Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

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.

Montréal, Canada has launched a bid to host 2027 Worldcon. You can read the full announcement in the news item on the WSFS website. This is a project of CanSMOF, the non-profit corporation that ran the 2009 Worldcon at the same site. Yes, I'm still a director of CanSMOF, and have been asked to join the bid committee. (Now I need to scrape up the money for my bid committee dues.)

Because it has already come up here on the first day after it was announced: 2028 was not possible. The Palais des Congrès is scheduled for a major renovation during 2028 and is unavailable. The dates were available in 2027, so we agreed to launch a bid.

As I've said elsewhere, should Montréal win, I expect that, if possible, that Lisa and I will go there the same way that we did in 2009, by train, although in this case the trip will start from Reno, then go to Chicago (probably staying overnight), then Schenectady (another overnight because the connection doesn't work), then up to Montréal. The last time we took that trip, we went back Montréal-Schenectady-Los Angeles without overnight stops, and it worked then. Should we be able to make this trip, we'll have to revisit possible travel plans. There is, after all, one east-west transcontinental route Lisa and I have not yet taken.

But first, we have to win a bid. Remember that if you want to help make Montréal a reality, you need to join Seattle Worldcon 2025 as at least a WSFS (formerly called Supporting) member so that you'll be eligible to vote on the site of the 2025 Worldcon. Then you'll have to actually vote in the election, which will probably open for voting in spring 2025 and run through the convention itself.

Something that I think most people have forgotten is that Worldcons happen in the real world and are subject to real-world conditions. Among other things, Worldcons have to obey the laws of the place in which they are held, no matter what their governing documents say.

An overwhelming majority of the members of WSFS who voted on the site of the 2023 Worldcon (at the 2021 Worldcon in DC) selected Chengdu, China as the host of the 2023 Worldcon. That meant that the members of WSFS who expressed an opinion accepted that the convention would be held under Chinese legal conditions. Furthermore, those people (including me) who suggested that there might be election irregularities were overridden, shouted down, fired from their convention positions, and told that they were evil and probably racist for even suggesting such a thing.

When it comes to local law, this could end up applying anywhere. Here's an example I can use because as far as I know, there are no Worldcon bids for Florida at this time. Imagine a Worldcon held in Florida. It would be subject to US and Florida law (and any smaller government subdivision). Given legislation passed by Florida, it would not surprise me if such a hypothetical Florida Worldcon's Hugo Administration Subcommittee would disqualify any work with LGBTQ+ content, any work with an LGBTQ+ author, or any LGBTQ+ individual, because the state has declared them all illegal under things like their "Don't Say Gay or Trans" laws and related legislation.

This does not seem that farfetched to me, and Florida isn't the only place where I could see it happening.

Shortly after 11:30 AM this morning, I called the Westercon 75 Business Meeting to order. The priority item of business was to officially receive the results of Westercon 77 (2025) Site Selection and to acknowledge that no valid bid was filed. After that, the meeting (after a couple of parliamentary maneuvers) resolved itself into a committee of the whole to consider both the selection of the 2025 Westercon and also to consider the two major scenarios regarding the future of Westercon. The committee of the whole officially being a separate meeting than the Business Meeting, it was recorded separately and both the main meeting and COTW were uploaded to YouTube.



The main meeting was thus held in two pieces with a long committee meeting held in between them. This recording edits the two halves together. You therefore see the setup and the final decisions adopted by the Business Meeting without the lengthy discussions in COTW.

The immediate tactical decision about Westercon 77 was to do what we did two years ago: to award Westercon 77 to what we are calling a "Caretaker Committee" of Lisa Hayes and me, with the understanding that we potentially will transfer the 2025 Westercon to another group that presents the committee with a compelling proposal. If the Caretaker Committee doesn't accept any of the proposals, as a last result, they will run the convention themselves.

Three potential groups expressed an interest in taking on the mantle of Westercon 77:

- BayCon, which for reasons that I do understand has moved to the US Independence Day Weekend.
- A low-key Seattle convention, with Linda Deneroff leading the proposal, possibly to be held over Memorial Day Weekend 2025
- A possible Las Vegas convention proposed by Scott Beckstead

All of these groups will have to work on proposals for the Caretaker Committee to evaluate. It seems likely that we'll nag people to come up with proposals sooner than later, rather than let it drift all the way to Westercon 76 Utah next July.

