2024 GUFF Call for Nominations — Oceania to Europe 

GUFF administrators are calling for nominations for the 2024 race to send a fan from Oceania to the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland (8-12 August, 2024) 

GUFF is the Get Up and Over (or Going Under) Fan Fund which transports SF fans from Oceania (Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) to Europe (and vice versa). 

Nominations are open to anyone who was active in fandom prior to January 2022. The winner could also travel to other parts of the UK and elsewhere in Europe to visit fans, as time permits. 

The winner will be expected to take over the administration of the fund for the next northbound and southbound races, and will ideally publish a report of their trip. 

If you wish to stand, please contact the administrators at the email addresses below. You will need three nominators from the southern hemisphere and two from Europe (who will each need to confirm their nominations), a platform of no more than 100 words to appear on the ballot, and a bond of AU$25/NZ$25 to guarantee attendance at the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow if you win. 

If you wish to stand and are unsure about how to go about getting any of these things, what the fund pays for, or the duties of a GUFF delegate and administrator, then feel free to contact them in confidence. 

Nominations are open from now until 23 March 2024. Candidates will be announced soon after, and voting will then run until 23:59 on 23 April 2024 (British Time – GMT + 1) with the winner announced online as soon as possible after voting has closed. 

Nominations should be sent via email to NZ administrator Simon Litten at [email protected] and UK administrator Alison Scott at [email protected]. The bond should be sent by PayPal to [email protected]

[Based on a press release.]

2024 European Fan Fund Race Begins

Voting has begun in the first 2024 European Fan Fund race. Jane Mondrup from Denmark and Joro Penchev from Bulgaria are candidates to become the EFF delegate to the 2024 Eurocon in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, from August 16-19 .

Balloting will continue until April 1 at 23:59 British/Irish Time: UTC+1), with the winner announced online as soon as possible after voting has closed.

The EFF is using a preferential voting system similar to that used by TAFF and GUFF. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. In order to win candidate must gain over 50% of the votes. If this doesn’t happen in the first round of counting, the lowest-ranked candidates will be eliminated from the race and those votes redistributed in subsequent rounds according to the next ranking. This will be repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes. Alternatively, fans can vote to Hold Over Funds to another year, or vote No Preference.  Any fan active in fandom prior to January 2022 can vote providing they donate at least 3 EUR (or 3 GBP or equivalent) to EFF.

The candidates’ platforms and nominators follow:

Jane Mondrup

I’ve been an avid reader of Science Fiction, Fantasy and other speculative genres since a very early age. At some point, I started writing in the genres too, and six years ago, I attended my first convention, Fantasticon in Copenhagen. For the first time in my life, I experienced being out-nerded within the subject of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Exhilarated by this, I went again next year. Then I got into organizing a new convention in my local area in Jutland (Vilde Universer), and for a couple of years, I also joined the Fantasticon committee. In 2022 I went to my first convention abroad, Swecon, and then to Eurocon 2023 in Uppsala.

I love the organizing work and getting to know my wonderful, fellow weirdos of the SFF world. So many exiting things are happening in the genres these years, and I’m grateful to be a part of it. As the EEF delegate at Erasmuscon, I would primarily represent the Danish community, but I have some connections within Scandinavian fandom in a broader sense. I look forward to making new ties to fandom in the rest of Europe and thus contribute to the purpose of the EFF.

  • Nominators: Jesper Rugård Jensen (DK), Fia Karlsson (SE), Sidsel Pedersen (DK)

Joro Penchev

My name is Joro and I come from Bulgaria where I have spent more than 30 years reading and 20 years writing about science fiction and fantasy. It is a passion but also a mission for me. I am among the main drivers of the venerable ShadowDance fanzine&website; and an organizer of many local festivals, workshops, competitions, games, etc. I work with publishers and media to spread awareness of the importance of the SFF genres and wholeheartedly believe in their important social impact. My first Eurocon was in 2004 in Plovdiv and since the late 2010s I try to visit or help Bulgarian participants in all of them. I help the nominations committee in Bulgaria with programming, draft proposals for ESFS and help popularize the Eurocon. It has however recently become difficult for me to attend and so I would be very grateful for your support. I hope to make friends with many of you on the con whom I still haven’t met and do great things in the future together. Finally, I want to thank Fionna O’Sullivan, Francesco Verso and Ivo Alekseev for supporting this bid and for their many contributions to the genre and to fandom. Cheers everyone!

