Norwescon 34 Post-Con Report

Norwescon 34

The post-convention wrap-up for Norwescon 34

Felice Nightengale

Norwescon

December 2011

NORWESCON THIRTY-FOUR

POST CON REPORT DECEMBER 2011
FANTASY OF THE MIND

Norwescon 34 Postcon Report

Decmber 2011

Shawn Marier Chairman
T. William Sadorus Vice-Chair
Mary Westerling Secretary
Michael Orsoz Business Director
Eric Webber Treasurer
Catrina Foulger Member Services Director
Joshua Keegan Convention Services Director
SunnyJim Morgan Programming Director
Laura Reilly Personnel Director
Peggy Stewart Special Events Director
Felice Nightengale Publications Director
Tim Nightengale Editor
Scott Douwes Graphic Designer

NORWESCON
P.O. Box 68547
Seattle WA 98168-0547
norwescon.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS

From the Chair 2
Programming Report 3
Volunteer Report 4
Science Fiction Hall Induction 7
Norwescon 34 Financials 8
Norwescon 35 Eclection Results 10
Movie Previews 12
The Fandance Film Festival 12
Let’s Make A Movie Workshop 13
Norwescon Lazer Tag After Action Report 15
Scheduled Gaming 15
Way Out On The Rotunda - Open Gaming Report 16
Charity Auction Makes An All Time Record 17
Stargate Scavenger Hunt 18
Norwescon 34 Masquerade 18
Special Thanks 20
Registration Form 21

FROM THE CHAIR

After taking 4 years off as Chairman, it was an honor to come back and be your Norwescon Chair- man once again. Being Chairman is a lot of hard work, but when I see all the happy faces at the convention it is so worth it.

We had a great lineup of Guests of Honor this year, Patricia A. McKillip, Kinuko Y. Craft, Jim Butcher, Shannon K. Butcher, and PYR being represented by Lou Anders. They all were wonderful, and based on comments from our members they rocked the house.

One of our Guests of Honor, Marie D. Jones, was not able to attend due to a family illness. We were sorry not to have her present at this year’s convention. Hopefully someday she will be able to attend Norwescon so you have the chance to meet her.

I know our Guests brought in a lot of new members to this year’s convention. For those of you attending your first Norwescon, I hope you enjoyed yourselves and will come back next year.

New members, or members who have been attending for years, I want to thank all of you. You helped make this the largest Norwescon in our history, with over 3,500 members.

Even with that number of people in the hotel things went very smoothly, mostly due to all the hard work put in during the year by the Norwescon ConCom. For Norwescon 34 we had over 150 ConCom who volunteered their time all year long, so that all of our members would have a great time.

I want to especially thank my Executive team: William, Mary, Mike, Eric, Felice, Catrina, Laura, Peggy, Josh and SunnyJim. These are the high level department heads which spend way too much time in meetings with me, but if it wasn’t for all of their hard work we could never had such a great convention.

Finally I want thank Katrina and Gabe, for supporting me all year long and allowing me to do this again next year.

Shawn Marier
Norwescon 34 and 35 Chairman

PROGRAMMING REPORT

So, how about our Guests of Honor for Norwescon 34? Our guests have reported back that they had a great time at Norwescon, and I hope all of you had a chance to meet and chat with Jim and Shannon K. Butcher, Lou Anders, Kinuko Y. Craft, and Patrica A. McKillip. Lou even wrote up a lengthy report on his experience at Norwescon, and posted it to his blog.

The Single Pattern Contest tried something new this year - contestants made aprons, many of which were then auctioned off for charity. These fantastic creations raised money to support Northwest Harvest. Thanks to Janet Borkowski for taking on the Single Pattern Contest this year.

Until we can make the Doubletree dimensionally transcendent, we’re limited to the number of conference rooms available, and we’ve tried to squeeze something into every possible available space. Of course, there wouldn’t be any panel programming at all without our fantastic roster of panelists, and the amazing track leaders who come up with all of the panels. It's those track leaders whose hard work makes all those panels and presentations possible. I especially want to give kudos to Dara Korra'ti, who headed up our music programming this year. She put together a fantastic lineup of concerts each evening, which I hope you had a chance to check out.

