Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 18:36:39 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: New officers
Cc: JEKindell at aol.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 03:46 PM 3/20/04, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>It's that time of year again.  The trustees' slate is due in April,
>for the annual elections in May.  Anyone who wants to be an officer,
>or wants to stop being one, or to change office, please speak up.
>
>We already have someone who wants to be Capclave '06:  Elspeth Kovar.

I would like to chair Capclave '06 and am honored that the trustees are
considering putting me on their slate.  I haven't worked in all parts of
running a con but, believe me, doing facilites I've had to be involved in
all of them and have been learning the details of other areas as fact as I
can!  If anyone has any questions about what sort of convention I'd like to
put on, please ask me.  I've been doing some thinking, have some ideas, and
all the rest but since we're still establishing what Capclave is going to
be in the long run the tenor of the convention should be by group consensus.

And, of course, if it turns out that you don't like my ideas you should
know that beforehand so you'll know vote for someone else.

>And someone who wants to be the new secretary and Journal editor:  Me.
>(Wade will assist me with graphics and printing.)  Bob MacIntosh says
>that Judy Kindell no longer wants to be president.

Judy has done a tremendous amount for WSFA, staying on an extra year when
our previous VP had to move away so that we wouldn't have a completely
novice president and vice president.  We owe her our thanks.

Cathy had done a fine job as VP in that year, getting the hang not only of
running meetings, as much as they're ever run, but also being actively
involved in thinking and talking about where we're going with WSFA and with
Capclave.  She's been a department head, handling registration, for the
past couple of cons and I'm hoping that she's willing to run for
president.  I'd do so solely on the basis of the fact that I think she'd do
an excellent job but she also has strong ties to WSFA's 'new blood', the
folks who've joined in the past couple of years.  It's been bothering me
that I don't think that there's enough connections between the two yet.

>Steve Smith is
>willing to become the new vice president.  Does Cathy Green want to
>move from vice president to president?  We also need one or two new
>trustees, as Steve and I move on.

Um, shouldn't that be 'if'? <g>  The trustees slate is just that, although
we've a habit of simply voting people into office.

There's also been a movement to draft Barry Newton into running for
VP.  Mike, I think you and Judy were talking about that?  He and Judy
(Newton) have had to take some time off from being very active in
WSFA.  Something about work, and raising a daughter I believe.  Funny how
much time all of that can take.

But he's a long-time WSFAn who's been paying his dues -- in work, that is,
not just the $10 -- in the meantime, and now that Meridel is off at college
is able to make it to many more meetings and contribute even more, as well
as having been staying aware of thing things that we should probably be
addressing.  He's also rejoined the conrunners lists and become much more
active in convention work.  And, like Keith, he has a habit of thinking
things through and asking questions before deciding on anything.

Since we're still in the process of establishing a convention both are
important.  And as we've wound up with a large chunk of cash the latter is
especially so.  We have a new con, new money, and a number of fairly new
members.  As I mentioned, I'm interested in Cathy as president, and Barry
would do a good job of helping balance a fairly green president: thoughtful
and conscientious.

>All else being equal, preference will be given to people who show up
>at lots of meetings.  My annual attendence report will be in the April
>Journal.

Thanks, Keith, for tracking those statistics.

Your comment about "preference will be given . . ." caught my attention.  I
assume that you're talking about who will wind up on the trustees slate,
rather than how people will vote?

Anyway, while writing this I've been thinking about that and considering
how active various people are in WSFA.  Showing up at meetings is one of
measuring that, and your report lays that out.  What I've also been
thinking about is how much work people do, and how much care and concern
they have for WSFA.  Lots of folks show up at meetings and just hang out --
WSFA is, after all, first and foremost a social organization and that's
what we're here for.  We're good at it.

What's harder to measure is the nuts-and-bolts stuff.  We can sort of see
who's doing the actual running of our masthead convention, since usually
there's a list somewhere of the concom, but even when that's available it
doesn't include everyone who does the work.  There are the officers and
people like you who handle the website and all of our online
matters.  There are the trustees, whose job is to make certain that we have
at least one person willing to do each of the jobs.

All of those are on record.   Then there are a bunch of people who aren't
on record but do a lot of work and/or actively truly care about
WSFA.  Michael Nelson comes to mind, as does John Pomeranz.  Neither will
rate highly on the attendence sheet but both are people we can absolutely
count on.  Upon consideration, I think that my own preference is going to
go to people such as that, rather than just going on who has attended the
most meetings.

Elspeth