Would you like a Gransnet trip?

Yes I'd go on a Gransnet trip/holiday.
I've read the OP as referring to a holiday/short break.
I've mobility problems, I'd still be very interested.

I'd be up for a bespoke GN holiday/trip. Lets face it, with the numbers involved a big GN 'conference' is probably never going to happen and but an organised tour, or whatever, for interested parties would. It's difficult enough to organise meet ups to suit a dozen+ people, but with a set date/price/location/number, it probably would work. There will always be someone with whom you have a connection and equally someone with whom you have none at all. Fact of life! I'd be up for exotic climes, but equally a European city break would appeal. Give it a whirl GN and see what the response is.

The OP refers to Colette which is a tour company so presumably it would be they who organise the bespoke trip.

So just like any other tour, if you like the itinerary and prices then you can book.

People seem to be getting a bit carried away worrying about the logistics!

Given that Gransnet is open to all, and probably has many more members than the relatively few who post, what would be the criteria for joining such a holiday?

Further to my previous post on trains & travel lodge ladies, I did a quick recce and as an example found a lodge in Manchester (£30), Birmingham(£36) and York (£40) Monday 4th March and there’s bound to be a weatherspoons with a dinner & breakfast for £7.50 each.

I checked Trainline for me (north Wales) and it would be around £20 return with my senior railcard. So £75 plus whatever else I choose to spend which I would be happy with.

I appreciate that we all have different budgets/priorities but thought it worth a few minutes effort to see how viable it is. I welcome all input on the above and alternative options.

Would we not need a fleet of buses?

Surely the logistics would be within the tour company's remit. I have only been on one coach/ferry trip (down the Western Isles) but the drop off and pick-ups of passengers from various locations and stops for mid-day meals were all organised very efficiently by 'the office' and facilitated by our driver/guide.

The trip was only for 7 days/6 nights but during that time we all became firm friends.

Granny23 I think you are onto something - but I would hate to be the one doing the logistics of seats, fares, timings, catering and so on.

Mamissimo We christened our Scottish all-day meet-up a "conference" because we booked a conference room for it (and got per-person delegate prices, which worked out slightly better than booking room, food, projector etc) Referring to "going to a conference" sounded more important than meeting a lot of other old women for a blether.

I think a few days climbing the Brecon Beacons in Wales ?

I'm sure you'd be allowed to bring a friend with you if being alone with strangers or single supplements worried you.

I think its a great idea!

I haven’t even managed a local meet up yet I think I would find it too difficult to be thrown in with lots and lots of unknown ladies as nice as it sounds

Maybe finding a "central" venue has less to do with distance and more to do with rail links?
Couldn't help being amused that York is too far north. Good rail access, isn't there?
However, Inverness may just be too far north for most!

A few days abroad sounds good but significantly more expensive if a long train journey is needed to get to the airport!?
Certainly worth investigating.

Crikey! Where did the conference element come from? I was thinking more in terms of 1 hotel or possibly a hall of residence at a university outside term time, and an informal and sociable meet for an overnight.

My thinking was that many of us who might be interested in a holiday might like to meet a few more Gnetters before committing. There’s a huge difference between a social media forum where everyone hides behind anonimity and a holiday with people unknown who are also on social media.

I wouldn’t go on a Facebook holiday ? but I might be interested in a GN trip if I found the real people to be compatible. I wasn’t calling for a national congress ?

It feels like some posters are interested and others are listing reasons to not do it.
Having been to lots of GN meet ups and also involved in helping plan them I've never met a Gran I didn't like or get on with sufficiently well to enjoy a weekend break with.
(Note: Burns lunch next Friday. 11 booked so far. I can add more names up till next Thursday. See relevant thread if interested.)

What about a round Britain Bus Tour? People could book up for all or part of it and there could be lunch time get togethers for local Gransnetters at various stops along the route.

What about Manchester? Birmingham?

That was what I read, Pittcity, but the conversation seems to have become more about a monster meetup than a holiday.

I think HQ were thinking more of a holiday organised by a travel company just for GNs.
It would be like joining a group trip where you don't know anyone. Sounds like fun. I've never met a GN that I really dislike....disagree maybe.

We learnt a lot at our 20-strong conference (well, I did, as I was the one who organised it and discovered the hard way what worked)

Mix people up and don't have large groups who all know each other sitting together all the time.
Have an ice-breaker to begin things. At one of our Christmas do's we had to find the answers to a list of questions, which involved milling around speaking to a lot of others and finding things out about them.
Have active participation in some things, sitting listening to presentations on others, space for blethering built in between fixed things.
Keep it moving!

I don't want to be a wet-blanket, but it is one thing to advocate several regional get-togethers, but who is invisaged as planning and organising them all? It is like drawing teeth to get volunteers, and GNHQ have plenty to do already. Adding one holiday (probably done by a travel agent!) is one thing, setting up one country-wide meetup would be a vast amount of work, let along half-a-dozen or so.

Not sure, when I was working I attended a similar event run by the company Women's Network, independent but funded.

I hated it, found it very isolating and with 90 people there it was too big to be friendly, just glaciers bumping into each other and then bumping off.

Not all of Scotland is in Edinburgh either,
Edinburgh - Inverness = 155 miles.
Edinburgh - Inverary = 110 miles.

I mean that people travel to the "ordinary" meetups here in Edinburgh from Glasgow, from the coast of Argyll (car to station, change trains in Glasgow) and from some distance north of Aberdeen. We have had lunch meets in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Inverary, not to mention those in St Andrews and Thornton. People came to those from all over Scotland, and indeed have come from the midlands of #England, not just from the north. If people want to meet, they will come.

By a holiday in the area where a "conference" takes place, I don't mean that they travel there just to see strangers. They could travel for a week in a place in the Uk that they have never visited before, and spend part of one day of it putting face to names and the other six and a half sight-seeing.

If travel abroad becomes fraught after Brexit/noBrexit, a holiday in the UK may become cheaper and easier to do that flying to faraway places!

It will become clear though when everyone has had their say.