I was able to combine the eight separate segments of the Monday 2024 WSFS Business Meeting (aggregate size 21.7 GB) into a single video (4.5 GB) and upload it to my YouTube channel last night. I then removed the eight individual files. So there are now only four files in the playlist:



Once again, this is not the official video. The 2024 WSFS Business Meeting (of which neither Lisa nor I were staff members) is responsible for publishing the official video. The official video (what was broadcast as the live-stream, to the best of my knowledge) is apparently available to members of Glasgow 2024, and it appears to be the intent of the Business Meeting team to publish those videos to the YouTube Worldcon Events Channel, but as of right now, that has not happened yet. When it does happen, I expect to write about it here.

Incidentally, there is a slight audio glitch in part 4 (Monday) around 1h47m. Unlike the glitch in part 2 (Saturday), which was caused by something YouTube did to the original upload, this one is a production error. While trying to zoom in on the speaker, Lisa accidentally hit the stop/start button on the recorder. (The buttons on the control panel are very close to each other). She did immediately start again, but it means a couple of seconds of audio (the speaker introducing himself) dropped out. By coincidence, the same person (Kent Bloom) was involved in both the Friday and Monday glitches.

As some of you may recall, my computer started making unhappy fan noises during the Worldcon trip (starting in Iceland) and then would not boot at all. Dell tech support got it so it would boot again, but several days later, and agreed that they would repair it under the extended-warranty plan for which I'm paying, but that I'd have to send it back to them from within the USA. So I struggled along for a few more days, but at one point the computer seemed to quit completely. This means I couldn't do the edits to take the raw Business Meeting video from the final day, stitch the large files together, then compile it down to a single smaller file. I gave up and didn't try to start the computer again until after I got home.

It's a good thing that we already had a finished episode of Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories complete and uploaded for posting at the start of September, because I would not have been able to edit and upload one in August. Even if I had a finished episode, I wouldn't have been able to upload it from my work computer, because while I can watch YouTube videos on it, I can neither see or make comments, nor can I upload videos, as part of the company's policies. It's their machine and their rules, and I'm not complaining. Oddly enough, they don't prohibit me posting photos (or video) to my Flickr account, which is good because I uploaded more than a thousand photos during the trip, and shared some of them with my co-workers (who didn't complain, other than to express envy) while I was working remotely during the trip.

A few days ago, I contacted Dell, who re-opened the case about my computer. We did managed to get the machine to boot, which was a relief because it seems I didn't fry the processor after all. However, the fan is still giving trouble. There's a separate issue about the touchpad I'd forgotten to raise with them, but we went through the tests and they agreed that something was wrong there. Since I have to send it for repair anyway, it's another thing than they can check.

Dell support sent me a prepaid FedEx Priority Overnight shipping box, which I received yesterday on my way back from the Urgent Care center. I packaged up the computer and power supply and took it over to the office-supply store that is the FedEx shipping point in Fernley. As it happens, I had to go back over to that shopping center, which includes Renown Urgent Care, because I'd left my reusable mug in the examination room. To my relief, the mug was sitting at the front desk. I then dropped off the computer. It was before the FedEx pickup time, so it should be in Dell's hand's by Monday. It should take around a week for them to work on it and return it to me. With luck, it will be back in time for me to edit the October RLMS. I also plan to edit together a single, smaller file of the final day of the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting.

Another backdated entry: Again, most of the interested people will have seen it already, but here's my take on the final session of the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting. Once again, thanks to File 770, Kate Secor, and Gray Anderson. Because of the way we jumped around in the agenda, there were places where my notes lead to dead ends.

If you want to know what the text of any of the matters mentioned here are, you need to download the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting Agenda. This post will not restate the text of anything that is already in the Agenda. If no vote tally is shown, it means the vote was by uncounted show of hands. Counted votes (there were none today) were taken by "serpentine" voting, and yes, there were provisions to count people who could not stand for a serpentine vote.

( The Final Meeting )

With all matters dealt with, the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting gave chair Jesi Lipp a standing ovation for their work in steering the meeting through a minefield. The meeting then adjourned in memory of Deb Geisler at 13:25, ninety minutes before we would have run out of time and been forced to adjourn.

