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kevin_standleeLisa and I did not rush this morning, because there were only three remaining pieces of WSFS business for today's "overflow" final meeting. However, when we got to Crystal Ballroom B, we found that it had been reset for the Closing Ceremony happening later in the day, and the previously unoccupied area from which Lisa had been recording was full of chairs. It's fortunate that we got there as early as we did, because we then had to move a bunch of chairs around to create an area from which Lisa could record, which meant also moving other chairs away from near her "camera nest," so people wouldn't sit nearby and ruin the audio. When Jared Dashoff arrived, Lisa consulted with him, and Jared agreed that everything in the back half of the room was officially out of bounds. Sure enough, a couple of times, people started to park themselves in the back of the room, and I would tell them, "If you sit back here, you are considered furniture." It was not as though the front half of the room was crowded. With all but three items disposed of, turnout today was light.
Here's the recording of today's meeting.
Once again, consult the Business Meeting Agenda for the item references.
Earlier this weekend, Item F.6, which addresses the distinction between professional and fan artists, was sent to a special committee chaired by Sara Felix and Lisa Hertel. This left items F.5, F.7, and F.8 untouched.
Item F.5 was a more general set of proposed rules on defining what is "professional" and what is "fan" work. There appeared to be a consensus that this also needed to go to the "F.6 Committee" to try and reconcile things, but working out how to instruct the committee was a challenge. The meeting thus resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole to more informally discuss the instructions to include with a referral to the F.6 Committee.
The referral to a COTW, with deputy chair Jesi Lipp presiding, led to an amusing exchange. Per standard procedure, the meeting chair is not supposed to stay on the head table during a COTW, and Jesi told Jared to get off the stage. Someone from the floor called out, "Jesi Lipp says, 'You can't sit here!'"
Fortunately for all of us, Jesi took very good notes and distilled down all of the instructions that the COTW adopted as its report to the main meeting. Those instructions were:
The main meeting agreed to the recommendations of the COTW, and F.5 was sent to join F.6, with the committee also instructed to report recommendations to next year's Business Meeting.
F.7 was a proposal to put restrictions on to Best Series, so that if an individual work that is part of a series won a Hugo Award, the series itself would be ineligible. After debate, attempted amendments, and an attempt to send this to another committee for additional work, the proposal itself was rejected on a uncounted show of hands.
The final substantive proposal, F.8, also was attempting to restrict a series from being shortlisted if a part of that series was on the ballot during the same year. By now the meeting was in my opinion showing how tired it was getting, and debate was cut off before the full twenty minutes was exhausted. The meeting rejected F.8 on a counted serpentine vote, 23-32.
So in the end, none of the proposals considered today passed. One was referred to committee, and the other two failed outright.
What was left were courtesy resolutions, announcements, and thank yous. I gained the floor and finally got to give Jared an engraved gavel with his name and first year chairing on it that I was going to give him back in 2016 after his first time chairing the Business Meeting. Jared had been in such a tearing hurry in Kansas City to adjourn the final meeting that he closed us out before I could make the presentation. I did not want to give it to him "off stage," so I waited. For six years.
The meeting thanked lots of people. I got in a specific thank-you to Lisa for having to work under far more challenging circumstances than she ever expected.
With all the thank-yous said and the gifts presented, we adjourned sine die ("without date," closing the parliamentary session and thus concluding this year's series of meetings) with time to spare before we would have been thrown out of the room to allow the reset for the Closing Ceremonies to continue. I recruited people to help us reset the chairs that we'd moved. Lisa packed up, and I retrieved the Gavel of WSFS from Jared, asking Jesi Lipp to tell convention chair Helen Montgomery that I'd get it to her and the stage in time for Closing. There was still one more WSFS function left.
At 1 PM, the WSFS Mark Protection Committee met for its first meeting of the new term, which is somewhat confusingly the second meeting at the Worldcon. Chair Jo Van Eckern had declined to stand for reelection to the committee, so I temporarily presided as I was Vice Chair last term. I admitted that the Westercon I'd chaired was behind me, and that was why I stepped down as Chair several years ago. Without objection or any other candidates, the MPC elected me to Chair for this term. They also elected Donald Eastlake Vice Chair, Linda Deneroff as Secretary, and Bruce Farr as Treasurer. Bruce is not an elected member, but is a non-voting director appointed by Worldcon Intellectual Property, the non-profit corporation that the MPC created to hold our marks in places that don't understand unincorporated associations. WIP's board of directors consists of the members of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, but its bylaws require at least one California resident be on the board. When I moved to Nevada, WIP no longer had any Californians on the board, so ever since then, we have appointed Bruce as a non-voting member to meet the bylaw requirement.
The WSFS MPC meeting set up our plans for the coming year and relatively efficiently held the meeting in less than an hour, which is good because it gave me time to get the Gavel of WSFS back down to the Crystal Ballroom.