The meeting also gave first passage to the five bylaw amendment grouped as "Scenario 2" in what I laid before the meeting and published a few days ago: These proposals, if ratified at Westercon 76 next year, would remove the wording about holding Westercon during Independence Day weekend and would change all of the existing deadlines from hard-coded dates that assume the convention happens 4th of July with relative references against the first day of the convention.

If you are interested in seeing how the business meeting got to the conclusion, and the debate by those people who backed Scenario 1 (Retire Westercon), the recording of the Committee of the Whole's meeting (which was longer than the actual Business Meeting) is below:



The meeting adjourned with no other action taken.

The kill-the-Westercon group did make a brief appearance, but after it became clear in the COTW that the members present today were not interested in retiring Westercon, most of the Scenario 1 supporters appeared to leave early. Scenario 1 was not recommended by the COTW, so it never came to a vote before the Business Meeting.

For all that it took a couple of hours to reach the conclusions that it did, I think we did so in an orderly way, and it certainly seemed that most of the people present at the end were in favor of the actions taken. I'm glad I was able to facilitate this by generating what I think were well-written proposals, which allowed the members to concentrate on the strategic proposal alternatives rather than getting tangled up in nitpicking the technical wording.

There was a whole lot more that Lisa and I did on Saturday as we played Match Game SF, but that story will have to wait until later, as we're worn out. Fortunately for us, we have no commitments on Sunday morning and we're not leaving until Monday, so we can get some sleep! Also fortunately, but the bandwidth here at the Marriott is sufficient for me to upload these hour-long videos in a reasonable time.

As I hope most people following me know, Westercon has fallen on hard times. While Tonopah was successful and fun for most of the 158 people who attended, it was affected by COVID and by BayCon moving its dates onto the 4th of July Weekend, apparently just ignoring that Tonopah's Westercon existed. The 2021 SeaTac and 2023 Anaheim Westercons dissolved, handing in their franchises to LASFS (which owns the Westercon service mark), and LASFS held both Westercons 73 and 75 in conjunction with Loscon. We once again this year have no bids filed to host the two-years-hence Westercon, although anyone could show up before the voting ends on the Friday evening of Loscon 49/Westercon 75. Assuming that doesn't happen, the Westercon 75 Business Meeting at Loscon 49 will have to decide what to do about site selection. However, I tend to think that before that, the meeting needs to give some thought to the future of Westercon.

It appears to me that there are two scenarios: Retire Westercon or make some changes to given a chance to restart, perhaps in a different form. I therefore have prepared a Google doc with two scenarios. You should be able to read this document without needing a Google account.

Scenario 1 is to Retire Westercon, and is simply a motion to repeal the Westercon bylaws.

Scenario 2 makes five separate changes to the Westercon Bylaws to disconnect it from the US Independence Day Weekend (even loosely), removes the Westercon zone restrictions (but retains the 104°W longitude eastern boundary in North America), and changes all of the hard-coded dates to dates relative to the date of the administering Westercon. This would at least allow in theory Westercon to be awarded to various conventions in Western North America who wanted to host it, or also allow "independent" Westercons to be organized.

Before asking questions, please read the document, where I've tried to address such questions. You may also want to read the current Westercon Bylaws for context.

I think that once the Business Meeting decides which path it wants to follow, it will make it easier to make a decision on what to do about Westercon 77.

We woke up a little earlier than expected this morning, which might suggest that we managed to catch up on sleep, although today's activities might have erased that.

Because we were up early, we took the opportunity to do another load of laundry. We also packed a few of the Tide pods to go with us to Churchill, in case either we or some of our friends traveling with us wanted to do laundry at the four-bedroom house we've rented for our stay there. It sounds extravagant, but the cost per person, split six ways, was less expensive than hotel rooms in Churchill, and gives us a full kitchen as well as a living room area and four bedrooms. Besides which, most of the hotel rooms in Churchill seem to be dedicated to tour groups.

( Train Stations and Hotels )

The walk to the train station is only about 1 km each way, but it was (by local standards) warm and (by our desert-accustomed standards) humid, and was a bit hard on Lisa. When we got back, I left Lisa to recover in the air-conditioned room and walked down to the auto repair shop to find out what the status of the minivan was.

( Looked Promising at the Time )

For this particular expedition, Lisa had loaned me one of her amateur radios. By a reciprocal agreement between the USA and Canada, our licenses were good in Canada as long as we followed certain rules. We were able to stay in touch with each other until after Central Park (about 1000 m from the Delta Hotel), after which I was no longer able to contact her, and even on the way back, I wasn't able to raise her until we were within eyeshot. However, that might have been a mistake on my radio handling.