Also key to making the panel programming run smoothly is the crew that does Stage Management, and the amazing Green Room team. Stage Management keeps everything running on time, and the Green Room staff make sure that the panelists have what they need to provide the great content you've hopefully seen. A huge and heartfelt thank you to Melanie and the Stage Management team, Alexia and Delta in the Green Room, and Joyce and Marjorie at pro check-in. And of course, my Programming second, Kris, who was a voice of common sensse and reason, which is sometimes sorely needed.

The Programming Department is already looking ahead to next year. If you have suggestions for future Guests of Honor, I hope you'll send them along to programming@norwescon.org.

SunnyJim
Programming Director

VOLUNTEER REPORT

First, let me offer a special thank you to all our Dealers of Norwescon 34 for donating items for our Charity Auction, and prizes to our Volunteers and Games Departments. The generosity shown was stirring to our battle-worn veterans of the Volunteers Lounge, and gave us hope for even better success with Norwescon 35!

Second, I would like to thank each and every one of our staff, volunteers, GoH and panelists for making NWC 34 such a fabulous event! Each and every one of you should be proud of the records we broke during the weekend, especially the records with all those horrible scratches on them - they just wouldn't play right any more, anyway. ;) In all seriousness, I found myself quite pleased with how smoothly the convention ran and how many people were compli- menting me (personally) on the operations of the convention; I had to have had more than 100 people come up and shake my hand while sharing some story of how great our staff and guests were making their weekend, personally. Thank you all!

And now, for the crunching of numbers. (We need the fiber after all that Easter candy.)

• A total of 902 hours of time was donated by our volunteers at NWC 34.
• We had 386 Volunteers sign up and help during the convention week- end, that's nearly 1/10th of the convention attendees! *
• 130 of these volunteers were pre-convention contacts, which means 256 were at-convention walk-ins or recruits.
• 90 of our volunteers were minors, meaning there were 296 adult volun- teers.
• 3 of our volunteers received college credit for their internship programs, 2 of our volunteers received high school credit for the work they did.
• Our pre-convention stuffing party was a great success with 73 volun- teers offering a total of 113 hours.
• 16 volunteers helped with the convention move-in with 53 hours of work.
• 20 volunteers assisted the Art Show with set-up that took a total of 65 hours worth of work.
• There was a total of 211 pre-con hours that went into Norwescon 34 set-up.
• 691 hours of volunteer time was offered during the convention week- end.
• The Cloak Room held the high for volunteer hours at 73.5 from 9 zombie-snacks.
• Masquerade came in second on the high end with 68.75 hours of volun- teer time from 15 people.
• Our tech department took on 9 volunteers to do 50.75 hours of work with them.
• Art Show used 47 hours of volunteer time, with 20 volunteers.
• Lazer Tag shot out a whopping 39.5 volunteer hours from 12 souls, as compared to only 28.25 hours last year.
• The Convention Office took on only 2 volunteers, but still put in more than Registration with 36.75 volunteer hours.
• Registration came in under all of these other departments with 32.5 hours from 11 volunteers.
• Hospitality was next, with 22 volunteer hours from 13 sets of dish- panned hands.
• Dispatch & Security used 19 hours of volunteer time with 3 extra sets of eyes and ears.
• The Filking Track borrowed 2 volunteers, like the Office, but used 16.25 hours of time from those volunteers.
• Stage Management had a total of 16 hours of time from 14 our volun- teers.
• Dances schmoozed 15.5 hours of volunteer time by 8 mobile bodies.
• Both Print Shop (7 people) and Scheduled Games (6 lucky contes- tants) tied with 10.75 hours of volunteer time, each.
• FFFS dominated our lower end of time from 3 volunteers with 9.75
• Pro Suite had 3 volunteers help put 4.5 hours worth of time into the social scene.
• There was a draw of 4 hours each for our Poker Tournament (1 person) and Green Room's (2 people) volunteer hours.
• Our Autograph and Photo Sessions shoots pulled in a total of 6.5 hours of volunteer time from 3 people.
• The P.K. Dick Program asked for, and received 2 hours worth of time from 1 volunteer.
• And Staff Support was it's magical, manic form of normalicy (in it's own way) by only taking on 1.5 hours of volunteer time from 3 people

(* This is not to say that all of these people worked as volunteers for the convention, merely that they signed up to help out where needed, as needed.)