  • Nominators: Ivalyo Alekseev (BG), Fionna O’Sullivan (IE), Francesco Verso (IT)

Donations should be sent via PayPal to [email protected] (choose the option to send money to friends and family if you can). Please note during the payment process that the payment is for EFF 2023 (the location varies; typically ‘Add a note’ or ‘Email to recipient’).

Votes can be provided via the online form: https://forms.gle/TaTU4e5ajnkSmdMZ9; on a paper ballot (PDFdocx) – please write to [email protected] for the address to send the paper form to — or hand deliver it to the EFF representative at Levitation 2024 – Eastercon 29th March – 1st April 2024.

2024 TAFF Race Begins

The official ballot for the 2024 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund race has been released. Fans have can vote online or by mail using a printable form; access both choices at the link.

Ballots must reach the administrators by 11:59 p.m. British/Irish time (UTC+1; 3:59 p.m. Pacific, UTC-7) on Tuesday April 2, 2024.

The two candidates are Vanessa Applegate and Sarah Gulde. The winner will travel to the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in Scotland. Here are their platforms:

Vanessa Applegate

Vanessa Applegate has been around fandom for more than twenty years, mostly attending and occasionally running logistics for cons in Northern California. Mostly, she arts, has had art in various zines, co-edited The Drink Tank for a year, was nominated for the Hugo for her work on Journey Planet, and has been known to throw on a costume from time to timeVanessa lives among the redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her husband, a pair of clingy cats, and two miniature fans-in-training. You will know her by her hair flowers!

European nominators: John Coxon, Alyssa Wales North American nominators: Francesca Myman, Dave O’Neill, Chuck Serface

Sarah Gulde

This isn’t my first time standing for TAFF … maybe the third time’s the charm? But the nice thing about throwing your hat in the TAFF ring is that even when you lose, you make some great new friends along the way! (Hi friends I made along the way!)

I’m a two-time Hugo Finalist, and 2024 will be the 10th anniversary of my first Worldcon (Loncon 3). I’ve kept in touch with folks I met there, but I would love to attend Glasgow 2024 as the TAFF delegate and make even more fannish friends across the pond!

European nominators: Johan Anglemark, James Bacon North American nominators: Chris Garcia, Seanan McGuire, Kevin Roche

The administrators’ latest newsletter is also out today. Download it here: Taffluorescence 2.

Seeking Nominations for 2024 European Fan Fund Race

European Fan Fund administrators Matylda Naczyńska and Marcin Kłak Nominations are taking nominations for the second annual EFF race until January 25, 2024.

The purpose of the European Fan Fund is to create and strengthen bonds between European fans and fandoms. The EFF winner will be sent to Erasmuscon (Eurocon 2024) in Rotterdam, Netherlands, August 16-19, 2024. Eligible candidates are European fans living outside Netherlands who were active in fandom prior to January 2022.

Those wishing to become candidates should contact the administrators at [email protected]. They will need three European nominators (who will each need to confirm their nominations), a platform of no more than 200 words to appear on the ballot, a bond of €12/£10 and a guarantee to attend the 2024 Eurocon in Netherlands if they win.

The nominators must include at least one fan from the person’s own country and one from another European country.

Once the candidates are announced, voting will run until April 1.

The European Fan Fund rules are available at the link. A FAQ is online here.

TAFF Begins Taking Nominations for 2024 Race on 12/1

Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund administrators will accept nominations beginning December 1 for the 2024 race to choose a delegate to travel from North America to Europe.

The winner will attend the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, being held August 8-12, and visit fans in the UK and elsewhere.

Glasgow 2024 has confirmed that they will provide free membership and board to the winning fan. Past TAFF winner Geri Sullivan has been appointed Fan Fund Liaison by the convention committee.

Sandra Bond, incoming European TAFF administrator, says that nominations will close on January 7, 2024. Then the ballot forms will then be circulated throughout fandom and voting will continue until April 2. Votes must be accompanied by a minimum payment of £3 (GBP), €3 (EUR), or $4 (USD), and any fan may vote who’s been active in fandom since April 2022 or earlier.

