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The WSFA Journal

March 2009

Steve Smith, Editor
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Contents

Minutes

March 6, 2009, First Friday

Meeting called to order at 9:17 PM

Treasurer's report:

Tina Abel

$9088.22

Provident Bank (our bank) is being acquired by M&T Bank. What this will mean to WSFA (and Provident's other customers) is uncertain.

Our CD rolled over with no problems. The new one is $5708.82 at 2.23% for 24 months; if interest rates go up, we can upgrade once. Our next CD rolls over May 19; we'll probably do the same thing, depending on interest rates. The third CD rolls over 19 August; we'll probably want to keep that one on a shorter term for emergencies.

Capclave Present:

Bill Lawhorn

Is present (although perhaps not prescient)!

Nothing to report. There will be a meeting tomorrow (7 March) at Peggy Rae's house (aka the Middle of Nowhere) at 2PM.

Chris Abel gave Bill a black hat. Could this be an official Capclave Cap?

Lee Strong passed out flyers at SheVaCon in Roanoke.

Capclave Future:

Gayle Surrette

is still looking at hotels.

Entertivities:

Sam Lubell

Watchmen is out; is anybody interested in a theatre party? Someone else will have to run it; Sam isn't going to be doing movies for a while. Lee Strong says it's a faithful adaptation, asking “what is morality”? R rated, very violent.

Publications:

Steve Smith (Editor), Paul & Gayle Surette (Webmasters)

Awards:

Colleen Cahill

We have 66 nominations. Two were made by WSFAns — up 100% from last year! Gayle needs list of all official WSFA members in order to give out passwords; there's no hurry.

The Committee to Actually Discuss Science Fiction:

Bill Lawhorn

Since this is March, they'll be discussing the March issue of F&SF. They're switching their publication schedule to bimonthly; we'll cope.

Trustees:

Colleen Cahill, Judy Newton, Lee Strong

Taking nominations for trustees' slate for May elections. (Sam Lubell volunteered for Worldcon Chair 2013, but that's outside of the Trustees' duties).

No news on the IRS.

Finance:

Tina Abel

There will be a committee meeting after the meeting. Tina needs minions for auditing.

Old business:

Brian Lewis's flyer. No action.

New business:

None

New people:

Lincoln Farish was at his second meeting.

Announcements:

Meeting unanimously adjourned at 9:59 PM.

Attendance:

Charles Abel, Christina Abel, Colleen Cahill, Adrienne Ertman, Cathy Green, Paul Haggerty, Sarah Katz, Bill Lawhorn, Brian Lewis, Ernest Lilley, Sam Lubell, Bob Macintosh, Chris Neumann, Barry Newton, Judy Newton, George Shaner, Steve Smith, Bill Squire, Lee Strong, Gayle Surrette, Emily Whitten, Ivy Yap, Madeleine Yeh

March 20, 2009, Third Friday

Minutes by Steve Smith.

Meeting called to order at 9:18 PM

Treasurer's report:

Tina Abel

$9098.22

Capclave Present:

Bill Lawhorn

Was at Stellarcon in Highpoint NC and gave out flyers. We may get some new addendees. It rained and the con was infested by basketball players and cheerleaders. Our party shut down at 4AM; we were too noisy.

Locally, we'll be giving out bookmarks, cards, and so forth at Ravencon and Balticon.

There'll be a Capclave meeting at Cathy's before the April 1st Friday meeting.

Capclave Future:

Gayle Surrette

George Shaner looked at the Marriott Business Center in Rockville and the Doubletree Bethesda; The weekend of 22-24 October is available; the previous weekend (the one we've been using) isn't. They'll talk again 2 weeks. He hasn't talked to other hotels. The main idea is to get something to use for negotiations with the Hilton.

Entertivities:

Sam Lubell

Capt. Chris Christopher is doing another book affair for the Homeland Security conference, right before Balticon. It's set for Reiter's Technical Books on 20 May.

Publications:

Steve Smith (Editor), Paul & Gayle Surrette (Webmasters)

From the Editor: nada.

The Webmasters have Ideas and are waiting for them to gel. One idea is an ad exchange with other groups and cons.

Awards:

Colleen Cahill

All the stories are in; we have 60 after weeding out duplicates. We got lotsa Good Stuff!

The Committee to Actually Discuss Science Fiction:

Bill Lawhorn

The Committee will be reading the short stories in the March Asimov's. They'll be reading F&SF for First Friday.

Trustees:

Colleen Cahill, Judy Newton, Lee Strong

No news from the IRS

We have an election coming up the First Friday in May. The new officers will take over office the First Friday in June. We'll also be electing a Capclave chair for 2011.

Finance:

Tina Abel

The Treasurer has sufficient minions and is searching for data.

Old business:

Brian Lewis's flyer has been posted on the WSFA Website. Brian had copies. Chris Newman had some suggestions to punch up the language. The President formed a committee with Brian Lewis, Eva Whitley, Chris Newman, Sam Lubell, and Charles Abel

New business:

Brian Lewis had signed petitions for bylaw changes to:

  1. Remove the Capclave chair from the Board of Directors
  2. Change the Trustees' terms to overlappig three year terms.

Neither amendment passed

Lee Strong pointed out that there is a conflict in the rules in the Bylaws that doesn't allow for a separate Convention treasurer. He is gathering signatures for a petition to change the Bylaws. Lee also pointed out that he is not God.