On behalf of the Norwescon 34 Volunteer Team, whether you were a Sandman, Runner or not, we hope that you all had fun at the convention; and again we thank everyone for their donations, both material and in service.

Brian Pickett
Volunteer Services Lead

SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME INDUCTION

Norwescon had the honor of sponsoring the EMP's Science Fiction Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony this summer. Norwescon would like to congratulate the 2011 Inductees: Vincent Di Fate, Gardner Dozois, Harlan Ellison and Moebius (Jean Giraud).

NORWESON 34 FINANCIALS

Income
Art Show Sales	14,943.32
Art Show Disbursements	- 7,841.77
NWSFS Pass Through Income	850.00
General Membership	129,650.88
Dealer Membership	11,600.00
Artist Membership	2,960.00
Misc. Revenue	741.79
Banquet Income	1,105.00
Program Book Ads	550.00
Interest Income	547.89
Charitable Pass Through Income:
Clarion West:
Art Auction	1,930.00
501st Picture Taking	546.00
North West Harvest	500.00
Total Income	158,083.11
Expenses
Chair	15,378.48
Vice Chair	24,647.00
Business	14,236.74
Membership Services	8,136.34
Publications	39,700.47
Convention Services	22,961.47
Programming	10,901.32
Personnel	7,602.88
Special Events	717.18
Bank Charges	124.85
Capital Expenses	5,819.03
Total Expenses	150,225.76
Net Income	7,857.35

NORWESCON 35 ELECTIONS RESULTS

Elections were held for the officers of Norwescon 35 on Saturday May 14th with Keith Johnson, LouAnna Valentine, and Doug Booze on this year’s election committee.

There were 202 ConCom members in the validated Org Chart. Of those, 149 ConCom (74%) regis- tered for votes this year. Our Quorum number needed to make the election valid was 97 ballots (65% of 149 eligible voters). We reached quorum with 114 ballots received (76.5% of the eligible voters).

The results were:

GOH Selection Committee
** Pat Booze	91
** Timothy Ketron	50
Mindy Sherwood-Lewis	30
Beth Fellows	29
Diane Wahlberg	6
No Preference	10
None of the Above	0
Vice-Chairman
** Peggy Stewart	82
Scott Surber	21
Katharine Bond	9
No Preference	2
None of the Above	0
Chairman
** Shawn Marier	106
No Preference	5
None of the Above	3
Bylaw Change (to reduce quorum to 57% from 65%)
** Approve	94
Reject	16
No Preference	4

Winners are indicated by **

Congratulations to Shawn, Peggy, Pat and Timothy and thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s election.

Keith Johnson
Norwescon 35 Elections

MOVIE PREVIEWS

For the sixth year we were delighted to scour the Interwebs for the latest in previews and movie news for Norwescon’s members. Our six hours of programming time (spread amongst four “shows”) was seen by 573 people. Based on a 10% repeat rate we believe we served approx. 515 unique members, 14.6% of our membership!

With Alan Halfhill’s peerless technical direction and our knack for presenting information our members are interested in, we believe the Movie Previews will continue to be the most popular programming at Norwescon outside of the total attendance of our three Dances.

Keith Johnson
Alan Halfhill

THE FANDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Thank you to everyone who joined us Sunday for the Fandance Film festival. This was year twelve of the film festival and we exceeded all expectations! Last year, we thought we were rocking pretty hard to have filled out our time block right to the end, but this year, we still had another hour of movies in the queue! That's right -- there were enough good submissions that we actually couldn't show them all.

You have NO idea how awesome that is!

The Film Festival provides us with an opportunity every year to show all the new genre movies we and other local filmmakers have made. It lets everyone meet the filmmakers, ask them questions and inter- act in a way that is otherwise simply impossible in a film festival. As the FFF has grown, we've had some really great things come through, but this year... Oh man, this year was just a blast! (I'm gonna beg for three hours next year, by the way!)

This year, there are special thanks I need -- I MUST -- send out.

First, to Eric Morgret, the coordinator of the Mael- strom International Film Festival. Eric's connections to the filmmakers who are a part of MIFF have helped the FFF really grow. He's introduced us to a variety of talented filmmakers out there who produce some amazing stuff. Woot!