To stand for TAFF a fan needs to do the following:

  • Get three nominators from North America, and two nominators from Europe;
  • Submit a bond of (UK) £10, (US) $20, or (EU) €12;
  • Provide a platform to go on the ballot, of 101 words or fewer, saying why folks should vote for you.
  • Send those things to a TAFF Administrator by email or post.

Read more TAFF news in the new issue of Taffluorescence.


European Administrator: Sandra Bond, 1B Chestnut House, Mucklestone Rd, Loggerheads, Market Drayton TF9 1DA, UK

North American administrator: Michael Lowrey, 1847 N. 2nd St, Milwaukee, WI 53212, USA EU

TAFF email: [email protected]  

NA TAFF email: [email protected]

EU TAFF PayPal: [email protected]

NA TAFF PayPal: [email protected]

Website: taff.org.uk

Remembering Fans Who Were Activists in Real World Politics and the Counter Culture

Stirred to action by a particularly stupid and dismissive media generalization about science fiction fans, Rob Hansen has prepared this collection of brief biographies and essays that tell — both in his words and in their own — the stories of fans who have made some impact on the mundane world: Beyond Fandom: Fans, Culture & Politics in the 20th Century.

…In this volume you’ll meet fans who fought in the Spanish Civil War and World War II, and others who were jailed for their pacifist beliefs; fans who marched against the bomb in two separate decades a generation apart, and fans who published the first music fanzines. You’ll meet the fan who became a famous movie critic, the fans who became famous rock stars, learn of the part various fans played in increasing LGBT visibility, and discover who got beaten up by cops and arrested during the Stonewall riots. One fan even became a government minister….

The 72,000-word book is available in multiple electronic formats from the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund’s website, where they also hope you’ll make a little donation to the fund. Find it here. (A paperback edition will follow soon.)

The coverage is not only beyond fandom, but beyond the traditional SF-inspired careers in writing, editing, publishing or Big Science, as is evident from chapter titles in the Table of Contents:

Foreword
1. The Anti-Fascist
2. The Pacifists
3. The Warriors
4. The Lesbian Pioneer
5. The Voice of America
6. The Futurists
7. The Painters
8. The Record Company
9. The Folkzines
10. The Aldermaston Marcher
11. The Political Prisoner
12. The Beat Generation
13. The Film Critic
14. The Film Director Swami
15. The King of Greenwich Village
16. The Friend the Beatles Wrote For
17. The Nazi Occupation Movie
18. The Playwright
19. The Kings of Pornography
20. The CIA Pilot
21. The Counterculture
22. The Musicians
23. The Music Mogul
24. The Punk Promoter
25. The Senior Civil Servants
26. The Anti-Nuclear Activists
27. The Government Minister
28. The Trans Icon
29. The Pope’s Astronomer
30. The Professor of Law
Afterword
Appendix: As Others See Us

The cover shows UK fan Norman Shorrock posing with a BBC camera at the 1957 London Worldcon, in a photo taken by Peter West.

[Based on a press release.]

Another String on Walt’s Harp

Irish fan Walt Willis was a beloved writer and a prolific one. Rounding up all his work and publishing it in collections has taken years. Now David Langford has finished the job with the latest addition to TAFF’s library of free downloads. Perhaps.  

Langford says The Harp Remembered is “A perhaps final ebook volume of Walt Willis’s fanwriting, including everything from the monumental Willis compilation Warhoon #28 that’s not already available in TAFF ebooks, plus much further material – some of it never before collected.”

The 181,000-word book is available in multiple electronic formats from the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund’s website, where they also hope you’ll make a little donation to the fund. Find it here.

From Warhoon there are extracts from Walt’s first fanzine Slant (here with several extras), the long autobiographical sequence of fannish reminiscences “I Remember Me”, several standalone articles, and the “Epilogue” chronicling Walt’s increasing distraction from fandom by his work as a senior civil servant in Northern Ireland during a resurgence of the Troubles. But he was to return….

