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Reclaiming the Living Room
Aug. 9th, 2022 04:28 pmIn the weeks leading up to Westercon 74, as we started printing first Progress Report 5 and then the at-con publications, we set up tables in the living room at Fernley House to assemble those publications, and then to pack stuff for Westercon. Returning from the convention, we still had boxes of stuff, albeit less than what we took to Tonopah, and we still had obligations. We needed to print a few more program books to cover the need to send publications to all of those members who did not attend, including the supporting members, and we then needed to put together the mailing itself. My trip to the Bay Area that turned into an involuntary vacation gave Lisa a little extra time to collate and assemble the last of the program books. I worked out that I could print directly on the 9 x 12 envelopes in which we mailed the paper copies, and over last weekend I stuffed envelopes.
We turned out to be a little short of postage. Ideally, the post-con mailings would use two three-ounce "forever" stamps (the Ursula K. Le Guin design), but we ran the Fernley post office out of those. I mailed most of the packages yesterday. There are more of the Le Guin stamps on order, so sometime in the next couple of days, I'll finish putting postage on the last envelopes and get them into the mail, and that will be Westercon 74's final major obligation finished. All of the packages are going by first class mail, so they should all be in the hands of the members by sometime next week. I considered that important because there are paid ads from the 2023 NASFiC bids, and even though Orlando has since withdrawn from the race, we did run their ad as well as Winnipeg's, and I wanted those publications in all of our members' hands before the deadline for voting on the 2023 NASFiC.
A few people won't get packages. A handful of members did not provide us with valid paper mail addresses. An even smaller number gave us neither valid paper or email addresses, and did not attend the convention, either. For those groups, there really isn't much we can do except thank them for their contribution to Westercon 74.
As I finished parts of the post-con mailing, I was able to reduce the number of boxes and put away the large folding table. We still don't have the entire living room back, but we have some hope that we'll have it all cleared away in time to pack for our Worldcon trip, the start of which is now less than three weeks away.
In the end, I found that I had one program book left. When I told Lisa that, she said, "That's good, because I don't think I ever picked up my own copy!"
We turned out to be a little short of postage. Ideally, the post-con mailings would use two three-ounce "forever" stamps (the Ursula K. Le Guin design), but we ran the Fernley post office out of those. I mailed most of the packages yesterday. There are more of the Le Guin stamps on order, so sometime in the next couple of days, I'll finish putting postage on the last envelopes and get them into the mail, and that will be Westercon 74's final major obligation finished. All of the packages are going by first class mail, so they should all be in the hands of the members by sometime next week. I considered that important because there are paid ads from the 2023 NASFiC bids, and even though Orlando has since withdrawn from the race, we did run their ad as well as Winnipeg's, and I wanted those publications in all of our members' hands before the deadline for voting on the 2023 NASFiC.
A few people won't get packages. A handful of members did not provide us with valid paper mail addresses. An even smaller number gave us neither valid paper or email addresses, and did not attend the convention, either. For those groups, there really isn't much we can do except thank them for their contribution to Westercon 74.
As I finished parts of the post-con mailing, I was able to reduce the number of boxes and put away the large folding table. We still don't have the entire living room back, but we have some hope that we'll have it all cleared away in time to pack for our Worldcon trip, the start of which is now less than three weeks away.
In the end, I found that I had one program book left. When I told Lisa that, she said, "That's good, because I don't think I ever picked up my own copy!"