Second, to Daniel Kaufman, our "wunkerkind" of this year, who wrote and directed and debuted-at- the-Fandance Film Festival the most exquisite and touching post-apocalyptic tale "Abe and Becky."

Daniel's been in our workshop for years, and is really showing he has the chops!

Third, to Tech Services. There is no way to put it other than you guys rock. Our systems are almost always running perfectly and when they don't, things move quickly and efficiently and you just simply make it all happen. We couldn't do the workshop, or the film festival without your hard work. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

See you all next year!

Cheers,
Edward Martin III

LET’S MAKE A MOVIE WORKSHOP

Thank you to everyone who joined the workshop this year. We had a fantastic time making "ConCeption". It was refreshing to work on a movie that wasn't necessarily joke-after-joke-after-joke, but was a real story with a character arc, and a neat lesson a lot of us wish OUR parents caught on to.

This was year twelve of the workshop, and I think I can speak for the other coordinators of it when I say that Norwescon and Norwescon participants make this one the best. There's always participation, always action, always people coming in and working hard. Every year, once we get down to brass tacks, I catch myself wondering "Maaaaan, are we gonna pull it off this year?" and every year, the workshop rocks the house and does it. I am also thrilled that Norwescon supports the workshop so much, giving us the time we need to make this phenomenon happen every year.

I've seen maybe half a dozen short movies out there in the world where the director told me "You guys inspired me to do this at your workshop!" and each time, that crackling sound you hear is my heart swell- ing with happiness knowing that we are, in fact, not only entertaining us all every year with enormous consistency, but inspiring people to get out there and make their OWN movies. THAT'S why we do this. Hands-on fun, hands-on learning, hands-on acting, hands-on practically every aspect.

On behalf of myself (Edward Martin III), Ryan K. John- son, Brian Oberquell, and Eric Morgret, thank you everybody at Norwescon, everybody who attends the workshop, and everybody who helps out at the last second (because our crowd-scenes are amazing!)

Our interns this year were excellent as well -- all three were new to the workshop, and all three worked long and hard to make this seemingly impossible task come together. Special thanks to Heather Candelaria, Lisa Sherman, and Andrew Kinman, for the l-o-n-g hours they put in helping all the behind-the-scenes stuff happen.

Looking forward to Lucky Thirteen next year!

Edward Martin III

NORWESCON LAZER TAG AFTER ACTION REPORT

New this year Thursday night was held in Grand Two. Setup started at 7 PM, we opened 9 PM, 33 players came for Lazer tag. The wizard tool was a hit, 24 players dueled. We would like to expand the dual next year. The music from the dance held next door did add to the arena. However, the base over-powered. The room closed 1 AM followed by break- down.

Friday afternoon we ran a short session in Grand Two. Setup was it 2 PM, doors opened at 3 PM, 27 players signed in. We closed at 5 PM and were packed out by 5:15.

Saturday night in Evergreen three and four we saw the last of the cardboard barriers. Setup began at 6 PM, doors opened at 7 PM, 46 players signed in. We closed out 11 PM and were packed out by 11:15 PM. The old barriers were recycled/retired on Sunday. We are looking at new options for Norwescon 35.

Scott Perrin

SCHEDULED GAMING

Scheduled gaming was very successful for Norwescon 34. We started the convention with 75 scheduled games: 11 on Thursday, 30 on Friday, 28 on Saturday, 6 on Sunday.

Head counting throughout the weekend with sporadic, but the busiest day with Saturday, when in the afternoon we couldn't find open table space for anyone. The highest headcount recorded was 6 PM Saturday at 69 people, including game masters. Over the course of the weekend only four games were canceled and 10 additional games were added. The library games were well utilized, with between 7 to 12 games used each day except for Sunday.

This year we added table numbers, reservation slips, and daily prizes. The numbers combined with the reservation slips and flexible game masters, made for a well organized room. The daily drawings help to encourage folks to sign up for games who might otherwise be shy about doing so. Friday's drawing was won by Brendan Whitt. Anitra Hooper won Saturday's drawing and the grand prize was won by Ian Odell. This year's grand prize was a fabulous dice tower contributed by Richard Johnson.

