2025 Westercon Bid Deadline Nears
Apr. 13th, 2023 05:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeNo bids have file for Westercon 77 (2025, to be selected at Westercon 75 Anaheim this year). The deadline for filing a bid to be on the ballot is April 15. If no bids file, the election will proceed with only write-in spaces on the ballot, as the final deadline for being eligible for election through the normal process is the end of site selection voting on July 1. If no bid files by then, or should no filed bid get a majority of the votes in the normal election process, then once again, the Westercon Business Meeting on July 2 will have to decide how to handle the selection of Westercon 77. The Business Meeting can either award a bid to any committee they choose, or they can say they are unable to make a decision and punt the task to LASFS, owners of the Westercon service mark.
There are some people who seem convinced that the Business Meeting isn't allowed to make the decision at all, and that LASFS must always decide if the election isn't conclusive. Such people aren't actually reading the rules. I know what those rules say: I wrote most of them! (That is, I rewrote most of them during the last complete revision of the Westercon bylaws thirty years ago.
Meanwhile, from my experience in Tonopah last year, I know that there are people are don't understand that if you get to the point where the Business Meeting has to make a decision, nearly all of the rules are suspended. That is, rules requiring that only non-profit entities can run Westercon, or that it be held in certain portions of Western North America, or just about anything else, don't apply. Only the requirement that it be held somewhere in North America west of 104° west longitude or in Hawaii (anyone who wants to bring up the silly provision about Australia can swallow a cork hat now, thank you) is left.
Note that there is no requirement that Westercon be held on the US Independence Day weekend. It is traditional but not required. Inasmuch as BayCon has decided that they own that weekend now for general SF genre conventions in that region, I think a bid for a different date in 2025 might have a better chance of drawing attendees. Maybe someone might want to consider Memorial Day or even a non-holiday weekend?
There are some people who seem convinced that the Business Meeting isn't allowed to make the decision at all, and that LASFS must always decide if the election isn't conclusive. Such people aren't actually reading the rules. I know what those rules say: I wrote most of them! (That is, I rewrote most of them during the last complete revision of the Westercon bylaws thirty years ago.
Meanwhile, from my experience in Tonopah last year, I know that there are people are don't understand that if you get to the point where the Business Meeting has to make a decision, nearly all of the rules are suspended. That is, rules requiring that only non-profit entities can run Westercon, or that it be held in certain portions of Western North America, or just about anything else, don't apply. Only the requirement that it be held somewhere in North America west of 104° west longitude or in Hawaii (anyone who wants to bring up the silly provision about Australia can swallow a cork hat now, thank you) is left.
Note that there is no requirement that Westercon be held on the US Independence Day weekend. It is traditional but not required. Inasmuch as BayCon has decided that they own that weekend now for general SF genre conventions in that region, I think a bid for a different date in 2025 might have a better chance of drawing attendees. Maybe someone might want to consider Memorial Day or even a non-holiday weekend?
no subject
Date: 2023-04-14 12:15 am (UTC)