In addition, The Harp Remembered contains the legendary Irish Fandom Christmas Cards (each in fact a mini-fanzine) and a mass of previously uncollected articles and compilations of fanzine columns other than the famous “The Harp That Once or Twice” (separately collected in its own TAFF ebook): “The Outpost”, “Plinth”, “The Perforated Finger”, “The Prying Fan” (as revived for Pulp) and “The Warier Bard”. The main text ends with a tasty selection of shorter items and extracts, from one-liners to one-pagers. Also included as an Appendix are appreciations by Ken Bulmer and Vince Clarke, and a corrected and expanded version of the Willis bibliography from Warhoon #28.

Cover artwork by Atom (Arthur Thomson) for Cry of the Nameless #171, December 1963, edited by F.M. Busby, Elinor Busby and Wally Weber.

[Based on a press release.]

Meet the Women of Fifties UK Fandom in Rob Hansen’s “Generation Femizine”

Rob Hansen surveys the early presence of women in UK science fiction fandom, identifies the UK’s first known female fan, and shows the lead-up to the fanzine Femizine (1954-1960) – the first true rallying point for female British fans — in Generation Femizine, the latest addition to TAFF’s library of free downloads. 

The 67,000-word book, compiled from the participants’ own words, is available in multiple electronic formats from the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund’s website, where they also hope you’ll make a little donation to the fund. Find it here.

In this compilation, each major contributor is represented by a mini-biography and a photograph, followed by a selection of her writings in Femizine and/or contemporary fan publications. Rob Hansen supplies necessary context and commentary, tells how it all ended, and adds appendices dealing with the male response (reviews in professional sf magazines), the Great Hoax, the full bibliographical details, and an international listing of “Female Fannish Firsts”.

From Rob Hansen’s Foreword

Femizine (not to be confused with the later similarly-titled US zine Femzine) was launched at SUPERMANCON, the 1954 Eastercon, held that year in Manchester. The idea of an all-female fanzine had been bubbling up for a while and several letters had passed between Frances Evans, Joan Carr, and Ethel Lindsay shortly before the convention in which they decided it was time. Carr volunteered to edit the zine and a flyer was produced in time for the con, with the first issue appearing soon afterwards. As can be seen from the cover photo (taken at the event by Eric Bentcliffe) there was a certain amount of excitement among female fans at this finally happening.

As is now widely known, “Joan Carr” did not exist (see Appendix 2). She was created as a hoax to be played primarily on the Nor’west Science Fantasy Club (NSFC), who then met regularly in Manchester….

A printed paperback edition is also available, released simultaneously with the ebook: click here for more. All proceeds from paperback sales go to TAFF.

[Based on a press release.]

Garth Spencer: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

[Reprinted by permission of the author.]

By Garth Spencer:

THE CANADIAN UNITY FAN FUND. The Canadian Unity Fan Fund was conceived to represent distant fan communities in Canada to other fan communities in Canada. In its forty-odd years of operation, CUFF has usually brought fan delegates from one side of the country to the other, wherever Canvention was held. (The Canadian SF and Fantasy Awards were hosted by one or another convention in a given year, until the national awards ceremony recently began appearing online, on a regular annual schedule.) Now, a delegate will receive funds to travel to an SF convention this year elsewhere in Canada.

I became the 2023 Canadian Unity Fan Fund delegate, which meant I was to attend Pemmi-Con, the 15th North American Science Fiction Convention, held in Winnipeg July 20th through 23rd, 2023.

Garth Spencer

“WHO IS THIS SHMOE?” I’m just this guy who got to be known in fandom for a while. I entered fandom about 1980 in a small club in Victoria. Since then I have been involved in producing a number of clubzines and personalzines; running fanzine rooms and producing program books for SF conventions; producing a Canadian fan newszine for a few years, and incidentally establishing for everyone what the Canadian SF and Fantasy Award was. These days, I take part in four APAs (Amateur Publishing Associations) – eAPA, Apaplexy, N’APA, and Stipple-Apa – and I am the official editor of eAPA. I also plan to revise my personal website as a fannish resource site, and to put together a volume of Canadian fanhistory.

PROLOGUE. In 2023: I volunteered to stand as a candidate for CUFF[1] (again[2]) in 2023, partly because I hadn’t heard of any other candidates, and partly out of a sense that various and diverse fandoms really deserve more mutual awareness. I thought I could at least try to see something of other fandoms, and tell some stories about fandom as I know it.

Fran Skene of Vancouver was the CUFF candidate in 2019, and then the COVID-19 pandemic  happened, so travel was restricted and she served as CUFF administrator for the next four years.