Thank you to Richard Johnson, Mark Richardson, and Craig vMcKinney (and his daughter). Your addi- tional help made certain that the game room was well watched over. Special thanks to Alan Bond, my assistant, for his tireless work despite also having a toddler to take care of much of the time.

Kathi Pickett

WAY OUT ON THE ROTUNDA – OPEN GAMING REPORT

Open gaming was remarkably successful this year. Despite moving LARP’s to Maxi’s, the open gaming space was well occupied from opening on Thursday to the final shutdown on Sunday. We had a great balance of scheduled events and open gaming space available so that this year, at no time, did we have an open gaming area with no space for open gaming. With the help of some unexpected volunteers we were able to rearrange the space to accommodate everyone with barely a disruption. In addition to open gaming, we provided a venue for the Magic Tournament, Poker Tournament, and Space Dominator’s Green Screen Film Opportunity. Special thanks go out to Jennifer Smith, Wesley Smith, Sarena Hawker, and Jordan Kunkel for assisting with managing the rotunda space.

Prodipto Roy

CHARITY AUCTION MAKES AN ALL TIME RECORD

This year’s Norwescon Charity Auction was held in conjunction with the art auction on Sunday of the convention. The charity auction benefited Northwest Harvest and Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. We set an all time record, not with just the number of donations for the auction but also in purchases, which reached just over $ 1,900.

This was an amazing feat and we would like to give special thanks to the family of Audrey Penty who donated, in her name; part of her personal collec- tion; to Cheryl Taylor, for her large donation of amazing art and jewelry; and to the Norwescon Dealers, who each year give so generously to the cause. And, of course, thank you to all of the mem- bers that attended the auction and made a purchase.

It turned out to be a fun event (if not a bit ruckus at times) with flying bids, witticisms being flung, and dancing....yes, I’m not kidding...dancing in the aisles! I’d also like to personally thank the art show team with whom we work so closely and who made this all logistically possible. Also, a big thank you to Marlene Helms who coordinated everything last year and made sure we had everything we needed this year, including some great items for the auction. Sometimes in all the hubbub and chaos we forget to acknowledge everyone’s hard work, so you should know that we know what a great job you’ve done. We wouldn’t have been so successful this year with- out all the work of the last two years that all of you have put in.

So, if you didn’t make it this year, be sure to plan to come by next year! Even if you don’t plan to purchase anything, it’s always more fun with a room full of people....but bring your wallet just in case you see something you can’t live without....

By Pat Booze

STARGATE SCAVENGER HUNT

This year we also had a Stargate Scavenger Hunt. Participants were to hunt down hidden Stargate symbols. These cleverly hidden symbols were all over the convention areas. Out of 30 participants, Denise Proust was the most successful in finding the greatest number, collecting 80 / 111 of them. For this she won a Full Weekend Membership to Norwescon 35.

NORWESCON 34 MASQUERADE

The Norwescon 34 masquerade was well attended. We had 21 entries this year, a 25% increase over last year. Hopefully this is a trend where we will start to get more entries like years past. The winners of the masquerade are as follows:

Workmanship Awards

Rising Star: Anastasia Demers – “Megamind’s Daughter"

Novice: Melissa Nichols - "Bookwyrm"

Master: Torrey Stenmark - "Avatar Driver"

Best in Show: Alicia Faires- "Geisha Barbie"

Judges Choice Workmanship

Best Props: Chris Dimoff – “The Marquis”

Best Detail: Cary Condor – “Empress of the Elements”

Presentation Awards

Rising Star: Anastasia Demers – “Megamind’s Daughter"

Novice: Melissa Nichols - "Bookwyrm"

Journeyman: Helga – “Pippi Longstocking”

Master: Alicia Faires – “Geisha Barbie”

Best in Show: Torrey Stenmark – “Avatar Driver”

Judges Choice Presentation

Best Light Show: Jim Gibbons – “Tron’s Shareware Program”

Best Reproduction: “It’s a Kind of Magic”

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF NWC 34!

Hardwick & Sons, Inc. www.ehardwicks.com for their support of the Found Objects panel.

Sunshine Printing
A Little Sunshine Goes a Long Way...
Thank you for the privilege of printing the programs for Norwescon 34
207 W. Holly St.
Bellingham, WA 98225
www.sunshineprinting.net
(360) 671-0191

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