By now it was well past lunchtime, so Lisa and I went to lunch with Chris Marble, once he was able to free himself up from the Office. We returned to Elephant & Castle, in some part because there were still things on the menu that Lisa wanted to try. We did not rush. There was still plenty of time to pack.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon separating those things that needed to be stored in Winnipeg from those that were going to go with us to Churchill, plus a few things that we would leave behind or finish consuming. I went over to Rexall for a final container of milk. The price difference between a 1.5 and a 4 litre container of milk was such that it was more cost-effective to buy the larger container even if I only drank half of it.

At 5:20, having heard nothing from the mechanic, I called him, and received bad news. After he put the repaired pipes back into the unit and charged it up, the coolant all ran out again. There's another leak. He needs more time to find the additional leak or leaks. Well, we get back from Churchill on July 31, so I told him to keep working on it, leave me a message when he has more information (much of the train trip will be out of phone coverage), and we'll get it back from him next week.

It was time to activate Move-Out Plan B. Instead of packing all of our "stays in Winnipeg" stuff in the Astro and then parking the Astro at our friend's house, we needed to store the material itself at their house. They were willing to do so. I also had to change hotel reservations. Our original plan was to stay at the Holiday Inn Express Polo Park near the airport, using IHG points. Because we cannot be certain that our train will actually get back to Winnipeg on time at 16:45 (the shop closes at 18:00), we needed to stay downtown within walking distance of the shop. I canceled the Polo Park reservation and booked a room at the Holiday Inn Downtown, which coincidentally was the Pemmi-Con overflow hotel. (If it were not for all of our convention commitments, I probably would have stayed there for the IHG perks I get from being a Platinum member.) As it happens, I ended up with 2000 more points in my account than when I started, because of the difference in cost between the properties. The Downtown property is a mere 800 m from the auto shop.

Should we arrive on time, and assuming we've confirmed that the van is ready to be collected, we'll take a taxi straight to the shop, collect the van, drive to the hotel and check in, then go to our friend's house and rescue our considerable luggage. Otherwise, we'll just go to the hotel and deal with the van and the luggage the next morning. However in any event, my plan to do Day Jobbe work on that first morning is out the window, and I contacted my manager to tell him so.

Our friend (some of you reading this know who it is) phoned to tell me they were on their way to the hotel. I went downstairs and was able to get a cart. This was a near thing; the World Police & Fire Games are moving in to all of the downtown hotels and the lobby was very busy. There was a person checking in for a 14-night stay (as compared to the 7-night stay ending tonight for Lisa and me). He let me have his cart, and I hurried up to our room, where Lisa crammed all of the stay-in-Winnipeg stuff onto it. We then went back downstairs and managed to fit it in into our friend's vehicle. It was so much that Lisa had to stay behind, and we went to our friend's house.

( Luggage Games )

All six of us going to Churchill are now at either the Delta or Holiday Inn, and some of them went to dinner at the Elephant & Castle, but Lisa was tired and demurred. She and I ordered another pizza and watched a movie, and then she took a bath and went to sleep.

Train time is Noon on Tuesday. We'll aim to be early, even if it means waiting around the station for a while. We'd rather be early and have to wait than miss what is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime train trip.

Today we needed to be up early so that we be in place for our roles with the first-ever NASFiC WSFS Business Meeting. We made breakfast in the room (instant eggs from our supply of camping food) and were ready to go early. That's good because the meeting room was still locked at 9:30 AM when we came downstairs. Jannie Shae of Pemmi-Con Programming called the hotel to have the room unlocked, and we had plenty of time to set up.

( Meeting Staff )

I was pretty relieved at how smoothly the Business Meeting went. Lisa and I carried the meeting material back up to our room, after which I popped over to Rexall to buy more milk. (Having a refrigerator is our room is a luxury.) Lisa, who had been up too early to suit her, went back to bed.

Initially, I couldn't log in to the Worldcon Events YouTube channel because it needs 2-factor authentication on my US cell phone number. I have the phone turned off because I don't want to pay for roaming. Not wanting to postpone uploading the video until we got back into the USA, I initially uploaded it to my personal account. I then remembered that my personal account is also an Editor on the Worldcon Events channel, so I uploaded it there as well. However, that meant having to "recall" the initial uploads. I changed the personal upload to Private and will eventually delete it.

