Sponsor a Bench at MidAmeriCon II

MidAmeriCon II’s Patty Wells and Melissa Morman are looking for help furnishing the exhibit hall at this year’s Worldcon in Kansas City. Here’s their pitch:

One of the advantages of being favored with five acres of exhibit hall is that we have the room to make our dreams come true. One of our dreams is to put a river through it — so we have also gone and put a park alongside that for good measure. And what is a park, or a river, without park benches to sit on and admire the view or converse with a friend?

At the Worldcon in London a couple of years ago, the convention scattered benches throughout the Fan Village and other parts of the Exhibit Hall, and asked fan groups to sponsor a bench with a plaque commemorating their group, their bid, or a member of their group on it. This idea was well-received by the fannish community and much fun. M2 is continuing this tradition (it’s been done once, so it’s now a tradition, right?).

We are therefore offering you and your group the opportunity to get your message out, publicize your group, or memorialize a lost friend. The benches we are ordering for the fan fair are a lovely metal bench in a design sure to add to your local con should you take the option of taking the bench home after the con.

There are multiple ways you can participate:

OPTION 1 — Sponsor a Plaque ($150)

Send us your group’s name and/or message and we will have it engraved on a plaque that will then be attached to one of the park benches (see above). If, like many of us, you are traveling to KC from distant lands, the plaques will be removable for you to take home as a memento for the group or person you honored. We will have the plaque made with your message. The plaques will take two lines of text, with roughly 20-25 characters per line.

OPTION 2 — Sponsor a Bench! ($200)

This gets your group’s message on a plaque AND you can take the bench with you when the convention is over as a comfortable addition to your next fannish event. And if you are taking the bench home, arriving during Exhibit Hall set up and decorating your bench in some fannish fashion to make it more memorable is encouraged.

OPTION 3 — Sponsor a Bench AND a Park ($500)

Want more exposure for your group? Sponsor a pocket park along the river! Surround your bench with flora and maybe even some fauna; make it distinctive! M2 will name the park after your group and place an acknowledgement sign in the park which may also contain a custom message (“Come to your party on Friday night!”, “Vote for Trantor in ‘99”, or even “Ygnvie is a Louse!”). With this option, you may again take the bench home with you (along with its plaque!) as well as the acknowledgement sign.

If your sponsor dollars are received early, your sponsorship can be acknowledged in the convention’s pocket program.

For more information, please send an email to:

[email protected] or contact Melissa Morman on FB.

Thank you for your consideration. The more we personalize something as large as a Worldcon exhibit hall, the more fannish the Worldcon is.

215 thoughts on “Sponsor a Bench at MidAmeriCon II

  1. Sorry about that, Charon. The hyperlink I posted above will create an e-mail with the Subject and Body already filled in — if you have a “default” e-mail client installed.

    If that hyperlink doesn’t work for you, send your photo attachment with an e-mail formatted this way, so that Mike can easily gather all those e-mails in one place:
    To: mikeglyer [at] cs dot com
    Subject: SJW Credentials
    Message:
    My Name/Nym: (the name you want published)
    My SJW Credentials’ Names: (names of the pictured credentials)

    Don’t forget to attach your photo! (one photo only, please) 😀

  2. Charon D.: It’s the same picture I use on my Amazon author page to prove that my SJW credential is really big — in case my email skills are really small, it looks like this.

    That’s not a cat. It’s a really fluffy horse. 😉

  3. @Dawn Incognito
    Oh no, no swimming all summer – that stinks. Good luck on all your tests. May they find something easily fixable.

    The Iron IV Infusions should have me feeling better in a few weeks while we continue looking for the source of the bleeding. Looking forward to more testing. 😉

    My new neurologist is now my ex-neurologist so someone else will be looking over all the testing and doing the ones we didn’t get to if I can find another one. I’ve not had much luck with neurologist. Unfortunate incident with her practice partner/husband during one of the tests led to possible increased damage of my left ear drum & bones and triggered PTSD with his “comforting touch” while I was crying and screaming in pain and saying stop procedure. Recommendation to doctors: if procedure isn’t supported to hurt don’t touch a woman while continuing procedure treating her like a 5 year old without a clue.

  4. @JJ
    Oops I sent my picture not my cat. Better instructions needed for us ditz. Do stuffed animals count? Currently I’m without live animals. OMG I’m an imposter SJW. That explains a lot.

  5. Tasha, do you have a local squirrel or pigeon that lives near you? I’m sure that would qualify. Or, of course, as you suggest, I don’t see why it couldn’t be a stuffed animal. (Meredith would no doubt be overjoyed if it were a dragon <grin>….)

  6. Tasha Turner: Do stuffed animals count? Currently I’m without live animals. OMG I’m an imposter SJW. That explains a lot.

    If you have photos of past credentials, you are welcome to send one of those.

  7. @JJ
    I can’t believe I don’t have any pictures with me and my cats. I sent one with me and one of my mother’s cats. I thought about sending the picture of me with a bear looming over me which was taken at a quirky museum in VT last year but I’m not sure it gave off the right vibes. LOL

  8. Thanks, JJ! Photo of my horse, er, mountain lion, uh, social justice tank-spec paladin credential has been submitted forthwith.

  9. Tasha, I’ll lend you a photo of my (deceased) cat. Or of one of my sister’s cats.

  10. Tasha, seconding P.J.’s offer! I haz lots.

    At our high point, we had 13 cats (all rescued); only one of the original 13 is still with us (Luthien, a dark tortie). We currently have four total, three in addition to Luthien, and it was a hard choice (ONE picture!). I picked Luthien who is sort of in her last days (keeping on very well with the help of three pills in the morning and four in the evening and being the one ElderCat we’ve ever had who LIKES the horribly expensive vet prescription digestive health cat food when mixed with warm water).

  11. robinareid: We currently have four total, three in addition to Luthien, and it was a hard choice (ONE picture!).

    I will point out that any of you donors can use photo-editing software to put together one photo out of crops from others, if, as with me, getting the SJW Credentials to sit together long enough for a photo is a major undertaking. (But you will want to crop the pieces pretty closely, because the composite will be much smaller than the originals.)

    If you’ve already sent, and wish to resend, please let Mike know that your photo is a replacement for an earlier one. There are about 60 of us, so we want to keep the donor thank-you post as simple as possible for him.

  12. @JJ I will point out that any of you donors can use photo-editing software to put together one photo out of crops from others, if, as with me, getting the SJW Credentials to sit together long enough for a photo is a major undertaking. (But you will want to crop the pieces pretty closely, because the composite will be much smaller than the originals.)

    I want someone to find and return my brain ASAP which is out on a brain fog break. I didn’t even think about combining a picture of lucky and/or Nechama and me. Well I’ve sent 2 pictures to Mike already I don’t know if I should send a third. I may do so as the picture with mom’s cat, wearing a pink paper crown as a tutu, may not work really small. LOL

    Thanks @P J & robinareid for offering to lend me a cat picture. I’ve never owned more than 3 cats at a single time. But we did own 3 cats, 2 dogs, 5 goats, and a Podunk all at once when I was a pre-teen. I don’t have pictures on iPad of any of those. Currently they are in a box at bottom of a spare closet. I checked yesterday and confirmed I’m not up to moving 20 boxes to get at them. 😉

  13. Pingback: Thank You to the Sponsors of Park 770 | File 770

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