Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 03:54:52 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] No longer a Great Convention: Re: [WSFA] Re: Beyond a Great
  Con...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 07:58 PM 10/17/2005, Ted White wrote:
>samlubell at verizon.net wrote:
>
> >  Let's please not use the calls to end the infighting as the bell to
> >  start round three (or perhaps three thousand).
> >
> >  I spoke to the Gillilands yesterday. They are not excluding any
> >  paid-up WSFA member from the meeting part of WSFA meetings. That's
> >  true for the Madigans as well. And Ted, I specifically asked about
> >  you since I believe you currently are a paid-up member.

This addresses only the smallest and least significant part of the matter,
which may be why it's the simplest one.  Ban someone from a place where we
hold meetings, which have been traditionally open to everyone, and get away
with it because they're not a member?  Okay, make them a member.  Which is
exactly what was done when this red herring came up.

> >  We don't all have to be best friends, but I think we can all get
> >  along with each other and work together as long as we remember that
> >  our fellow members are human too and have feelings that can get hurt
> >  and brains that can misfire, make mistakes, and sometimes fail to
> >  understand what we intended to mean.
>
>Sam, you're being a Pollyanna.  I don't think that, much as you'd like
>to, you can paper this over and pretend the ugliness and viciousness
>revealed don't really exist.

There is no need to repeat what follows as it more of what has been said,
again and again.  There are still those and will probably always be those
who would prefer to believe that "this is all the result of pre-Capclave
stress" or "mistaking something that was a joke" or "[person] overreacting"
or whatever other thing that can be come up with to excuse the action of a
member.

That was what we did the first time this came up and things were
successfully papered over.  There they festered and grew, with bursts of
ugliness flaring out at various people.  When it came out again it was much
worse, and we're in a much worse situation than we were then.  There are
now three more members of WSFA who will not attend meetings at the
Gillilands because of Lee's behavior.  The attacks are more vicious, far
uglier, much more damaging, the atmosphere all that much more poisoned,
none of it getting better and it being far past the time when confrontation
would have a chance of doing any good.  Paper it over once and this is what
we end up with.

Sam, Bob, and Michael, I understand why you keep asking that people shake
hands and play nice, that you're afraid that this could kill WSFA.  There's
no "could" about it: this is killing WSFA.  Paper it over again and we'll
have nothing left.

>It's time for you to stand up on your hind legs and give Lee an
>ultimatum: She does not *own* WSFA.  The Gillilands do not have a lock
>on WSFA's Virginia meetings.  It's time to move them and allow the
>Gillilands to be WSFA members like the rest of us, free to come and
>depart when they feel like it, but having no fiat over who else may attend.

An ultimatum from the President would have the advantage of resolving the
issue, as we'd be promptly kicked out by the Gillilands.

The club choosing to leave the Gilliland's, however, would indeed allow the
Gillilands to be WSFA members like the rest of us and allow the rest of us
to be members like the Gillilands; we've wound up in an Orwellian
imbalance.  It's a solution, "the implementation of which I leave up to
others . . ."  Actually, the implementation of which will take a number of
others and that being the case getting to done before there's an outright
schism is doubtful.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was actually hopeful until I'd typed "number of others" and before typing
"that being the case."  I've stared at that paragraph for a long time,
thinking about my job as a Capclave Chair, my responsibility as a WSFAn, if
another officer no longer attending the Gillilands might help prompt
action, what stated amount of time there should be between the time of the
ultimatum and the no longer attending so as to allow the wheels to grind .
. . and if I could make myself do it rather than choosing my own delusions,
not that this will blow over but that if I continue going to meetings I can
affect some good.

Saturday a week ago we had a lull that had been won through great cost but
gave people time in which to step back and think.  We needed that, as it
might give people a chance to pay attention to the wakeup call that had
been given.  This morning I woke up completely exhausted but satisfied:
despite the stresses we'd put on one of our most successful Capclaves and
all had gone smoothly.  The club very much needed that, not only as a
convention but as something positive and fun, energetic and energizing,
this thing that we'd done and could build on.  We needed that as well.

Ten days later and twelve hours later and the club is back where it was
before First Friday and I'm back to where I was until Thursday.  The energy
and enthusiasm that was briefly there is sucked away and I can't figure out
why I care enough to keep trying, or why any of us should.

Gosh, what an email homecoming for Walsh the day after the final convention
he'll chair.  Gosh, what an email homecoming the first day that I'm a
Capclave chair.  Gosh, give me being woken up to a screaming fit any day;
that's a brief poison.  This is the slow poison: lack of paying attention
to people, not seeing them as people, not considering them or being
considerate of them, not considering any group or group dynamic.  I
certainly can't speak for Michael and as Capclave Chair am supposed to just
take it but the committee and club weren't even allowed a full day
following our annual convention to take pleasure in it.

That's the slow poison, something we've been taking in since this started
and which is cumulative.

So that people know, I don't know how many responses to this, if any, I'll
respond to.  Not because I'm being a drive-by shooter but because I care to
much to say any more or care to little to bother anymore.  Or both.  Just
read the first part of this and ignore the rest.

Elspeth