When I got to the Crystal Ballroom, I turned the Gavel of WSFS over to one of the people setting up, who put it in the lectern on stage. The WSFS Business Meeting head table had been removed and the stage reset for the closing ceremony. I took a seat in the audience and talked, chatted, and smoffed with people informally. When I realized that we had 30 minutes more than I'd originally thought, I was able to run over to the east tower of the Hyatt, pop up to my hotel room, change into my Pemmi-Con (Winnipeg NASFiC) t-shirt, stop at the market in the lobby of the Hyatt, get a food bar (lunch? what's that) and a soda, then trot back to the West Tower. I ate the food bar outside (no eating in most convention spaces), and reclaimed my seat in the ballroom. Other NASFiC committee members soon arrived.
The Closing Ceremony went smoothly, with the usual array of thank-yous, awards, and good-byes. After the Chicon portion of the ceremony ended, Linda Ross-Mansfield and Robbie Bourget, co-chairs of Pemmi-Con, made a short speech about NASFiC, which is after all the next WSFS convention on the calendar. Then Chicon chair Helen Montgomery wielded the Gavel of WSFS for the last time, bringing the convention to a close, and inviting the Chengdu 2023 Worldcon Committee to give their first presentation as the currently seated Worldcon, which included the members of their committee singing a song to the members present here in Chicago. And then the ceremony ended and Chicon 8 was officially over.
I noted that the Gavel of WSFS had remained inside the lectern, so I got Helen's permission to make sure it moved on to where it belonged. Ben Yalow is co-Chair of Chengdu, so I gave it (in its well-marked box) for safekeeping.
Eventually I made my way back to the hotel room. Lisa and I made a trip to Bockwinkle's grocery. We made lunch in the hotel room, and I spent the rest of the afternoon editing video and uploading it to YouTube. I wasted a whole lot of time uploading the wrong video to YouTube and having to delete it and upload the correct one. I also am glad that there are no more meetings, as I've managed to nearly completely fill my hard drive with video files. I will have to bail a lot of material to archives when we get home.
Tonight is the only other party I'll be attending that isn't in room 3176 (the Winnipeg suite): the Old Pharts (Former Worldcon Chairs) party. There's also some Winnipeg work still to do. I'm not sure how long I'll manage do stay up tonight, as much as I enjoy the Old Pharts Party. But at least I have no plans for tomorrow and Lisa and I do not have to get up much too early to go record a WSFS Business Meeting.
Here's the recording of today's meeting.
Once again, consult the Business Meeting Agenda for the item references.
Earlier this weekend, Item F.6, which addresses the distinction between professional and fan artists, was sent to a special committee chaired by Sara Felix and Lisa Hertel. This left items F.5, F.7, and F.8 untouched.
Item F.5 was a more general set of proposed rules on defining what is "professional" and what is "fan" work. There appeared to be a consensus that this also needed to go to the "F.6 Committee" to try and reconcile things, but working out how to instruct the committee was a challenge. The meeting thus resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole to more informally discuss the instructions to include with a referral to the F.6 Committee.
The referral to a COTW, with deputy chair Jesi Lipp presiding, led to an amusing exchange. Per standard procedure, the meeting chair is not supposed to stay on the head table during a COTW, and Jesi told Jared to get off the stage. Someone from the floor called out, "Jesi Lipp says, 'You can't sit here!'"
Fortunately for all of us, Jesi took very good notes and distilled down all of the instructions that the COTW adopted as its report to the main meeting. Those instructions were:
- to consider NOT defining based on “expectation” of an item being for sale or not for sale, but perhaps first usage or presentation,
- to consider whether a global definition of fan vs pro is necessary, or whether a category by category definition is preferable,
- to consider the distinction between collecting money for expenses related to the work vs the benefit of creator,
- to ensure that all activity shall be considered fan and/or pro (that all works be consider fan or pro or both fan and pro, but that no works be considered neither),
- And, that it is the sense of the body that things have multiple uses over their life. If something is used as fan art or fan writing, later sale does not disqualify it from being fannish. Things can be both fan and pro.
The main meeting agreed to the recommendations of the COTW, and F.5 was sent to join F.6, with the committee also instructed to report recommendations to next year's Business Meeting.
F.7 was a proposal to put restrictions on to Best Series, so that if an individual work that is part of a series won a Hugo Award, the series itself would be ineligible. After debate, attempted amendments, and an attempt to send this to another committee for additional work, the proposal itself was rejected on a uncounted show of hands.
The final substantive proposal, F.8, also was attempting to restrict a series from being shortlisted if a part of that series was on the ballot during the same year. By now the meeting was in my opinion showing how tired it was getting, and debate was cut off before the full twenty minutes was exhausted. The meeting rejected F.8 on a counted serpentine vote, 23-32.
