Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 21:02:31 -0500 (EST)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>, capclave2004 at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Aliens Ate My Baby!
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> WSFA has this convention, which got started because we were broke
> and needed a source of income.

I don't think that was ever the main reason for Capclave.

> There are other reasons for WSFA running a convention which include
> individuals wanting the egoboo; wanting there to be something other
> than Balticon locally; wanting to give something back to people who
> love SF and thinking that this is a good way of doing so; a number
> of other things; and simply habit.

I agree with all of the above.  Except that I've never considered
Balticon to be local.  I can't commute there -- I have to spend the
night.  With the demise of Unicon, Evecon, and Castlecon, Capclave is
currently the *only* local annual SF con.  (Not counting anime cons,
gaming cons, etc.)

> But none of those matter unless a sufficient number of people in the
> club *want* us to have a convention enough that the care, work, and
> attention are shared enough that things don't slip and no one gets
> burned out.

*Is* there a shortage of Capclave volunteers?  I had thought there
wasn't.  I had thought the problems with Capclave were finding hotels
willing to host us for a reasonable amount of money, and attracting
enough fans to at least break even.

There's more evidence of a lack of support for the WSFA Journal.
*Nothing* was contributed in November.  The December Journal consists
entirely of what people had submitted earlier, and of my own writing.
And after four months *not one* person has submitted a biography as
I've been repeatedly requesting.  (Plenty of people promptly submitted
biographies for the Capclave '04 program book, which didn't prevent
its editor from complaining of a lack of support.  Sheesh.)

> - Go to SMOFcon.

I'll be there.  What time should I arrive to help set up?

> - Keith, if you could make copies of WSFA Journals that you find
> most interesting -- they can be from yesterday or 50 years ago --
> and at SMOFcon give them to one of us going to Philcon.

I have no unbiased opinion on which issues of the WSFA Journal are
most interesting.  However, since the message we want to send is "look
how cool we are," not "look how cool we were," the current issue is
the obvious choice.

I've printed twenty more than the usual number -- 62 December issues
instead of the usual 42 -- and will bring 42 of them to SMOFcon, for
distribution at SMOFcon and at Philcon.  (Someone else will have to
take them to Philcon, since I'm not attending this year.  The only
reason I attended last year was that a friend in Philadelphia let me
stay at his place.  But he no longer lives in Philadelphia.)

I'll also bring ten November issues and the one remaining October
issue.

> - Elspeth, staff the table and bring laptop . . . this time knowing
> that it should have a browser rather than being assured that only
> the laptop is needed.

Will there be an Internet hookup?  If not, I can bring a copy of the
WSFA website on CDROM.  The CDROM copy will require at least 500 megs,
since it's got lots of peripheral stuff, such as logs of all the
hits our website has gotten in the past six years.  It's in ISO-9660
format, so it should be readable my any Windows, MacIntosh, DOS,
Unix, Linux, or VMS machine with a CD drive.

> But a couple of years ago Alexis said to me, and I paraphrase, "If
> people don't care enough about the convention to do the work then
> let it die."

I'm really puzzled by this.  I thought volunteers were one thing
Capclave had no shortage of.  Does Capclave '05 or '06 have need
of any volunteers *now*?  If so, I can't recall your having asked
for any.