It was with great relief that we filed out of the room. Prior to the first meeting, Seth Breidbart was speculating on how far through the agenda we would have gotten. I'm glad he didn't actually set an over/under and take bets on it, as I would have taken the under and lost. I really did not think we could manage to complete that agenda, and I expected us to hit a crisis by overflowing the room, but neither happened. Possibly putting the meeting across the river (thus requiring a 400 or so meter walk each way) put people off, as did the requirement to attend if you wanted to participate and vote.

While personally I think they should have used the Forth Room in the Armadillo (where we held the Business Meetings in 2005), I also personally liked the Village because it had a Starbucks in the lobby, which meant I could get the white chocolate mocha Frappucinos and IMO better lunch sandwiches that the wraps that the hotel was selling us.

Had I known that the meetings were going to be in the Village, I would have been very tempted to book in to that hotel. It would have meant far less walking, and in retrospect the internet would have been vastly better. OTOH, I'm an IHG platinum level member, which means I earned nearly 64,000 IHG points just on the stay alone, not counting the 5x USD spent bonus I will get from the IHG credit card, which hasn't yet posted to my account. That's going to prove to be very useful, possibly very soon.

( Closeout )

Thank goodness I wasn't planning on leaving until Wednesday and thus didn't have to pack. I fell into bed and may have been asleep before my head hit my pillow.

Bandwidth continues to be an issue. While I can get faster connections from the public areas of the hotel, I don't think I should be obliged to sit all night in the lobby rather than from my hotel room. Thus I have temporary discontinued cross-posting (which has to be done manually) to LiveJournal.

We started today's First Main Business Meeting on time at 10:00. Because we didn't get through the entire agenda at the Preliminary Business Meeting, we continued to grind through it, picking up where we left off.

A significant and unwanted development was that at least three Business Meeting attendees, including one member of the BM tech team and the BM Secretary, are down with COVID. Linda Deneroff is the Emergency Holographic Secretary after Alex Acks tested positive at lunchtime. More masks have appeared. Lisa and I took COVID tests after the meeting and are clear for now, but we'll test again after tomorrow's meeting.

Once again, consult the WSFS Agenda on the Glasgow 2024 website for the agenda items in the list below, where I'll list what happened to what we did consider. That link points at a PDF of the agenda. That means if you want to read the motions and the makers' statements, etc., you have to download the PDF.

Items with numbers earlier in this list were dealt with yesterday. See that post for details.

( Summary of Action Taken )

Having finally gotten through all of the resolutions, we could move on to constitutional amendments. For this, we proceeded through a special process called "First Pass" that allowed the meeting to do only a limited number things: Object to Consideration, Postpone Indefinitely, or refer to committee. This doesn't apply to constitutional amendments up for ratification passed on from last year. After First Pass, we'll go back through everything and set debate times, and then we can actually start full-blown debate including amendment. This may sound confusing, but it does look like it's having the desired result of clearing a lot of stuff off of the agenda.

Everything in Section E was skipped and we did not have enough time to set debate time limits. That should happen on Sunday.

In the following list, "no action taken" means that when we complete First Pass, we'll go back and set debate time limits, and then once Section E is done, we'll consider these Section F new constitutional amendments.

( First Pass )

We ran out of time and adjourned at 15:00 after working on F.11. That leaves F.12 through F.20 pending First Pass.

Sunday's meeting will start with Site Selection business, which we expect to be expedited so we can get back to deliberating on business. Also, I received a notice that the Worldcon Chairs Photo Session will happen at 09:30 before the 10:00 Site Selection Business Meeting. We obviously still have to grind out nine more new Constitutional amendments and then set debate time limits before we can actually debate ratifications and then initial votes. That' why we're still scheduled to run from 10:00 to 15:00.

I am fairly confident that we can complete Site Selection and the twelve ratification items. Having booted a lot of motions to committees to report next year means we have a chance to consider at least some of the new Constitutional amendments. I'm not sure if we'll get through everything. However, once we get through Site Selection and Ratifications, we can adjourn sine die anytime thereafter. If we do so, or if we run completely out of time on Monday, anything not finally resolved "falls to the floor," i.e. it dies. Anything that dies the dead of end-of-session can be reintroduced as a new item next year.

