Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 12:34:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] DC3 Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> For those who didn't see the flier that Mike Nelson was distributing during Friday's meeting, here is its complete text. Please don't forward this outside of WSFA without Mike's permission. Thanks. And thanks to Wade for scanning it in for me. [ Drawing of a DC3 airplane towing a "DC 3" banner ] A Bid is Born by Michael Nelson During a break in the Sunday session of the 2003 World Science Fiction Society business meeting at Torcon 3, a casual remark turned into the birth of a Worldcon bid. I mentioned to Vincent Docherty that I was thinking of researching sites for a Worldcon(1) in Washington, DC. Vincent, a true Evil SMOF(2), called T.R. Smith (another Evil SMOF) over and told her. T.R. quickly collected the first two pre-supporting membership fees of twenty monetary units from Vincent and herself. T.R. proceeded to sell additional pre-supporting memberships and supply receipts to over sixty people during the rest of Torcon 3. She convinced Jane and Scott Dennis to design a bid t-shirt based on a suggestion by Michael Walsh. Since this would be a bid for the third DC worldcon, Michael suggested that a Douglas DC-3 aircraft be used on the t-shirt. The military version of the DC-3, the C-47 (Dakota, R4D, Li-2, etc.), was nicknamed the "Gooney Bird" during World War II. While doing a little research on the DC-3 and gooney birds (a.k.a. albatross), I found this following quote in a Smithsonian Magazine article: "After spending as many as seven years at sea, juvenile albatross will return to Midway to begin an elaborate courtship process, which involves dancing, head-bobbing, bill clacking and whining vocalizations." This is the finest description of a Worldcon bid committee I have ever seen. After some discussion with the usual suspects, we have decided that it is too early to call ourselves a Worldcon bid committee. That would imply we were an organized entity rather than an informal group of people doing a bit of research into the possibility of hosting a Worldcon in the Washington, DC region. Should we determine that a DC Worldcon bid is feasible, we shall present a proposal to WSFA for approval and form a nonprofit organization to govern our bid. If we decide there are no suitable Worldcon sites in DC, we will approach the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and Baltimore Worldcon 1998, Inc. (the parent corporation for Bucconeer, the 1998 Worldcon in Baltimore) with a proposal to unite to investigate the feasibility of bringing the Worldcon back to Baltimore under the management of Baltimore Worldcon 1998, Inc. And if we are unsuccessful in gaining the support of WSFA and BSFS/Baltimore Worldcon 1998, Inc., we will use our pre-support funds to throw a really nice party at Noreascon 4, the 2004 Worldcon in Boston, for our Gooney Birds (my special name for our wonderful pre-supporters). We will not choose a year for our bid until after we learn the results of the 2007 Worldcon site selection vote and the WSFS business meeting motion to reduce Worldcon bidding lead time to two years at Noreascon 4, since they will affect our decision. We hope to formally announce our bid at the end of the 2004 WSFS business meeting. [ Photo of two gooney birds waddling ] 1 World Science Fiction Convention 2 Secret Master of Fandom -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.