New people:

Lincoln Farish was at his third meeting, and joined up, despite the lack of a Treasurer. He also reminded us never to move on a Friday -- nobody is available to help.

Announcements:

Meeting unanimously adjourned at 10:50 PM.

Attendance:

Charles Abel, Adrienne Ertman, Carolyn Frank, Erica Ginter, Lydia Ginter, Cathy Green, Paul Haggerty, Bill Lawhorn, Brian Lewis, Sam Lubell, Bob Macintosh, John Madigan, Sarah Mitchell, George Shaner, Steve Smith, Bill Squire, Lee Strong, Ivy Yap, Madeleine Yeh.

Proposed Amendments to WSFA Bylaws

Relief of Capclave Chairs

Reasons:

  1. To make the mumber of the members of he Board of Directors an odd number
  2. Since the Capclave Chairs report regularly to the General Membership, attending the meetings of the Board of Directors will usually be redundant.

Proposed Amendment: Amend the WSFA By-Laws (Article III, Secion A), to delete:

  1. The Chairman of the Convention for the current year; and
  2. The Chairman of the Convention for any future year or years

from the list of the members of the Board of Directors.

Terms of Office

Reasons:

  1. To provide an Institutional Memory for WSFA and its Board of Directors
  2. To reduce the number of people needed for the ‘slate’ each year

Amend the WSFA By-Laws (Article III) to:

  1. Change Section B-5 to:
    The Election of any Trustee(s) shall be done before any other offices. No one is eligible to hold multiple simutaneous titles of Trustee within WSFA.
  2. Add Section f:
    The Term of Office of anyone elected by WSFA shall equal one calendar year times the number of people with that title.
    1. To increase the length of a Term of Office, one person, per General Election shall be elected to the new term while the other holders of the title retain their current term. This will continue until only one position per title is elected each General Election.
    2. To decrease the length of a Term of Office, no one shall be elected to that titled office unless both the number of people holding that office has decreased to match the new specification and a Term of Office has expired.
    3. To increase the number of people holding a specific title, a Simple Majority of the entire voting membership is required, and will be treated as a Vacancy in Office, but will not affest the existing Term of Office for anyone currently holding the position.

Reviews

Alien Trespass Reviewed by Charles Gilliland

"The Best SciFi film from 1957 made in the 21st Century"

Just outside a small town in the deserts of California (as filmed in Vancouver), a flying saucer crashes and a monster escapes to feed on the local inhabitants and multiply. Of course, if left unchecked the monster will overwhelm the Earth eradicating all life on it. The pilot, a space marshal, possesses the body of a local celebrity scientist, who came to investigate the crash site, in order to track down and capture said monster, with the help of a plucky waitress. Of course, the events unfold to the disgust of the local sheriff who is to retire in a couple of days. Add in your teens and colorful locals, coupled with effects that either duplicate or simulate the techniques of 1957 movie making, and with the newsreel at the start, and you get the idea of the kind of movie to expect.

Make no mistake, this is a pastiche of 1957 SF Movies — in particular “It Came From Outer Space”, “War of the Worlds”, and “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, in general, every other film from that period — and everyone on the cast and crew worked to capture, both in spirit and the particulars, everything that one loves about those films — seeking not to make fun of those movies, but rather to set out and MAKE one of those movies. As such, they have succeeded most admirably.

The movie is just plain fun with equal parts scares, laughs, romance, and drama — and it manages to avoid modern cynicism, recapturing the optimism and innocence of the times as depicted from a Hollywood feature. The acting and writing is about on a par with what one would expect from a 1957 SF feature, and it certainly plays better than the recent “Day The Earth Stood Still”.

While not for kids under 10, this is definitely a film that a family could see and enjoy, and when it opens on April 3, I recommend that you go see it.

— Charles Gilliland.

WSFA History

Ten Years Ago

March 1999

Sam Lubell gives us capsule reviews of coming books:

Teletubbies: The Novel by Alan Dean Foster. (Ace: $6.99) In a post-apocalyptic landscape, the teletubbies live in a spaceship, follow orders from a voice broadcast over loudspeakers, and have televisors implanted in their bodies. Are they humanity's last children or the descendents of its conquerors? Novelization of the PBS television series, by the author of Nightmare on Sesame Street.

Twenty Years Ago

March 1989

The Secretary had been having problems getting the Journal put together; imagine that! (At least she had an excuse.)

Thirty Years Ago

March 1979

Balticon was going to be showing Rendezvous with Rama, a feature-length semi-pro movie made not for commercial release

Robert Heinlein has written a new novel, one with a "straightforward plot", he claims. The first draft ran 213,000 words.

Letters

From the Editor

I'm intrigued by that Rendezvous with Rama movie from 1979. If it wasn't made for commercial release, why was it made? And what happened to it? There doesn't seem to be any info in the usual places (Wikipedia, IMDB, YouTube)

— Steve Smith, Editor, The WSFA Journal

Yuri's Night

Dear officers of the WSFA,

I contacted you (Cathy if I recall correctly) last year in regards to the annual celebration of the first human spaceflight, Yuri's Night. Well, its that time of year again...We have a really great lineup this year, and lots of Sci-Fi related art and music. Could you please post the announcement below on your calendar of events? I look forward to seeing you at the Warehouse arts complex on April 11th!

Thanks,

Jared Davis

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