“Come Build WisCon With Us”, posted December 1, invites fans to step up and fill the con committee’s vacancies.
They are seeking an organizer for the writer’s workshop, a lead in at-con registration, and people to handle the after-con party, do banquet liaison, run art show set-up, sell ads, work on grant-writing and fundraising, volunteer in gaming, assist programming and the bake sale, or even help co-chair the con.
The next WisCon is May 22-25, 2015.
[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh for the story.]
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Serious question: After all the Drama (with a capital D) that I’ve read about here, why would anybody touch WisCon with a ten foot pole?
Two reasons that come to my mind are (1) there will be people who find WisCon’s raison d’etre worth persevering for and (2) it’s possible for a person to do their work and stay out of any drama, so why would they be dissuaded from volunteering.
Also, some of us were really quite invested in the Drama from the other side, which isn’t especially well-represented here.
The first round of Drama happened in no small part because the Wiscon community was unhappy with the concom’s handling of the harassment cases; the subsequent Drama involving Richard happened because much of the concom was unhappy with working with Richard. A great deal of that unhappiness stemmed from his consistently loyal and unflinching defense of Jim Frenkel. There was also his annual, rather pointed insistence that the inclusion of the Person of Color Safer Space in the Wiscon program was “racist”–and this was despite years of requests for the continuance of the Safer Space from the actual persons of color who attend Wiscon. In fact, it’s been *so* successful, we are now looking at possibly hosting a Trans Safer Space, and there have been rumors of disability and socioeconomic ones in the works…
While the unpleasant interpersonal disputes associated with these events cost us a considerable number of our core members (again: these resignations came from ALL sides of the discussions), frankly, removing Richard from the concom actually removed a major disincentive to a lot of people’s participation. As did the final resolution of the aforementioned harassment case.
And it’s important to note, when discussing the vast anger on the part of the Wiscon community this summer, that this outrage is actually a reflection of the enormous community investment in Wiscon.
This culture change towards harassment and inclusion is one that is going to be affecting a lot of organizations in the near future. I’ve been reading about the goings-on with Context, and it’s difficult not to draw parallels with what happened at Wiscon. What happened at Context is what would have almost certainly happened to Wiscon if only one or two variables had been different:
http://ideatrash.net/2014/11/why-i-am-resigning-as-programming.html
-Jackie M.
Wiscon 39 Recruitment department; Wiscon 39 Anti-Abuse Team
Oh, as always: that’s me posting in a fit of pique. While I am listing my Wiscon affiliations, I do not have the authority to represent the Wiscon concom overall. This is merely my “insider’s perspective”.