Conucopia: Chairman's Messages Conucopia Chairman's Messages Rev. 06-Jul-1999 Previous: Progress Reports (Table of Contents) Next: Gary Louie, 1957-1999 _________________________________________________________________ Christian McGuire, chair@99.nasfic.org From the Chair (Progress Report 3) It's summer! I spent 4 hours late on 18 May in line for a movie. The conversation was completely dedicated to only one thing: Conucopia. I've seen that same movie 2 more times (I feel so inadequate) and the little convention we're closing August with remained in the fore. I am down to one topic for any occasion. Sitting for 3 days at a table in the Bay area selling memberships like hotcakes. It must be the dish of Altoids and the sack of lemons from the LASFS tree. Pressing the flesh, answering more questions, overhearing some poor get-a-lifer complain to the occupants at a bid table next to me that they didn't include all the details on the local airport. The reprimand was for their failure to list the comparative safety of two different airports. Sure, that's my reason for making a decision to attend a convention. Then again, I carp on whom shouldn't be allowed to run the dances for a convention 2 years from now. It's a speaker placement issue. Ok, I guess air safety stats are just as valid. The party that night was surprisingly well attended for being dry. I will take my secret of keeping them in the room to my early grave. It was a different crowd. Night people are never functional enough to visit fan tables. It helped when a revered pro sat down in a corner and a BNF rested in another. They were active circles that kept drawing in the nosers who won't enter a party unless it's already packed. More memberships sold. I will eternally be personally offended that they didn't buy it cheaper forever ago. A walk on the beach, thousands of young and very unfannish (you know what I mean) bodies exposed to the sun. We couldn't care less. Our tongues tickled the air with words of hotel, logistics, publications, space allocation, ops. The joy of the summer of '99. I show up to the club for 5 minutes, my purpose to help schlep equipment on someone else's convention; the extra 30 minutes are spent answering questions, approving text for a press release, and authorizing the expenditure of an unanticipated $100.00 that makes another nervous to spend. It's relaxing to have a moment volunteering for another. Moving boxes, stuffing bags, these are easy relaxing activities. The people I stuffed bags with actually discuss that damn movie. I'm personally pissed of about this Midichlorian bullshit anyway. Dinner afterwards is back in the action. These guests have said yes. These others will do science programming. And another person suffering 80 e-mails of unsolicited program participants. Culling the list. The PhD who works as a profiler for LA sheriffs, yes! The accountant with an unpublished 1200 page anthro space opera that he's been writing for 16 years, no! None of this my decision, but shared for the fun of it and the recognition of progress. Oh, and a copy of an increasingly filled grid with a question about what another person is doing with a room at a certain time. Then morning and back at work early to read the nights e-mails. That proves to be a cornucopia of questions, replies, FYI's, and referrals from the website that wended their way to me. The first of which is a quiet note from the PR editor asking why the last thing for PR 3 is the message from the chair? I have been sharing what has been happening to me as this convention has grown in order to communicate the process of chairing a convention from my skewed point of view. This certainly isn't a map or instruction manual. Those are for others. This is for insight into the mind of one convention running guy. From here to the first day of Conucopia is less than 60 days. I am looking forward to each, and its individual touch, taste and smell. I will be limited to sharing them with the committee and staff of the NASFiC. My excitement feeds them as their energy feeds me. A good loop that will spiral ever thicker and wider until the base upon which the convention will rest is complete. I look forward to your joining us at the top where the foundation meets the stairs. We can ascend together into the heart of this creation, Conucopia, the 1999 North American Science Fiction Convention. From the Chair (Progress Report 2) It is truly a pleasure to see a convention grow. I have a love/hate relationship with convention running that is becoming more sharply defined as each convention passes. Attending a convention these days invariably bores me to tears. Working a convention excites me. I am caught up from the beginning in a whirlpool of activity. At first it is shallow and slow; barely perceptible. As time moves on, the process involves more people, their ideas and the energy they bring to the convention. The whirlpool grows. It draws in more people, who themselves call along even more. Linking together their efforts brings this fluid mass up to a size and speed appropriate for the convention they are creating. I am quite pleased with the growth and change that Conucopia has experienced over the last few months. The committee positions filled, staff assembled and volunteers helped out with whatever project needed a few temporary spare hands. So many questions that led onward to more. What do we want fans to experience? How is this achieved? Does anyone even have an interest in (fill in the blank)? On and on. Experts help out, or blow air, sometimes both. Ideas are thrown up