I spend most of the rest of the day and most of the evening (except when I went to dinner) trying to figure out some way to get Lisa's Business Meeting videos uploaded. I gave it a shot in the SEC, where I was allowed to use the office in the "Boneyard" (where boxes and such are stored, and also where the Sign Shop is located. However, it took more than an hour to upload just the first of seven segments of the Friday meeting. I'm taking a shot and combining all of the files for each of the first two days into a single file per day in Adobe Premier and trying to compile it down to a size small enough to have a chance to actually upload in a reasonable amount of time. I know that people who weren't watching the meeting live are probably interested in seeing this, given that (as far as I can tell) the convention has not posted their own copies. If I can get the video uploaded, it will be on my personal YouTube channel as neither Lisa nor I are part of the official Business Meeting recording/tech team.

No photos today. Not because I took none, but because as of this evening they haven't all downloaded from my phone and because it takes too long to catalog them.

Today was the first day of Glasgow 2024, the 82nd Worldcon. While there was no Business Meeting, in terms of total number of program items that I wanted to attend or that I was obliged to attend ex officio, it was the busiest.

I slept in a little bit but didn't want to miss the included breakfast. Lisa skipped breakfast. When I came back up after breakfast, I put away my USD cash to make my wallet more manageable, and Lisa and I walked to Exhibition Centre Station. Lisa then went to ride trains in Glasgow using the five-day transit pass we bought for both of us. The convention arranged with the city for a £5 for five days unlimited travel pass to convention members. I continued on to Lidl to buy more groceries. The idea was that I had enough time to buy groceries, take them back and put them away in our room, then go to the first program item at 13:00

At Lidl, I picked out the groceries and headed for check out. As I was putting the goods on the cart, I realized that I had left my wallet on the desk in our hotel room! I took the groceries back and went back to the hotel. My wallet was indeed there. Unfortunately, but then there was no time to go back to Lidl, and instead, I had only a few minutes to get to the first panel.

Between the panels, I ran down to the Montreal in 2027 Worldcon Bid table. While I have no time to help at the table, I did have just enough time to go pay the first installment of my bid committee dues, and to pay it in GBP to provide funds for some of the expenses the bid will have here in Glasgow.

The 13:00 panel was Introduction to the WSFS Business Meeting. Here, Jesi Lipp and other officers of this year's Business Meeting discussed the process and answered questions about how the WSFS Business Meeting works. Unlike most of these panels, there appeared to be more people attending who had never attended a Business Meeting. I asked a few questions myself. Jesi has a difficult job ahead of them.

At 14:30, there wasn't exactly a panel, but the first WSFS Mark Protection Committee Meeting, chaired by Donald Eastlake III. (Despite what some people might think, when I resigned as MPC Chair, I did not resign as a member of the MPC.) This meeting is always open to the membership, but unlike most years, we had a lot more "guests" attending the meeting. We also had a Zoom call running so that MPC members who couldn't attend Glasgow 2024 could participate. The business was routine, and there were no fireworks. After the meeting, Don explained the history and development of the entity currently called the Mark Protection Committee: it was initially developed as the Board of Directors of WSFS, Inc. in a 1980 plan to incorporate WSFS that never proceeded past the initial stage. Despite the process having stalled, a subsequent attempt to repeal the resolution calling for the incorporation of WSFS also failed, so the incorporation lies in limbo.

At 16:00 was the Opening Ceremonies. Unlike the 2005 Worldcon in Glasgow, where I ran Events, this year's Opening Ceremony was in the SEC Armadillo auditorium, which was a much better venue than using one of the exhibit halls like we did back then. Just before the ceremony, Randall Shephard gave me my Past Worldcon Chair ribbon. I consider that to be the highest "ranking" ribbon I'm likely to ever have, so I always wait until I have it before adding more ribbons.