I made a trip over to the Exhibit Hall to check into my Buffalo NASFiC membership and to chat with people in a more relaxed way now that most of the WSFS business is done for this convention.

( Bid Tables )

Returning to the Delta, I met up with Cheryl Morgan. She had I had a number of things we needed to do related to the Hugo Awards website and social media presence. It's boring technical stuff, which could have possibly have been done over Zoom, but it was much easier to get it done while we were in the same place, which doesn't happen all that often. As I'm not taking any computer equipment with me to China (assuming I get to go at all), Cheryl will need to do the WSFS social media and website updates for this year's Hugo Awards. We are of course hoping that Chengdu does decide to follow current practice and live-stream the Awards ceremony.

When I came back to the hotel room, Lisa was up and about. We went down to the Pinball Room, where I was able to play for a while without any time pressure. Luxury! We also talked and socialized with people, and given that this is one of the main reason we come to conventions, it was a pleasure to be able to do so and not have to rush off to yet another commitment.

I called the garage where my minivan is located, but nobody answered. I'll need to call on Monday to find out whether they expect to have it repaired on Monday or else they'll need to keep it until we get back from Churchill on July 31.

Lisa and I turned in early, skipping the Masquerade and evening parties, and instead ordering a pizza and watching one of the movies on my computer.

Tomorrow is the final day of Pemmi-Con, but I don't have to set an alarm. My remaining commitments are one panel and the Closing Ceremonies, where I need to bring the gavel for its ceremonial use. I hope I manage to get clearer photos this time than I did at the Opening Ceremony.

Pemmi-Con is now officially open, and today's first day was personally the busiest of the four days I will face. On the bright side, because most things did not start until Noon, I could sleep in a little bit. We made breakfast in the hotel room (having accumulated all of this stuff over the duration of the trip helps). Lisa went over to the Exhibit Hall, where she's one of the staff, to help with final setup. I went looking for my membership badge, which I lost yesterday evening. It was in none of the places where I tried, so I went to Registration and paid the $25 fee to replace it. No excuses; it is my own fault.

I met up with the Site Selection Team. I had brought most of our gear: ballot box, cash box, blank ballots, receipts, and the like. Other material we picked up from the Convention Office. We walked to the Exhibit Hall, where everyone still working on setup had been booted out for a safety hold while an important part of WSFS conventions was being hung from the ceiling.

( NASFiC is a WSFS Event, Too )

I helped the Site Selection set up the area, but I had to leave and head back to the hotel room, as Lisa had cut her hand while setting up exhibits and had gone back to the room to dress the wound. I was a few minutes behind her. She couldn't find her kit, but I also had bandages, so she was able to clean and bandage the cut. She says the cut was rather ragged, which is making it knit better already.

I swapped into my WSFS uniform, but annoyingly, I forgot to get a picture. Dressed for the part, I oversaw the Future WSFS Conventions (NASFiCs, Worldcons, and bids for same). After that, I took the gavel over to the Delta, where it was needed as part of the Opening Ceremony.

( It's Official )

Unlike previous NASFiCs and any US Worldcons, Cheryl Morgan was able to attend Pemmi-Con, and she caught up with during the Opening Ceremony. After I retrieved the gavel (I need it for the Business Meeting), Cheryl and I went over and worked on our schedules. Due to me not taking my computer to China with me (assuming they let me go), Cheryl needs to be the Voice of the Hugo Awards on our official channels, and as we're both in the same place, it will be much easier to set it up if we can get together and work on it together here at Pemmi-Con. We should be able to find a block of time when neither of us in scheduled for something we must attend.

I had been working on getting a group dinner together for Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse. I ate here clear back in 1994 during ConAdian, and hoped to be able to go again. We identified a group of seven fans (including Lisa and me), and I needed to get down to the restaurant (which is located on the lower level between the Delta Hotel and the RBC Convention Center) to make a reservation. It turned out that the only time they still had availability was 8:30 PM, so I had to send texts to the people involved to make sure eating dinner that late was okay (it was).

After getting the reservation squared away, I went to my second panel of the day, labeled as the History of NASFiC, but what in the end turned into "Kevin Tells Stories About NASFiCs He's Attended." But the members attending seemed to enjoy it.

