Return to 1999 Business Meeting Minutes
Chair: Saul Jaffe
Committee: Sharon Sbarsky, Ben Yalow
In keeping with previous tradition and in memory of the former editor, several trees were killed in the past year producing the 7th Edition of the Worldcon Runners’ Guide. (A new tradition may have been started -– the number and kind of creative curses laid upon the heads of the makers of Word 98).
The 7th Edition is not very different from the 6th edition –- the committee started with an electronic version of the 5th, and a printed copy of the 6th editions and merged the two, cleaning up numbering problems, formatting problems and similar oddities. The committee has also identified some missing material, as well as several areas of the guide that need updating.
The committee has decided, with the membership’s permission, that future versions of the guide will be made available on the World Wide Web as HTML documents. This will make access to the guide easier for most people, and reduce not only printing costs, but also the number of trees asked to lay down their lives each year since people will be able to print selected pages. The committee also plans to have the entire guide available online in one or more formats yet to be determined, ready for printing, and will continue to provide printed copies to the Business Meeting and interested persons without computer access (at cost).
For the next edition, the committee hopes to expand several areas of the guide so that it is not focused on particular individual Worldcons, but has a broader appeal, encompassing more of fannish conrunning tradition throughout the world. In particular, the committee hopes to hear from Aussiecon 3 committee members, on their experiences planning and running this convention.
In the next year, if continued, the committee will be looking for individuals to assist in following tasks: writing new material, updating existing material, proofreading, and conversion to HTML. If interested in working on the guide, please contact the Editorial Committee at crg@sflovers.rutgers.edu. Please let us know what your interests are when you write.
In conclusion, the committee moves that it be continued, with the same instructions, to report to the 2000 Business Meeting in Chicago.
Return to 1999 Business Meeting Minutes
Pat McMurray pat@cooky.demon.co.uk