Europe meet-up. Would you be interested?

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So if you are actually getting HFA / Aspies there, why is the whole thing designed in such a manner which appears to be more for low functioning people? Asides I have merely asked questions really in this thread and offered suggestions as to why it might not be the best of ideas. The fact that few low functioning people seem not to go kind of seems indicative of my clique argument, if they did show then they would be surrounded by a load of HFA people who could expect too much of them - hence putting them off. Have you actually asked any "low functioning auties" why they don't come?

I'd prefer it in Sweden. (Duh. ^^) And tents rocks.
I can guide you myself since I spend a lot of time out in the woods, and around 75% of swedens population speaks good english.

^^yeah there seems to be quite a bit of Scandinavians on WP, maybe you guys should organise an alternative meet-up somewhere there? that would be a lot closer for me (and I speak Swedish so hopefully you'd count me in )

Sounds like an interesting idea. More details would be interesting to hear

If there are Israelis, I'm not coming to Autscape.

I swear I read that as ""will shower, though"

Actually, having you as a room mate, ouinon, was to be the fun part!

I will though, shower, I mean.
.

Last edited by ouinon on 08 Feb 2009, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If I do go and we share a room, I promise to shower too!

Re Autscape: we have a classic Israeli song that says (KenG will correct me if my memory fails me):

"Good-bye, I'm travelling
I don't want you to accompany me any further
Not that I have any illusions about London
London's not waiting for me
There too, I shall be alone
But in London there are more films
In London there is good music
In London the TV is excellent
In London the people are more polite
So if to die like a b***h
at least watch TV that can be called TV"

ouinon: Thank you for the information about Autscape. I think it sounds really interesting, and it might be a convenient time and place for me...I´m strongly considering going. At the moment, I have a special-interest-like fascination with AS and autism, so all the lectures and stuff would be quite cool.

I also agree with what you said about organizing something...if someone else wants to organize another Wrong Planet get together, I would be interested in going too. But I don´t think I can do much organizing myself.

There should be no organizing involved. On this thread we gauge the interest re attendance, and the preferences re time, budget, location and venue. According to that, a place and a date are set by whoever sets them first, and everyone is on their own from there re bookings. Certainly nobody should make a deposit for others or talk to the venue on behalf of others. I don't see a need for any more organizing than this. We can't compare the amount of organizing that goes into an event with hundreds or even tens of participants in a convention with lectures, etc. to a meet-up of 10-20 people at the most to relax picniquing on the lawn of some B&B for a couple days.

*wonders if there'll be 10-20 laptops on the lawn with 20-40 index fingers vigorously tapping away posts on WP*

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I have a dream that all of us will one day live in a world where we will not be judged by the country of our residence but by the content of our character" - KenG

Tell that to the poor Palestinian children who have been shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. Sorry you might have to tell their parents, shooting children in the head does not tend to have a good affect. Or maybe their grandparents, because their parents also were murdered by the state of Israel. What a nice state you lot run.

I encourage everyone here not to buy anything with a barcode beginning in 729.

i've been to autscape before (actually i've been to all of them), i'll try and write a bit about it but i am finding this thread overwhelming (and wp in general) so please dont ask me lots of questions! i've never been one of the organisers but have known many of them a long time, i guess it all dates back to about 1997 and some of the first autism / AS message boards and email lists on the net. ever since then we'd all wanted to have some sort of european autism event, it just took until 2005 to actually happen.

people there are generally high functioning to very high functioning (i say that relative to the obvious problem that there's no meaningful way to categorise and classify functioningness anyway - this is even more obvious at autscape!). the first year some of us were lower-functioning but they seem to have given up and by last year i felt like lowest functioning person there, i did miss them. i think it's true to say that the organisers would like to have more of a fair spread of functioning levels, but i don't think anyone knows how to do it, and it might require funding. so for now theres a strong highly-functioning bias.

there's talks and presentations in the morning/afternoon, discussion groups in the afternoon/evening, on autism-related issues, usually practical ones. in the evenings its a bit random, sometimes there's dvds on, often autism related again (eg mozart and the whale). though once there was a star trek evening, and a doctor who evening, you never quite know what to expect!

if you enjoy academic conferences, or religious retreats, you'll like autscape. or if you are the sort of person who finds there own way to enjoy things and makes their own holiday, its good for that. if you want drinking and entertainment and pre-packaged fun it's probably not your sort of thing. if you are seriously thinking of arranging a meet up then it's worth going just to see what it's like, and to copy some ideas. you might in particular want to copy the coloured badge system, there's probably details of it on the website somewhere.

KenG, you must know, I'm sure, that we Israelis love traveling to London when there are no other Israelis there! It's even a source of boasting. We say: "We had a wonderful time in London and there were practically no other Israelis around!" It's not a judgement against a nation, though. We just like to push our trolley into people at the airport passport line but not have others push theirs into us.

I really want to go to that autscape it sounds really interesting. Also I've heard the majority are high functioning aspies there which will be good because I won't feel out of place lol
But the problem is, under 18s have to go with an adult and I don't think my mum would want to go, and I don't think I could persuade her because it always turns into an argument

I will go I think as it looks really good

It will be great to talk about diet and parenting and even better to delight in being away from the kids!