in the air, and if not shot down for budgetary reasons, they are plucked from space to be nurtured by someone who cares about just such a thing as that idea embodies. Even the odd idea that was thought too expensive is taken up by someone who wants to do it right without spending the farm. Then there was a Masquerade where none existed before. The energy now focused upon Conucopia is that of the experienced and detail-oriented fans whose work is necessary to make the more ordinary, but no less important, aspects of a convention run. I was told at the outset that few, other than those for whom fandom is an opportunity to complain, would find fault with a Conucopia if only four items were done well. The first is registration. If the very first moment of a convention is handled quickly and smoothly, fans could not help but have a positive first impression. The second part that must be done well is, of course, programming. If, during Conucopia, a fan has to choose between good things to go to, not once, but several times a day, then their fluid and happy enjoyment of the convention shall carry them through the weekend. The next item that needs to be done well, if it's to be done at all, is publications. The progress reports should lead the fans into the convention with the data they need and should have a good supply of interesting items that raise anticipation all the way to the registration desk. Then, at Conucopia, publications should give members the tools to get around, participate and help focus their attention on sharing the time with the fans around them. A fan should depart the convention with a publication that can be called upon as a prompt for the wonderful memories that were collected at Conucopia. The last item that must be done well is a very difficult thing to express, and that is the overall charactyer of Conucopia itself. If every department runs smoothly, there are no reasons for complaint. That's fantastic when you can get it. There needs to be something more that is a direct result of every element fitting in to create Conucopia. It is the bringing together of all the fans who work on it and pulling from them the artistic, the humrous, the feeling that it matters who the guests of this convention are, and how the elements they have contributed meld and leave something that is more than the sum of its parts, much more. I have confidence and faith that the people who are now working on the convention possess the energy and willingness to make Conucopia an individual convention rather than just a NASFiC. Christian B. B. McGuire - Chairman, Conucopia _________________________________________________________________ From the Chair (Progress Report 1) I find it one of the most difficult things to do, this writing of a chairman's message. Ok, maybe one for the Memory Book. But why one for every PR? In my case, publications thinks it will allow the membership to take a direct reading on the pulse of the convention as it grows and develops towards the day it begins, as seen through the eyes of the person responsible for bringing it all together. Besides creating a run on sentence, it clearly communicates to the reader that pubs has too much publicity experience. What am I to say about where we are now? Conucopia has four carefully selected and deserving Guests of Honor. The hotel contract is finally signed. I have lost a Division Head as a result of childbirth, but kept registration, her husband. It has been decided that there will be a Masquerade, but a suitable person who'd care enough to make a go of it with a (we're not putting on a Worldcon here) conservative budget. I have yet to fill some positions on committee because several good people have given me a "can you ask me after...". Then there is my big gap in acquaintance with convention running fandom nationally. I know our locals, I know other prominent names that I have personally worked with, and that honestly doesn't get me all the people I need for a strong committee and the staff to support them. You haven't volunteered yet, have you? I have learned a great deal this year about not being prepared when attending other conventions to promote Conucopia. Always remember that membership list. Make sure that your cool flyer lists address so fans can mail checks without having to rely on the TelepathyPost(TP). Never throw a dry party at a convention where the first words out of the mouths of fans walking into your suite are "Where's the beer, man?" Don't miss any opportunities to talk to all fans passing before your table just because you're being nice to the poor soul whose been standing before you for the last 45 minutes telling you about the trouble he is having getting an agent to sell his novel based on a game he and his pals have been playing every Saturday night for the last 18 years. Never dismiss someone as not having the money to travel because of age and dress; he took that six figure job offer because he liked the stock option package. Live and learn, right! Maybe next time I'll tell you about the trouble I have when the hotel A/C inevitably dries up my throat, and the 'other' benefit of having a room on the party floor. Many people will be paying for this foolishness damn near forever just so you can have fun. There really doesn't need to be another reason to go through with it than that. C. B. B. McGuire _________________________________________________________________ Previous: Progress Reports (Table of Contents) Next: Gary Louie, 1957-1999 Top | Table of Contents | What's New | Register | Addresses | Help info@99.nasfic.org