Returning to the room, I changed out of my WSFS uniform (which does seem to fit better than it did a year ago) and after tending to some other business on the computer, Lisa and I went back to the second floor, where I had about 30 minutes available until dinner: Pinball!

( The Pinball Room )

Around 8 PM, the members of our dinner party met in the Delta Lobby, and shortly thereafter, we headed over to Ichiban. It's a short trip, and we were early, but they were able to seat up. It was a great meal, and a great show, as such places usually are. I had not eaten a lot during the day (lunch was a smoked sausage from a street vendor), and I got the biggest dinner they had, and was very happy with it. Also, this is the biggest group dinner I've attended since before the pandemic. All of us are convention members, which means we're all vaccinated and have been masking while in the convention. Our cook was also masked, which was reassuring. It was a great deal of fun.

Lisa left a little early (as dessert was arriving) because she was worn out. I did not go seek out room parties, although I did hear that the hotel was shutting them down. I went back to the room and got ready for bed.

Earlier today, Lisa told me that we have to go back to the mechanic on Friday. I asked way, and she said, "Because the tripod for the camera we need for recording the Business Meeting is still in the back of the Astro." We haven't heard back from them anyway, so it's just as well that we'll go there on Friday morning.

Version 04 of the 2024 NASFiC Site Selection Ballot, including fill-in-the-blank fields to make completing the ballot easier, is now online and you can download it from the 2024 NASFiC Site Selection page. Remember that if you are going to be at Pemmi-Con on Thursday or Friday of the convention, you can vote in person there. (Voting ends on Friday at 6 PM.)

You only need the ballot here if you want to vote by postal mail (must be received by July 11), by sending the ballot via email (must be received by July 21 at 4 PM CDT), or you want to send your ballot with someone else who is going to Pemmi-Con to delivery on your behalf.

Yesterday, Westercon 75 announced that the convention in Anaheim will not happen and that, consistent with the Westercon Bylaws, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS), owner of the Westercon service mark, has directed Loscon 49 to take on the official functions of Westercon 75. The post to which I linked is what I wrote on Westercon.org (I'm the lead maintainer of the site), but it does quote and link to the official statement from Westercon 75's chair, Arlene Busby.

For those of you who follow Westercon closely, this is effectively the same thing that happened two years ago when Westercon 73 in Seattle had to throw in the sponge, and for what I take to be the same reason: not enough members to cover the cost of holding the convention. This is why the announcements from the 2021 and 2023 Westercons and the posts on Westercon.org look so much alike. We've been through this before, and unfortunately have some understanding of how to deal with it, so some of us could share the documents we used before, to help the current Westercon rather than having them have to thrash around creating announcements after they decided that they had to pull the plug.

This is similar to how the experience I had in 2011 when the Westercon site selection crashed means that the selection processes in 2021 and 2022 went considerably faster. Specifically, I know how to avoid driving the Business Meeting into a procedural corner while still letting the members have their say.

If some of you are wondering why we could hold a Westercon in Tonopah while "real places" like Seattle and Anaheim could not, I suggest the major reason is money. Tonopah was very inexpensive. If we hadn't gone a bit overboard on publications, it would have been even less expensive. And while we did not need to do so, Lisa Hayes was prepared to backstop up to $5000 of the convention's expenses in excess of revenue had it been necessary. Our convention center cost only $550/day to rent, and our Guests of Honor were paid by a grant from UFO, parent of Westercon 72. We had not planned to have GoHs and said so when we were bidding, but UFO gave us enough money that we could afford to invite and honor Myrna Donato and Kevin Andrew Murphy, and I was glad we were able to do that. Still, our fixed costs were quite low, so we could manage to hold the convention with as few members as we had (158 badges picked up, and around 350 total members including supporting).

All of us who were going to be working on the official functions of Westercon (Site Selection and Business Meeting) have agreed to work on the same functions as part of the relocated-to-Loscon Westercon 75. After discussing it with the individuals, I've done a reshuffle of position titles to better reflect what people will be actually doing. I'd like to thank Loscon 49 for being so ready to take on these additional functions, and I look forward to working with them on integrating the 75th Westercon into Loscon 49.

It seems likely to me that the long-term members of Westercon will want to consider the future of the convention, and that this will be a subject of discussion at Loscon 49/Westercon 75 this November in Los Angeles.

It's a pity that the 75th Westercon won't be a standalone event, but I'm glad that it will be in the Los Angeles area, given that it is where Westercon started.