• Currently in the State of California, there is no mandate for mask wearing, social distancing or other covid-related restrictions. This is similarly true for the City of Santa Barbara. It is very likely that staff and city employees of the city or state will not be wearing masks.
• It is likely that we have near 100% fully vaccinated rate in the building. The City staff will have been mandated to be vaccinated. The vast majority of the employees of institutions represented have mandates for vaccination. All international guests, as a condition of entering the USA, will have been vaccinated. Many will also have been boosted.
• While masking is legally optional, we ask that if you are sitting down inside watching a talk or being fairly passive then please put on a mask. If you are a member of the audience and asking a question, please wear a mask. Where you can, wear a mask. But also be aware that there are many reasons that someone may not wear a mask, including lung disease, cardiovascular conditions and recent covid, flu or other respiratory virus infection. If someone is not wearing a mask, please do not hassle them. It may be uncomfortable for someone to reveal a pre-existing medical condition they may not wish to share publicly. We are all reasonable adults who are capable of making decisions for the protection of others, so to repeat: Where you can, wear a mask. But do not judge people if they cannot or do not. We will have some on-hand if you forget yours but also there is a CVS pharmacy one block north on State Street from Carillo Street. We’ve all been doing this for a couple of years, so you know the drill – N95 is best, surgical is pretty good, cloth is better than nothing. Masking is less important outside and while eating and drinking but in the inside areas where we will be spending lots of time, that is where it is most important.
• There are three separate regions of the conference. There is the outside area next to the Founder’s Room, which is infinitely ventilated. There is the Founder’s Room, which has nine double doors which shall be opened – this is where break times are to be held. These are the least covid dangerous areas. It is also the case that both the welcoming reception and conference dinner are to be held in the open air.
• The Meeting Room is different for a variety of reasons, but the main one would be that we will be spending much of our time there, so needs more consideration. It has eight windows all of which will be partially opened to create a permanent cross-breeze between the street on two sides, the lobby and the front courtyard. There are openings on all side of the room, so there is no deadzone for air. In addition to this, there is a mechanical HVAC system in the building that is set to bring fresh air in actively (it does not recycle air). Also we will be providing a HEPA air purifier rated for the room size that will be positioned near the speakers area. The one exception to our suggested mask behaviour is if you are the primary speaker, but that decision is also up to the speaker themselves. Between the levels of ventilation, air purification, vaccination and mask wearing, we expect the risk due to covid will be low. However, if you do consider this still to be too high risk for your own safety, you are more than welcome to sit in the founders room (or in the outside courtyard) and log into the conference via zoom to lower your risk even further. We will provide a big screen sharing the zoom stream in this area also.
• Unless you have had an active covid infection in the last 90 days, please endeavour to undertake a RAT test before attending each day of the conference. These are also available at the CVS north on State Street. This is the simplest way to check whether you are infected and infectious. The easiest way to protect us all against covid is not to bring it into the building in the first place.

Filtered water is available at the venue. Optimally, each of us would have their own water bottle to fill up. Given that most of us are from out of town, we will provide recyclable cups.

Less exciting beverages includes mochas, hot chocolate, tea and chai in combination with americanos, espresso and cappuccino, lattes along with flavored syrup….

To facilitate people mingling and chatting before the conference and during morning and afternoon tea, we will have a barista stationed on site from 8am in the morning until after the end of morning tea (usually about 11am and a bit). They will also be around for afternoon break and afternoon tea (roughly 2:30-4:30pm). If you can, please attend this – even if just to get a free coffee and hide behind one of the nice trees in our outdoor break area 🙂 Realistically it is also the easiest way to get yourself a decent morning beverage without standing in long queues with Santa Barbara people getting themselves to work. AND… it is free!

Photo: Our outdoor break area.

Outside of these times, if you really really need coffee or a beverage of your choice (and some of us do!), Handlebar Coffee Roasters is half a block away and recommended.

To facilitate people mingling and chatting during morning and afternoon tea, we will be providing some nice snacks from various Santa Barbara establishments during morning tea (roughly at some point between 10pm and 11pm each day) and afternoon tea (roughly at some point between 3:30pm and 4:30pm each day). The morning tea is more savoury, the afternoon tea is more sweet but different each time. This will be served in our indoor break area – the “Founders Room” and you can mingle indoors or the outdoor courtyard (which is adjacent) during the break. Use your discretion… if there looks like there is about 50 of something special, that usually means one each! Make sure everyone has gotten their first round before jumping back for seconds!

If you get peckish outside breaks, we will endeavor to provide a range of fresh fruit and other less perishable snack items.

To facilitate people not going completely batty from being in the same place for too long and to help rejuvenate mid-meeting, you are expected to go out into the wider world for lunch breaks. These are 1 hour and 45 minutes long and have been extended in length based upon prior feedback. If you re-energize in the company of people, band together and go out to one of the many fabulous lunch spots on State Street and it’s surrounds. If you re-energize alone, grab a take-away sandwich and go and find a tree and have a nap in the sun. Technically you could even walk 25 minutes down to the beach, have a sunbake for 30 minutes and then walk 25 minutes back, if you re-energize by the beach. You are absolutely more than welcome to stay in the conference venue during any part of the lunch period, you could grab take-away lunch and eat it in the outdoor break area or the founders room if you like. Or if you are particularly lazy or engrossed in conversation… your favourite app based food delivery service!