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Last Batch
Aug. 14th, 2022 10:45 amBefore Westercon 74, we did a mailing of Progress Report 5 to all members. In that case, we only sent paper copies to those people who requested them. For the Program Book, we felt obliged to send program books to every member (including supporting members) who did not attend. That obviously excludes the handful of people who did not give us valid mailing addresses. (If any of them contact us, we can print more.) The PR5 mailing was before the last postal rate hike, so we bought extra stamps estimating how many members would attend and how many we would have to mail. As you probably know, we underestimated attendance, so we had a lot more to mail than we expected. We only had to print about 25 more program books, but we did need more postage.
Ideally, we wanted a lot of the Ursula K. Le Guin 3-ounce stamps, because the postage on a program book was the equivalent of two Le Guin stamps. But small-town post offices like Fernley don't carry that many of those stamps, and once we worked out how many more stamps we needed after we ran through what we had, it turned out that Fernley did not have enough. We mailed what we could with what we had (including using some first-ounce and additional-ounce stamps that we had), then ordered what we needed for the rest. The last batch of stamps arrived yesterday.
( Final Batch Ready to Go )
So the final batch of program books will go into the mail tomorrow, August 15. I feel pretty good about getting that mailing done only about six weeks after the convention, but apparently that's not good enough for one member. I've seen a letter they sent (not a public online post, so I can't cite it) complaining about how inept our convention was because as of three weeks post-convention, we hadn't mailed publications. That person was also angry that we didn't have a masquerade or an art show (despite us having told people long ago that we wouldn't have them), and complaining that we didn't tell anyone that we would have an open bar (despite us having not only talked about it in the newsletter and elsewhere, and despite it being absurdly obvious if you were in the convention center Main Hall), and that we didn't do anything about taking advantage of the "haunted" Mizpah (despite having an entire paranormal programming track), and that there were no costumes by anyone except him (despite me personally having been presented with a Hall Costume award for my Sheriff of Westercon costume), and that we must be incompetent because the barbecue was cancelled and there was nobody keeping the convention center open over night the first night (obviously having one of our three deputy heads of Hospitality having been exposed to COVID-19 and needed to take care of his mother who had caught it, and another one having had a heart attack a week before the convention, leaving us with only two of the four members of the Hospitality team management available was irrelevant and a sign of our base incompetence, and since we must have had vast amounts of money we should have to much more like provide free cheeseburgers around the clock, and so on and so on and so one. It makes me really wonder what convention he attended. I rather expect he thinks that publications cost nothing to print, and that the food in the Main Hall probably only cost a couple of dollars. I hope he tries to run a convention sometime and learns how things work.
I will be very happy to get these publications out to the rest of our members while NASFiC site selection is open, as both bids (including the now-folded Orlando bid) have advertisements in the Program Book. Besides, as a member of Winnipeg's bid committee, I personally paid for its ads in PR 5 and the Program Book, and I want all of our Westercon members to see the ads.
Ideally, we wanted a lot of the Ursula K. Le Guin 3-ounce stamps, because the postage on a program book was the equivalent of two Le Guin stamps. But small-town post offices like Fernley don't carry that many of those stamps, and once we worked out how many more stamps we needed after we ran through what we had, it turned out that Fernley did not have enough. We mailed what we could with what we had (including using some first-ounce and additional-ounce stamps that we had), then ordered what we needed for the rest. The last batch of stamps arrived yesterday.
( Final Batch Ready to Go )
So the final batch of program books will go into the mail tomorrow, August 15. I feel pretty good about getting that mailing done only about six weeks after the convention, but apparently that's not good enough for one member. I've seen a letter they sent (not a public online post, so I can't cite it) complaining about how inept our convention was because as of three weeks post-convention, we hadn't mailed publications. That person was also angry that we didn't have a masquerade or an art show (despite us having told people long ago that we wouldn't have them), and complaining that we didn't tell anyone that we would have an open bar (despite us having not only talked about it in the newsletter and elsewhere, and despite it being absurdly obvious if you were in the convention center Main Hall), and that we didn't do anything about taking advantage of the "haunted" Mizpah (despite having an entire paranormal programming track), and that there were no costumes by anyone except him (despite me personally having been presented with a Hall Costume award for my Sheriff of Westercon costume), and that we must be incompetent because the barbecue was cancelled and there was nobody keeping the convention center open over night the first night (obviously having one of our three deputy heads of Hospitality having been exposed to COVID-19 and needed to take care of his mother who had caught it, and another one having had a heart attack a week before the convention, leaving us with only two of the four members of the Hospitality team management available was irrelevant and a sign of our base incompetence, and since we must have had vast amounts of money we should have to much more like provide free cheeseburgers around the clock, and so on and so on and so one. It makes me really wonder what convention he attended. I rather expect he thinks that publications cost nothing to print, and that the food in the Main Hall probably only cost a couple of dollars. I hope he tries to run a convention sometime and learns how things work.
I will be very happy to get these publications out to the rest of our members while NASFiC site selection is open, as both bids (including the now-folded Orlando bid) have advertisements in the Program Book. Besides, as a member of Winnipeg's bid committee, I personally paid for its ads in PR 5 and the Program Book, and I want all of our Westercon members to see the ads.
