcoming but boasts interesting edibles and drinkables to please most
everyone? If we’re not serving meals in the Hospitality area, what
do we do to help Mensans feed their bodies while they feed their
brains?
A big challenge? You betcha! Impossible? Absolutely not! Our
Hospitality area at the Coronado is huge — 11,000 square
feet. Enough room for the Mensa Boutique, entertainment, Internet kiosks
and the International Lounge as well as our snack and beverage
offerings. It’s where you'll go to meet your friends, nosh, relax,
plan your trips to the Disney parks and decide which program to go to
next. It’s the Popola Placo (Esperanto for people’s place).
It will be the busiest location at the Coronado, all day, every day.
Snack types will change and there will be surprises. The basic
food/drink menu is posted in the Food
FAQ.
For actual meals, the Coronado has two full restaurants on site, the
Maya Grill and the Pepper Market. The latter is a "have it your way"
type of restaurant where you can build your own meal from the variety of
menu items, as much or as little as you wish. There is also an outtakes
store where you can purchase salads and sandwiches to eat at lakeside
tables and chairs. Hop onto the free shuttles to the Disney parks and
you have dozens of eateries from which to choose. You don’t have
to go outside the parks to find inexpensive eats.
But back to Hospitality: This is your challenge too. Now that you
know the limitations, put your creativity to work and make suggestions
to me or to our Hospitality Chair regarding what you would like to see
in the Popola Placo. All suggestions will be considered. Pushing the
envelope is encouraged! Let’s make Hospitality at the World
Gathering truly of the people.
Elissa
Rudolph
Chair, WG06
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