The WSFA Journal

First Friday, August 7, 2009

Meeting called to order at 9:15 PM by President Lee Strong, calling in from the 8^th of August.

Treasurer’s report: Tina Abel

The Treasurer closed the last BB&T account except the CD.

WSFA	Citi	$6,428.52
Capclave	Citi	$6,517.26
CD 1 (Feb)	M&T	$5,739.95
CD 2 (May)	BB&T	$6,000.00
CD 3 (Aug)	M&T	$5,832.95
Total		$30,518.68

No change in the CDs. The August CD at M&T (formerly Provident) matures on August 20^th. It will go into the WSFA general account to make sure we have enough for Capclave. It will go back into a CD after Capclave.

We have credit card services up & running. Just set up stuff with Citi – should be by end of Aug. We'll be paying 1.69% + $0.19 per transaction. The old knucklebuster won't work any more; Candy supplied a new one. “Get it out of my house!” she said.

Trustees: Charles Abel, Colleen Cahill, Chris Newman

Starting to think about next May.

Entertivities: Sam Lubell

Sam is being entertaining in Montreal.
Charles Abel says see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. It's actually good! Really badass. It's as good as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was bad.
Watchmen director's cut is out + super edition. Charles wants it for Xmas.
Moon – best xlation of a short story in a long time.
Tina saw a poster one night only Plan 9 from Outer Space in “select” theaters. @Tyson's 1.
Charles Divine wants to discuss Torchwood vis a vis defying gravity. See him after the meeting.
The Shiners are offering us their home for First Friday, starting in Sept. Woohoo!!

Publications: Steve Smith

The President says that all Capclave publications are under the control of the Publications committee. Bill Lawhorn disagrees; the President introduced a motion to clarify:

Resolved, all publications issued by WSFA's Capclave 2009 Committee shall be deemed to be produced by authority delegated from the WSFA Publications Committee. Publications issued by the Capclave 2009 Committee will be limited to Flyers and promotional materials for Caplcave 2009 and 20010, program guides, pocket programs and restaurant guides.

Amendment: Flyers and promotional materials for 2009 & 2010.

The motion was defeated.

Web Subcommittee: Paul & Gayle Surrette

Gail asks that "no one is to do anything in the name of WSFA unless they clear it with the Pres, the secretary, or the board first.", and that the Webmasters be notified of any changes to any of the WSFA electronic venues.

The July WSFA Journal is on-line.

WSFA Press Subcommittee: Ern Lilley

I have been asked by WSFA President, Lee Strong, to Chair the WSFA Press Publications sub-committee, and have accepted. The committee members should be confirmed at the First Friday meeting (08/07/09), after which I hope to meet with those who are present.

The president has suggested several initiatives for the committee, namely that we manage the current book's publication, conduct an inventory of our titles on hand, and establish guidelines for the submission and acceptance of future publishing projects. We are also looking into new options in storage and distribution of WSFA Press titles.

Reincarnations - Sean Wallace (Prime Books)
Production of the current Capclave GOH short story collection continues in good order.

Content - All parts of the manuscript have been submitted, including the introduction by Asimov Editor, Sheila Williams, as well as the cover art. Layout has been completed and proofing is in process.
Printing - Sean has secured a reserved printing date of August 17th and a delivery date of September 21st.
Promotion - A PDF has been created for the book and a copy has been sent to Mike Walsh at WorldCon, in the hopes that he can print and distribute copies.

Inventory - P/L Statements

Colleen Cahill, Gayle Surrette, and Mike Walsh have all been putting together inventory figures for WSFA Press titles. Mike has a number of copies of books in storage that we are waiting on numbers for.
Warehousing and distribution - The committee is looking into alternatives to warehouse distribution for our back titles.
Sean has been composing a Profit and Loss report using such information as is available for Future Washington. If information is available for other titles, we will prepare similar reports.
Accounting procedures for WSFA Press publications will come under review.

Publishing Guidelines - The committee will be looking into guidelines and protocols for future publishing projects.
Other Initiatives:
WSFA Press Website -

Domains - Several domains have been purchased for use by WSFA Press, some by Sean/Mike, some by our webmaster, Paul Haggerty. All domains are now pointing to the same location on the web, WSFAPressBooks.org, which is maintained by Paul. Transfer of the other domains (WSFAPress.org, .com) will proceed when they come out of their new domain lockdown period.
Email accounts - There is some confusion over email accounts for WSFAPress, specifically wsfapress@gmail.com, which is referenced on the current flyer. We are looking to resolve this as soon as we find out who owns it.
Site Development - Paul is setting up a WordPress based ecommerce site for WSFA Press which will have pages for each of our books and PayPal links with which to buy them. Projected launch: Sept, 2009.