As it worked out, my bid gained 3 western supporters and 3 eastern supporters: Rose Wilson (BC), R. Graeme Cameron (BC), Kent Pollard (Saskatchewan), Cathy Palmer-Lister (Quebec), Lloyd Penney (Ontario), and Diane Walton (formerly of Alberta, now in Nova Scotia).

In order to raise funds for next year and beyond, I prepared a list, offering interesting and amusing fan publications for sale. These ranged from hardcopy editions of classic fanzines to hardcopy (and some digital) editions of current fanthologies. I was (and still am) prepared to accept payments in person, by cash, money order, or Paypal at: 6960 Doman Street, Vancouver, BC  V5S 3H7, or by Paypal at [email protected].

I included Confabulation, a collection of fannish fanwriting, “representing the most amusing fanwriting and faanfiction I could find, characteristic of fannish fandom … for benefit sales to CUFF, at $10 each,” I wrote. (I also offered chapbooks under my Stop Press imprint based on my extended fanarticles about worldbuilding, how to construct a language, conspiracy theories, crank theories, or micronations, at $5.00 to $7.50.)

Also, at Pemmi-Con, I was to moderate the popular Turkey Readings – readings of science fiction or fantasy so bad, no reputable publisher would issue them today – acted out by volunteers from the audience! Listeners then got to bid on whether to continue, or cease! We’ve got some real stinkers (not all written by John Norman or Lionel Fanthorpe)!

Somehow we also evolved the idea of a fanzine auction, which I think was suggested by Erin Underwood (a Pemmi-Con committee member?) in a Zoom meeting.

PREPARATIONS. I tend to build up anxiety about non-routine events and appearing on time, so I tend to overpack and overprepare. Still I foolishly did not bring the thumb drive I usually keep on my key ring.

Among other things, I made myself a handy-dandy pocket program, based on the advance schedule information received in Pemmi-Con Progress Report 2. This turned out to be relatively useful until Saturday, when I actually had events to attend, and program changes to deal with. (Strangely, the committee settled the program schedule within the week before the convention, and still there were program changes.)

Tuesday July 18, 2023:

As it worked out, getting to the Vancouver International Airport and checking in with Westjet and boarding all happened without incident. Checking in at the Delta (now aka the Marriott Bonvoy) was also trouble-free.

It was interesting to check out the look of downtown Winnipeg, in comparison with cities such as Victoria and Vancouver. Older architecture leaned towards drystone and brick construction, contrasting with the glass-and-steel buildings from more recent development. Which makes sense, given that Winnipeg is not given to earthquakes, as we are on the coast.

Finding the committee (Operations room) was a bit of a treasure hunt; signage in the hotel developed only gradually over the first few days, apart from the scrolling program schedule on the hotel video displays (which was very useful).

St. Mary’s Cathedral, directly across St. Mary’s Street from the Delta Hotel and the Elephant and Castle Pub.

Wednesday July 19, 2023:

Due to storm warnings on this day I stayed close to the hotel at first, until the evening’s Break the Ice” dinner at a nearby Old Spaghetti Factory. Eventually I tracked down Registration on the second floor. My own registration was delayed, partly due to some breakdown in communications. Amusingly, they had no record of my membership, and had to write me into the records on the spot – #1000, as it happened, which told me something about the attendance. (I was informed later that about a third of the registered members had not attended, mainly due to COVID-19 concerns.)

Strangely, the committee supplied no program books at the convention – they were conceived as souvenir books, to be mailed to members after the event. Instead, there were daily program sheets in table format, supplemented by a daily convention newsletter. Maps of the hotel’s internal layout were slow to appear.

There was a lot of meeting and greeting, of course, as congoers filtered in. There were R. Graeme Cameron, now from Nanaimo; Cliff Samuels and Eileen Capes from Calgary; John Bartley from Tualatin (near Portland); Cooki Lumsden; Stuart Cooper; Den Valdron, the Winnipeg writer; and Robert J. Sawyer, as well as Linda Ross-Mansfield, LeAmber Kensley, and Jannie Shea on the committee. My roommate John Bartley showed up this afternoon. Murray Moore talked to me about the art museum, which was heavy on Inuit art at the time.