Esther MacCallum-Stewart formally opened the convention using the Gavel of WSFS. Then she introduced and interviewed the Guests of Honor and the Special Guests, and invited the Hugo Award base designer to unveil the design. I hope that Glasgow gives me the photos and video presentation and the text of the designer's speech so that I and put it online on TheHugoAwards.org. There were also Special Committee Awards and other Awards (presided over by Events Division Head Vincent Docherty), and the ceremony ended with the sad scroll of those people who we lost in the last year.

The Opening Ceremony ended just before the Dealer's Room closed at 18:00. I arrived at the Wizard's Tower Press table just as the hall was closing. Cheryl closed the table and gave my my Dealer ribbon. We then walked next door to Hall 4 and got dinner from one of the "food trucks" in the hall. After that, we went next door to the Civic Reception sponsored by the City of Glasgow and circulated in the hall chatting withg various people. Now this is one of my favorite parts of the convention, but I still hadn't done the grocery shopping, so I made my farewells for the night and went back to the Crowne Plaza.

Lisa had come back from her travels and was asleep. I got my tote back and extra Lidl bag we had bought on our first trip and returned to the grocery store. Unfortunately, some of the things Lisa and I wanted were sold out. They were sold out of Coke and Diet Coke, for example. I got what I could, started to leave, and then dropped the tote bag. The milk I'd bought shattered, spilling more than two liters of milk over everything. The staff told me not to fret as it happens all the time. I fished the rest of my groceries out, set them aside, then went back and got another jug of milk.

I took the groceries back to the hotel, rinsed them out and put them away, then got everything out of my well-work World Fantasy Convention 2009 San Jose tote back, rinsed the spilled mil, and hung it up to dry.

Because of the Business Meeting, which I plan to attend, I have my alarm set for 6:30 AM to give Lisa and me enough time to get our morning clean-up finished, have breakfast, and walk over to the Village Hotel. I hope to be there shortly after 9 AM for the 10 AM meeting. And if I want to have enough sleep, I need to turn in pretty soon.

14,400 steps today, which is less than the 21,000 yesterday.

The minutes of the 2024 Westercon Business Meeting and the Westercon Bylaws incorporating the five bylaw amendments ratified at Westercon 76 in Salt Lake City have been posted to the Westercon website.

They key item ratified at the Business Meeting was to strike out the "traditional but not obligatory" language about the date of Westercon that appears to have been taken by most people to require that Westercon always be held over the US Independence Day weekend. It has never been a requirement; indeed, when the 4th of July falls on a Wednesday, it has sometimes led to bids from "opposite" weekends, and in one notorious case, an additional bid of "Both" that might have led to a two-week-long Westercon held in two different cities, depending on how things had worked out.

I'm grateful to Linda Deneroff for her quick work turning around the Minutes and Bylaws (which were more complicated this year due to all of the bylaw amendments), to Lisa Hayes for her work recording the meeting (which, as I said when I posted it a few days ago, gives you a chance to see how the parliamentary sausage is made), to Martin Pyne who served as Deputy Presiding Officer, pointing things out to me that I missed, and managing to avoid having to chair a committee of the whole again, and finally to Scott Sanford, who I appointed "doorwarden" when it became clear that we needed to keep the door closed due to noise coming from the hallway, but that we also needed someone to help those people arriving late get into the room, as we were close to capacity.

Linda Deneroff, Lisa, and I drove to Perkins Family Restaurant this morning for a better-value breakfast than the hotel buffet. (The hotel puts what Lisa calls a "cheese-like substance" on the eggs, which neither Lisa nor I like.) It looks like it is close enough that we can walk there by walking in the bike lanes that flank the roads (there are no sidewalks), so we probably will have breakfast there again tomorrow.

Linda opened Site Selection from 10 AM to Noon, then closed it so we could do a panel and then have lunch. She reopened Site Selection at 2 PM.

Today was the first full day of Westercon (yesterday didn't start until Noon), which by the terms of the Westercon Bylaws meant that there needed to be a program item for the benefit of bids. There being just the one write-in bid, we combined this with the more general topic of the Future of Westercon.

( Future of Westercon and Working Site Selection )

Site Selection voting closed for this year as of 6 PM. Linda and I went back to her room and counted the ballots. The results were no surprise, which was a relief to me, and will be officially announced at the Business Meeting on Saturday morning.