Amazon Listings - Only one of the WSFA Press books is currently listed as new on Amazon, and that only in the Trade edition. We will be using an Amazon Pro account to create listings for all the titles we have inventory on and plan to distribute books directly.
We may use SFRevu's Amazon account, which Paul and Gayle are currently managing, though we will investigate the practicality of setting up a WSFA Press account.
Committee Members - Following the appointment of committee members, the chair will request contact information, including phone numbers and email addresses from each.

Committee members are Charles Abel, Drew Bittner, Gail Surrette, and Steve Smith. Bill Lawhorn is off of the committee to concentrate on Capclave. Sean Wallace is the committee's Production Consultant. (He is not a member of WSFA, as membership would make anything published by Prime Books ineligible for the WSFA Small Press Award.)

Flyer Subcommittee: Brian Lewis

The Secretary has posted final copies online in the WSFA-forum file area.

From the Secretary: Steve Smith

We've had a potentially serious problem with the domain names for WSFA Press. When the Webmasters tried to register the names wsfapress.com and wsfapress.org, they found that the domains had already been registered. In addition, someone had created the Gmail account wsfapress@gmail.com , which showed up in a number of "official-looking" places. As it turned out, someone was just trying to be helpful.

As it happened, the only problem was that it caused the Webmasters a boatload of extra work and everybody on the Executive Committee an extra load of stomach acid. From our viewpoint, Person or Persons Unknown were claiming to be WSFA Press and collecting money under our name.

Don't do it again, OK? WSFA business goes through WSFA channels – only the people authorized to do business for WSFA can commit the club to anything. Official business has to go through official addresses. When money is involved, bypassing channels runs perilously close to fraud.

Capclave Present: Bill Lawhorn

Thanks to Brian Lewis for the Restaurant Guide. The final version should be ready by the end of the week. Check it out!
The program will be on line.
We had a good meeting on programming.
There is no new info on registrations
GoH gifts & travel arrangements have been arranged.
Needs volunteer to help w/ military contacts. Lee has been doing some of it. The problem is figuring out how to get Capclave flyers into their system.

Capclave Future: Gayle Surrette

The Website got sidetracked by the WSFA Press domain and e-mail problems. It will be up soon; she's putting her concom together. She wants actual committees! Check the Capclave blog for latest news.

Capclave Far Future: Cathy Green

Still looking for hotels

The Committee to Actually Discuss Science Fiction: Bill Lawhorn

Most discussers are in Montreal. Bill will sit in a corner and talk to himself.

For Capclave, read the October/November issue of Asimov's. We'll be discussing it with the editor!

New Finance: Tina Abel

None

Awards: Colleen Cahill

Colleen says that 22 of you have voted. That means that 50% of you are going to get mailbombed. She's humming “I've got a little list”.

Old business:

In September, we should be back at the Scheiners' for First Friday.
We have a tabled motion to raise WSFA annual dues to $20 per year (or $15/year for students and active duty military), to start in 2010.
Want to discuss w/ larger audience. We got time.

New business:

Nada.

New people:

Allen Met Candy at Confluence. He's a grad school at the University of Buffalo; he's an intern at HUD and, unfortunately, will be gone at the end of August.

Jennifer Wallace

Announcements:

The usual from the Host. Enjoy the meatballs. Kindra is coming back from Pennsic and going to college at Frostburg State. SCA weapons and armor are not allowed in the dorm; they intimidate the boys.

Allen is looking for a ride to Shirlington.
Colleen reminds us that the Book Festival is coming up

Bill Lawhorn says that the article he did three years ago is finally getting published. “Careers in Auto Racing” was the title that he submitted it with; no telling what it is now. No chickens were harmed in the production of this article; his agency has gone entirely to virtual chickens.
Lee Strong is still in negotiations with ERB. He referred them to the SFWA site for contract information. He's going to their con next weekend; he put a Capclave ad in their zine.
Brian Lewis gave bookmarks to Borders; they gave them out.

Meeting unanimously adjourned at 11:03 PM.

Attendance:

Charles Abel, Christina Abel, Colleen Cahill, Ross Chalmer, Chuck Divine, Paul Haggerty, Bill Lawhorn, Brian Lewis, Ernest Lilley, Candy Madigan, John Madigan, Sarah Mitchell, Evan Phillips, Steve Smith, Bill Squire, Lee Strong, Gayle Surrette, Mike Taylor, Ivy Yap, Allen ?.