Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

TAFF Candidate Warren Buff has posted his Renovation Worldcon Report [PDF], which is also a sort of opening salvo in his campaign for the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund. I'm always interested in reading Worldcon reports, since everyone's Worldcon is different, even when, as in our case, our paths cross a lot, like the nearly nine hours we both spent in RSCC A2 (the Business Meeting). I'm sorry that I embarrassed him, but I felt at the time that I had to make a point about how the MPC had in my opinion misbehaved.

( But I digress )

I like and respect Warren even when I disagree with him in detail. I hope people will read his trip report as an earnest toward his plans for how he'll approach his TAFF trip should he win.

Through a confusion during Worldcon load-out, the printer that kproche and bovil brought up to Renovation accidentally got shuffled to the wrong place and ended up in Renovation's stuff, not back with Kevin and Andy. Once the location of the missing printer was settled, the question was how to get it back where it belong. What ended up happening was that the person who had it (in Fallon), who had reason to be in Fernley, dropped it off at the Fernley House, then I collected it from Lisa this past weekend and carried it back to the Bay Area, where I delivered it to Kevin & Andy at BASFA last night. It was slower than shipping it, but there was no marginal cost for anyone, since all of us involved in this particular chain were going that way anyway. As supply-chain management is what I do for a living, I'm pleased when things work out this conveniently.

It will take you a little while to read it all, but I do recommend reading Paul Cornell's Renovation Report, as he does, I think, do an excellent job of pointing out many of the good and bad bits of this year's Worldcon and of Worldcon as a whole.

I appreciate all of the people who sent me birthday wishes yesterday on my 46th birthday; however, what with moving and all I wasn't really in the best position to appreciate things. We're just too busy. But as I mentioned earlier, we did go to the Atlantis and had their big seafood buffet. As usual, travelswithkuma sat between Lisa and me looking at his keno ticket. While Lisa was going back for seconds, a woman in a familiar-looking t-shirt walked by and said how cute the Bear looked. Lisa came back and I chased down the passing woman, who was looking over some of the selections. Sure enough, she was wearing a Renovation t-shirt.

I said, "You didn't give me a chance to say thank you — we're part of the same tribe!" I explained that we'd also been at the Worldcon, and she remembered hearing about Match Game SF and thus had a reference for me. She was a local who attended the convention; it was her second Worldcon (ConFrancisco clear back in 1993 was her first), and she said she had a great time. Unfortunately, she said, "I hope you guys decide to bring it back here again soon," having utterly missed how Worldcon sites are selected. I did try to give her the brief outline, but (as I've found before), the fact that we don't have a Board of Directors selecting sites by some Master Plan of Rotation is mind-boggling to many people, including plenty of fans. People assume that of course there's some distant central organizing group that is In Charge making the plans, and all of this bidding stuff goes right over their heads. As I pointed out to her, "In one sense, if you want Reno to host Worldcon again, you probably have to go out and bid for it yourself," a prospect that did not fill her with joy.

Still, it was nice to see more locals who enjoyed the convention. I just hope we can convert them to stay interested and/or travel to conventions more than commuting distance away.

Because the Hugos ran longer than expected, and because it was so difficult for the flood of people to get out of the Tuscany Ballroom across the Sorrento Room where our show was, we started very late and even playing only 3 games managed to run past 12:30 AM.

Kudos to Lisa and especially to yourbob for incredible service well above the call of duty, skipping the Hugo Ceremony to help Lisa make the show possible.

I'd write more, but after packing the show out of the Sorrento Room back into my van, and driving us back to the hotel, we're beat. Fortunately there was still a little bit of food in the room, because we're worn out. I'm so glad I have no appointments tomorrow morning, particularly no 9 AM Business Meeting Setup.

I've been asked to try and explain the details of what happened at yesterday's Business Meeting, where the motions were flying around quickly. I hope to eventually try and do something about that, using my notes and the meeting video. But it was very complex, and I don't have the time to do it sufficient justice during Worldcon. Possibly if I'd sat down immediately after the meeting and spent an hour on it instead of going to eat lunch, I could have finished it, but not now.

Everything that happened yesterday was legal by the rules, but we did get a little deep into arcana, such as moving to suspend the rules to permit the introduction of motion to amend an amendment. Someday I will try and write the blow-by-blow account where it will probably sound more logical than it did while it was happening.

The Main WSFS Business Meeting at Renovation used most of the 3-hour program slot, but managed to resolve all substantive business other than Site Selection by the end of the meeting.

( The results can be skipped for those whose eyes glaze over at the mention of WSFS or Business Meetings )

Relatively speaking, with the exception of the debate over whether site selection e-voting should be allowed under any circumstances, the ratifications breezed through, and we'd gotten through most of the day's agenda only 35 minutes after the call to order. However, now we got to New Business, and things got messy.

( Very Messy )

Summary of New Business:

• Best Fancast Hugo Award: Passed 75-11


• Semiprozine/Fanzine Changes: Passed after amendments to Fanzine definition, 60-4

The meeting adjourned at 12:36 PM, having finally disposed of all substantive business except Site Selection. That will be formally announced at Saturday's Site Selection Meeting, where the newly-seated Worldcon will announce its guests of honor and answer opening questions. After that it will be Question Time for next year's Worldcon, and also for bids for future Worldcons.

No other substantive business is expected at Saturday's meeting. The Worldcon Chairs Photo Session will be in the same room no earlier than 11 AM, and about 20 minutes after that the Mark Protection Committee will meet in the same room. The MPC meeting scheduled for Sunday is therefore cancelled.

I'm uploading video of the meeting now (than Ghod for a higher-bandwidth wired connection at this hotel!) and will post about it when it's available.

I've managed to throw together the relatively raw video from the Preliminary Business Meeting and generate a low-resolution video of the master shot. The audio isn't very good, partially due to people not using the microphone.



My thanks to Cheryl Morgan for letting me use her Vimeo Pro account so that the file went to the front of the queue instead of having to wait for hours to release.

My apologies for not putting this out sooner. After the Business Meeting this afternoon I absolutely had to have lunch, and then I had responsibilities around the convention including a panel at 5 PM, and besides, it takes a long time just to pull the recorded video off of my camera and into my computer.

The Preliminary Business Meeting used the entire 3-hour program slot, and really didn't actually get through the entire agenda even then. The meeting adjourned leaving one item unresolved, and will have to deal with the resulting conflicts at Friday's Main Business Meeting.

( The gory details in bullet-point form )

Because the Preliminary Business Meeting did most of its job (resolving conflicts and setting agendas), the agenda for Friday's Main Business Meeting is substantially shorter and manageable.

( Outline agenda; actual official agenda may vary )

Yes, it was a very long, tough meeting. Seriously, the Westercon Site Selection Business Meeting at San Jose last month was relatively easy — only one issue, albeit a vastly contentious one — compared to this. I'm really amazed we accomplished as much as we did.

My main contribution to the Raleigh NASFiC party was to help carry bags of soda from the FoodSource grocery store diagonally across the street from the Atlantis, but I'm told that this was indeed helpful and so I reckon I did my part. While I would have loved to have stayed out later and talked and SMOFed, I have to be up early for meetings and therefore am going to try to get to bed before midnight so I might get as much as six hours sleep.

There was an active party scene tonight, full of crowded parties, but none intolerably so that I noticed. It was, however, pretty warm, as the hotel's air conditioning isn't really up to coping with so many people in this area. People seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was really pleased to run into several more first-time-convention (not just first Worldcon) attendees, although none of them found us by way of TheHugoAwards.org this time.

( One exception to the good cheer )