Martin Pyne, Linda Deneroff, Mike Willmoth, Lisa Hayes, and I went to an Asian restaurant across the street from the WinCo Foods where I took Linda yesterday morning. I found this a good value meal, and it was a real pleasure to dine out with friends with no time pressure, as none of us had responsibilities this evening now that Site Selection is finished.

Martin, Lisa, and I went over to WinCo after dinner and got a few more groceries. As Lisa and I are driving, the non-perishable items that are left over when we leave Utah can just go home with us.

( Impromptu Rail-fanning )

Then it was back to the hotel, where I settled down to upload photos and write about our day. Tomorrow, our fifst responsibility is the Westercon Business Meeting, which is scheduled for 11 AM. As there should not be any significant issues with Site Selection, our only business on the agenda is the ratification of the bylaw amendments first passed last year, followed by new business, if there is any. While I prepared a draft proposal due to what I though might be a plan to trigger a wind-down of Westercon, I'm unsure whether anyone is actually going to introduce it.

I hope to sleep well tonight, as for the first time in several years, we do not expect a controversial site selection that needs to be adjudicated by the Business Meeting.

While I'd originally planned on submitting Version 2 of Popular Ratification today, I've been persuaded by a couple of people that there is a potential problem that is worth adding more words to the proposal to handle: what happens if Constitutional amendments conflict with each other.

Although it's bad practice, the Business Meeting has been known to give first passage to proposals that conflict with each other, kicking the final decision on which version to adopt to the second year's Meeting. The resolution I propose is that if conflicting amendments pass the Business Meeting, only the one that gets the most votes in favor is ratified.

While thinking of that, I realized that while it's highly unlikely, it is possible for multiple amendments to tie for the most number of votes in favor. Rather than deadlock the ratification process entirely, I threw the final decision back to the Business Meeting of the Worldcon conducting the ratification election. The second-year meeting, if faced with a tie at the Site Selection Business Meeting, could pick from among the conflicting proposals, but could not reject them and could not amend them. This is similar to how the Site Selection Business Meeting also can decide the results of Site Selection if None of the Above or no eligible bid wins, and you could consider it as the meeting having "reserve powers" to be exercised when all of the ordinary processes fail.

I think we'll need to keep the discussion open for another week. If you are one of the people who agreed to co-sponsor the amendment and want to withdraw your sponsorship, let me know.

Some of you will remember that I was the author of a proposal first considered by the 2014 WSFS Business Meeting (starting on page 4) called "Popular Ratification," which would have replaced the current ratification system for WSFS Constitutional amendments with a vote of the entire membership. While I'm aware that there are likely to be much more radical proposals submitted to this year's Business Meeting (including probably "burn it all to the ground"), I'm wondering if a modified version of Popular Ratification might have a chance of passing this year.

( Let My People Vote )

I would like to let all of our members have a chance to have a voice, in the form of voting, on changes to the WSFS Constitution. I am, however, deeply skeptical of proposals to allow remote participation at the Business Meeting, or to require that it be held entirely online at some time not during Worldcon, or that it should be held multiple times per year. If we really need that many Town Meetings, then we should instead elect a smaller council and delegate all of the rule-making responsibility to it.

If there are others who think this is a good idea and would like me to develop a formal proposal to which they would be willing to join as co-sponsors (assuming you are WSFS members, attending or not, of the 2024 Worldcon), let me know. I don't like investing effort into things like this unless there is at least a reasonable chance of it getting a hearing.

[For a change of late, I am sort of speaking officially here, in my "ministerial" role as part of the team that manages the WSFS websites, and I guess also as Deputy Chair of the 2023 meeting.]

The minutes of the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting in Chengdu are now online on the WSFS Rules Page. All but one of the WSFS documents is now up to date. The only remaining document (still being considered by the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee) is an updated version of the Resolutions and Rulings of Continuing Effect.

Note that unlike many past years, you need to have the agenda (also available on the Rules page and linked from the minutes) in order to be able to understand the minutes. That is because in most cases, the various reports and the text of proposed motions are in the agenda, but are not in the minutes unless they were changed significantly.