Because I Haven't Posted Enough Train Photos Lately

Just because I haven't mentioned it doesn't mean we've stopped looking at the trains going past our house. Yesterday we had one of those "rainbow fleet" moments, thanks to BNSF using run-through power and needing to switch an older locomotive into the consist of a through train.

( Let's Hear it for the Rainbow Fleet )

More photos of the operation are available if you click through any of those above.

After collecting the smaller locomotive, the BNSF crew proceeded to switch the yard, pulling and dropping cars, before proceeding on their way west toward Stockton and Richmond.

In other news, I still am not that well, and based on my past performance with colds, am likely to be dealing with bronchitis for a long time to come. I guess it's just as well that I'm not likely to have much time to go to parties at Sasquan; it gives me less of an opportunity to infect other people.

Worldcon/NASFiC Financial Reports Published

Worldcons and NASFiCs with "reportable surplus funds" are required to report annually to the WSFS Business Meeting. The reportable amount is not every bit of money those groups have from any source. It only covers the money they received from running their WSFS event. Once they have spent everything that they took in running their event, their reporting responsibility ends. It's quite common for groups to have income from sources other than their event, and furthermore any interest income after their event is over is not reportable.

All WSFS events with reportable surpluses have made their required reports to WSFS. The WSFS conventions financial reports are now on the Sasquan web site in the Business Meeting/Committee Reports section.

Of particular interest is that the Millennium Philcon (2001) has finally managed to dispose of the remainder of its surplus. They had just short of $46,000 reportable, and elected to "round up" (using the non-reportable funds) a pair of grants to Sasquan (2015) and MidAmericon II (2016), $23,000 each.

Groups have different fiscal years and reporting periods. WSFS does not regulate this. Thus the various financial reports have different closing dates. This means that while MilPhil shows that they have completed their WSFS reporting requirements by issuing those $23,000 grants, the money was obviously paid after both those groups closed their current reporting periods, and therefore they won't show the income until their next reports, which will be to the 2016 Worldcon.

I know this all sounds boring, but I want everyone to understand that neither the "rounding up" of MilPhil's reportable surplus nor the fact that you see money going out one place but not coming in where the first report says it should be is not the sign of anything nefarious going on. Anyone who reads more into this than simply "different reporting periods" is just looking for trouble.

Although Worldcon are required to submit financial reports to the Business Meeting, there is no requirement that anyone from those Worldcons attend the meeting to submit to questions. Furthermore, with the large amount of business on the agenda this year, I'm not really in the mood to spend a lot of meeting time discussing these financial reports. Direct your questions about the reports to the individual committees, who by rule now have to include contact information in their reports.