I tagged along with Cliff Samuels and Eileen Capes to the “Break the Ice” dinner at The Forks Market. Unfortunately John Bartley, who was still recovering from flying coach, discovered he just couldn’t walk that far and begged off.

Much like Granville Island in Vancouver, this is a former railroad yard redeveloped with a wide variety of shops, produce stores, restaurants and cultural centres, including a youth theatre. The “Break the Ice” dinner for early Pemmi-Con attendees drew perhaps sixty people to The Old Spaghetti Factory. We made the acquaintance of Mark Sneed, a new writer who was attending his first SF convention, and had an interesting conversation covering  the background of the convention, the benefits of joining SFWA, and the several challenges we have encountered with varieties of English. (Mark Sneed has been an English teacher.)

Thursday, July 20, 2023:

This day I received my program participant materials, took pictures of the internal hotel maps, and rechecked the program.

Foolishly I missed the opening ceremonies on Thursday. I gather my name was called, at least to stand up and wave.

Much of my concern was focused on the CUFF auction and the Turkey Readings, neither of which I had conducted before. My anxiety was unfounded, partly because I could follow the good example of Sandra Bond’s auctioneering, and partly because there were other readers at the Turkey Readings.

Of interest is that Pemmi-Con panels generally ran for 75 minutes, with a 15-minute break between scheduled items. This seemed sensible and practical.

It developed that the consuite was in a room on the fourth floor – directly opposite the room I shared with John Bartley.

For whatever reasons, the dealers’ room, artshow, and fan tables were relegated to a room in the RBC Convention Centre, which was over ten minutes’ walk from the hotel via an elevated passage over a street. Thus I discovered there was a fan table for the Canadian SF and Fantasy Awards, with a display of its chronology and former awards; a fanzine table (empty); a display about me with blowups of my picture and bio (unexpected!); and a fan table and display for the Rotsler Award winners (I noticed the 1999 award went to Grant Canfield, and in 2008 to Taral Wayne). There were also displays promoting nuclear energy, and providing a history of nuclear engineering in Canada.

Given the function space available in the Delta hotel, this was neither necessary, nor advisable given the number of mobility-challenged attendees. Strange.

Room parties started on Thursday night, mostly on the fifth floor, representing Worldcons/bids from Seattle, Glasgow, and Minneapolis in ’73 (2073, now). Or, should I say, they were attempted at first on Thursday night. The hotel staff were apparently not briefed on room parties, and Shawn Marier from the Seattle Worldcon committee had to negotiate with them to raise their room occupancy limit from four to ten people at a time. Granted, the room parties were in rooms really too small for parties. This might be why the renewed Minneapolis in ‘73 bid sort of took over the consuite.

And there was much rejoicing.

Friday, July 21, 2023:

There was a so-this-is-your-first-convention panel, which was good, and it was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., which is as usual and is not so good. (I have suggested, on more than one occasion, that since most people arrive at conventions later than 1:00 p.m. Friday, maybe a later panel, a Web page, or a widely-distributed free pamphlet would serve the purpose better?)

Saturday, July 22, 2023:

In conversation, Murray Moore mentioned that the Canadian SF and Fantasy Association was looking for a secretary, and I offered to take up the role. Murray subsequently informed the CSFFA regulars that I would serve, and he emailed me the information about the CSFFA Zoom meeting for Tuesday after Pemmi-Con.

There were three panels that required my participation – the “Rebuilding Fannish Community” panel at 4:00 p.m. (originally “The Greying of Fandom”), the CUFF Auction at 5:30 (combined with the TAFF Auction), and the Turkey Readings at 10:00 p.m. (rescheduled from 2:30).

At 4:00 p.m., “Rebuilding Fannish Community” drew at least twenty people, and turned into a productive discussion. To my satisfaction, we got beyond the usual cliches frequently observed about ageing fannish fans, and younger fans in several specialized fandoms. (Until Friday, the members arriving at Pemmi-Con were generally over 50 years of age.) We considered the diminishing numbers of clubs, the marginalization of fanzine fandom, the efflorescence of online communities, the effect of costs and current incomes on conventions, and the divergence of fandoms.