So in the end, none of the proposals considered today passed. One was referred to committee, and the other two failed outright.
What was left were courtesy resolutions, announcements, and thank yous. I gained the floor and finally got to give Jared an engraved gavel with his name and first year chairing on it that I was going to give him back in 2016 after his first time chairing the Business Meeting. Jared had been in such a tearing hurry in Kansas City to adjourn the final meeting that he closed us out before I could make the presentation. I did not want to give it to him "off stage," so I waited. For six years.
The meeting thanked lots of people. I got in a specific thank-you to Lisa for having to work under far more challenging circumstances than she ever expected.
With all the thank-yous said and the gifts presented, we adjourned sine die ("without date," closing the parliamentary session and thus concluding this year's series of meetings) with time to spare before we would have been thrown out of the room to allow the reset for the Closing Ceremonies to continue. I recruited people to help us reset the chairs that we'd moved. Lisa packed up, and I retrieved the Gavel of WSFS from Jared, asking Jesi Lipp to tell convention chair Helen Montgomery that I'd get it to her and the stage in time for Closing. There was still one more WSFS function left.
At 1 PM, the WSFS Mark Protection Committee met for its first meeting of the new term, which is somewhat confusingly the second meeting at the Worldcon. Chair Jo Van Eckern had declined to stand for reelection to the committee, so I temporarily presided as I was Vice Chair last term. I admitted that the Westercon I'd chaired was behind me, and that was why I stepped down as Chair several years ago. Without objection or any other candidates, the MPC elected me to Chair for this term. They also elected Donald Eastlake Vice Chair, Linda Deneroff as Secretary, and Bruce Farr as Treasurer. Bruce is not an elected member, but is a non-voting director appointed by Worldcon Intellectual Property, the non-profit corporation that the MPC created to hold our marks in places that don't understand unincorporated associations. WIP's board of directors consists of the members of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, but its bylaws require at least one California resident be on the board. When I moved to Nevada, WIP no longer had any Californians on the board, so ever since then, we have appointed Bruce as a non-voting member to meet the bylaw requirement.
The WSFS MPC meeting set up our plans for the coming year and relatively efficiently held the meeting in less than an hour, which is good because it gave me time to get the Gavel of WSFS back down to the Crystal Ballroom.
When I got to the Crystal Ballroom, I turned the Gavel of WSFS over to one of the people setting up, who put it in the lectern on stage. The WSFS Business Meeting head table had been removed and the stage reset for the closing ceremony. I took a seat in the audience and talked, chatted, and smoffed with people informally. When I realized that we had 30 minutes more than I'd originally thought, I was able to run over to the east tower of the Hyatt, pop up to my hotel room, change into my Pemmi-Con (Winnipeg NASFiC) t-shirt, stop at the market in the lobby of the Hyatt, get a food bar (lunch? what's that) and a soda, then trot back to the West Tower. I ate the food bar outside (no eating in most convention spaces), and reclaimed my seat in the ballroom. Other NASFiC committee members soon arrived.
The Closing Ceremony went smoothly, with the usual array of thank-yous, awards, and good-byes. After the Chicon portion of the ceremony ended, Linda Ross-Mansfield and Robbie Bourget, co-chairs of Pemmi-Con, made a short speech about NASFiC, which is after all the next WSFS convention on the calendar. Then Chicon chair Helen Montgomery wielded the Gavel of WSFS for the last time, bringing the convention to a close, and inviting the Chengdu 2023 Worldcon Committee to give their first presentation as the currently seated Worldcon, which included the members of their committee singing a song to the members present here in Chicago. And then the ceremony ended and Chicon 8 was officially over.
I noted that the Gavel of WSFS had remained inside the lectern, so I got Helen's permission to make sure it moved on to where it belonged. Ben Yalow is co-Chair of Chengdu, so I gave it (in its well-marked box) for safekeeping.
Eventually I made my way back to the hotel room. Lisa and I made a trip to Bockwinkle's grocery. We made lunch in the hotel room, and I spent the rest of the afternoon editing video and uploading it to YouTube. I wasted a whole lot of time uploading the wrong video to YouTube and having to delete it and upload the correct one. I also am glad that there are no more meetings, as I've managed to nearly completely fill my hard drive with video files. I will have to bail a lot of material to archives when we get home.
Tonight is the only other party I'll be attending that isn't in room 3176 (the Winnipeg suite): the Old Pharts (Former Worldcon Chairs) party. There's also some Winnipeg work still to do. I'm not sure how long I'll manage do stay up tonight, as much as I enjoy the Old Pharts Party. But at least I have no plans for tomorrow and Lisa and I do not have to get up much too early to go record a WSFS Business Meeting.