In the end, the sense of the meeting seemed to be that it simply isn’t the job of elder fans to recreate the fan activities they knew. If we have any role, among contemporary fans, it comes down to getting out there, listening; asking a few questions; and, perhaps, offering a few parallels to similar events and issues from the past. If they are relevant. (Given the differences in today’s costs and incomes from the past, the expectations and interests of fans, and the very different expectations and demands of hotels, many stories are not so relevant now.)

At 5:30 p.m., the combined Fan Funds Auction drew four or five people, compared to the auctioneers (Sandra Bond and I). I followed Sandra’s lead and found the auction went fairly quickly. The audience were individually generous, and both fan funds made some modest money.

At 10:00 pm, the Turkey Readings drew eight or so people, and were amusing enough. Murray Moore, R. Graeme Cameron, and I took it in turn to read some bad 1970s sci-fi and fantasy, including R. Lionel Fanthorpe novels. Again, we made just a little money for CUFF. Tasia Papadatos from Ottawa commented that the selection of novels (other than Fanthorpe’s) weren’t really bad enough for the purpose. Perhaps in future years we have to seek out the real stinkers.

And so to parties. Saturday’s party scene was rather quieter than Friday’s; I was a bit disappointed.

Sunday, July 23, 2023:

Sunday was a fairly quiet day. I missed programming until four p.m. and the closing ceremonies, trying to start this trip report and, instead, ending up in an enjoyable consuite conversation, about Winnipeg and other convention stories.

The closing ceremonies, led by Tanya Huff, gave kudos to the Ghost of Honour, Lorna Toolis; to the convention committee, especially Jannie Shea (much enthusiastic clapping); and to the hotel staff, whose service was excellent.

And on Monday I had an uneventful flight home. (The cat was really glad to see me back.)


[1] The background to fandom, and the changes to fandom, should be summarized in a forthcoming fanhistory. I have found it to be a bigger job than I expected.
[2] At the end of this report is a link to CUFF trip reports online, including my own report on attending the 1999 Canvention in Fredericton, N.B. For more information about CUFF, follow this link.

Let Rob Hansen Be Your Guide to the 1965 Worldcon in London

You can learn all about the con and the kerfuffles in Rob Hansen’s 1965: The Second UK Worldconthe latest addition to TAFF’s library of free downloads. 

The 61,500-word book, compiled from contemporaneous participants’ own words, is available in multiple electronic formats from the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund’s website, where they also hope you’ll make a little donation to the fund. Find it here.

Rob Hansen has compiled this history of the 1965 London Worldcon from contemporary fanzine and magazine accounts, so that once again the complex story emerges from the participants’ own words, together with Rob’s explanatory notes and commentary.

Coverage includes the fan politics and intrigue which didn’t stop with the winning of the 1965 bid for London and featured some dirty tricks; excerpts from convention publications and fanzine reports of major speeches and panels; a banquet menu including “crottled greeps”; and what would have been an epic verbal battle between John W. Campbell and Michael Moorcock if the latter hadn’t been so hungover that John Brunner had to do most of the talking.

From Rob Hansen’s Foreword

LONCON II was organised by SFCoL, the Science Fiction Club of London, the last UK Worldcon to be run by such a small group of fans. But who exactly were the members of SFCoL, what was the group all about, and why were they also known as the Scottish Fan Club of London? You’ll find answers to these and other questions in this volume, as well as discovering what Operation Andy Capp was, why there was so much drama around the drama award, which noted writer demanded whisky from inside a Dalek, and why the Rolling Stones didn’t perform at the convention.

The formidable Ella Parker was the convention chairman (yes, that was her title) and only the fourth woman to chair or co-chair one of the twenty-three Worldcons to date; the first was Julian May in 1952.

Ansible Editions David Langford is conducting an experiment this time around, at Rob’s suggestion. They are releasing the free ebook (donations to TAFF encouraged) and the trade paperback (all proceeds to TAFF) simultaneously.

The various paperbacks issued on behalf of TAFF have so far raised over £550 for the fund.

Langford also draws our attention to this special point of File 770 interest: “What Rob calls the Hugo Hullabaloo resulting from the initial decision not to give a Hugo for dramatic presentation, which duly outraged Harlan Ellison. Who at one stage issued a Statement (quoted by Rob) with many numbered points including two 5) and two 11). Yes, years before Vox Day was born, Harlan invented the tradition of the First and Second Fifth….”