The World Science Fiction Society

Minutes of the Business Meeting 1982
Main Business Meeting, Sunday

The World Science Fiction Society Business Meeting at Chicon IV was scheduled to be held in four sessions, daily from Friday, Sept. 3, to Monday, Sept, 6, 1982 (10 A.M.-noon on Friday, Saturday, and Monday; 9 A.M.-noon on Sunday) in the Columbus Ballroom E and F of the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Only the first three of these sessions proved to be necessary, and Sunday's was postponed from 9 to 10 A.M. The officers for all three sessions were: Donald Eastlake, Presiding Officer; George Flynn, Secretary; Richard Katze, Esq, Counsel; Leslie Turek, Timekeeper; and Paula Lieberman, Sergeant-at-Arms.

The texts of those motions that were printed in full in the Chicon IV Program Book will be cited here only by reference.

Sunday, Sept. 5, 1982

The scheduled starting time having been changed from 9 to 10, the meeting was called to order at 10:02 A.M.

Under the special order of business established on Friday, the group of Fanzine-Hugo-related motions were considered first. The Chair reviewed the agreed order of procedure, and asked that proposals for minor changes in wording (of the surviving proposal) be deferred to the end. The order of considering the three two-category proposals was changed from 16, 9, 19 to 19, 9, 16 in order to proceed from the simplest to the most complex - however, since Gary Farber (the maker of Item 19) was not yet present, we started with Item 9 instead.

• ITEM 9, Cantor-Glicksohn motion. -- Moved (Robert Sacks) to change "other than copies of the publication(s)" to "money" in both places that the phrase occurs: no second.

• ITEM 19. Farber-Miller motion, -- In response to an inquiry by Rick Katze, the Chair ruled that "generally available" means you can get it if you want it: not that there have to be copies for everyone who might want it. To another inquiry, the Chair ruled that "highest circulation" refers to the single issue whose circulation is highest.

• ITEM 16. Russell et al. motion, or more specifically those portions of the original motion dealing with fanzines and related matters (roughly paragraphs 5 to 9). -- In response to an inquiry by the Secretary as to the meaning of "non-professional" in pars. 6 and 7, Mr. Russell pointed out that this was implicit in the definition of "professional" in par 5. [It might nevertheless be desirable to clarify this point by adding "(as defined in Section 8 above)" or similar language after "(non-)professional" in the proposed Professional Artist, Semiprozine and Fanzine sections.] -- MS (Linda Bushyager) to change the beginning of the "Best Semiprozine" definition to "Any generally available non-professional publication which has had at least four issues and which meets at least two of the following criteria:" and to eliminate "had at least four issues" as one of the optional criteria. (It was understood that language referring to "science fiction or fantasy" and "In the previous calendar year" would be inserted if Item 16A failed to pass; unfortunately it was not specified how the "previous calendar year" language would be applied. See below on this point.) Ms. Bushyager’s amendment passed. -- Moved (Robert Sacks) to delete the change in the definition of Best Professional Artist: no second.

The choice between Items 9, 19. and 16 was then debated. MS to extend the debate for 2 minutes: less than 2/3 in favor. A preferential standing vote was then taken: Item 9, 18; Item 19, 28; Item 16, 39. Between the two leaders: Item 19, 34; Item 16, 47. Item 16 (the Russell et al motion) was thus the surviving two-category proposal.

The next debate was between Item l6 (two categories) and the current rule (one category). MS (Linda Bushyager) to amend Item 16 to allow only appearance in fanzines (not semiprozines) to qualify one for Fan Writer and Fan Artist awards: Withdrawn without objection, after debate, -- Vote: current rule, 6; Item 16, overwhelming; abstentions (count requested), 8. Item 16 was thus again the survivor.

The time was now 10:58 A.M., and without objection the meeting proceeded to site-selection business (made a special order of business for one hour after the start of the meeting). The results of the site-selection voting were reported. Los Angeles having received an absolute majority of the first-place votes, it was declared to be the winner. A presentation on behalf of the L.A.con II committee was made by Craig Miller, Milt Stevens, and a personage identified as Reynolds Rat; copies of their Progress Report Zero were distributed. -- Opportunity was then given for 1985 bidders to make presentations. The only response was by John Foyster, who gave a one-sentence speech for Melbourne in ’85. MS (George Mitchell) to thank Mr. Foyster for the brevity of his presentation: passed by acclamation. -- The meeting then reverted to the Fanzine-Hugo debate.

SITE-SELECTION RESULTS

* There were also 4 invalid mail ballots, for a total of 505 mail ballots actually turned over for counting; however, the money received corresponded to 515 ballots.

+ Write-in votes were received for a total 33 different locations or entities, which the Secretary declines to list.

** The "No Vote" column refers to payments received from non-members of Chicon IV; these were thus not legally ballots.

• ITEM 21, Feder-White-Bushyager motion, was then discussed followed by a debate between Item 16 (two categories) and item 21 (no category). MS to extend debate 2 minutes: defeated. Vote: Item 21, 16; item 16, c. 56; abstentions (count requested), 6.
• Item 16, the Russell et al motion, as amended, was thus the sole surviving proposal, and a final vote was taken to give it formal passage as an amendment to the Constitution: passed overwhelmingly.

  [Since Item 16A was later defeated, a certain amount of rewriting was necessary to obtain a final text of this amendment. Here is my best estimate of the proposed text of Art. II, Secs. 8 ff.:
  Best Professional Editor: The editor of any professional publication devoted primarily to science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year. A professional publication is one which had an average press run of at least ten thousand (10,000) copies per issue.
  Best Professional Artist: A illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.
  Best Semiprozine: Any generally available non-professional publication devoted to science fiction or fantasy which has published at least four issues[, at least one of which appeared] in the previous calendar year, and which, in the previous calendar year met at least two (2) of the following criteria: (1) had an average press run of at least one thousand (1000) copies per issue, (2) paid its contributors and/or staff in other than copies of the publication, (3) provided at least half the income of any one person, (4) had at least fifteen percent (15%) of its total space occupied by advertising, or (5) announced itself to be a semiprozine.
  Best Fanzine: Any generally available non-professional publication devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects which has published four (4) or more issues, at least one (1) of which appeared in the previous calendar year, and which does not qualify as a semiprozine.

  In Secs. 11 and 12, "in magazines of the type defined in Section 10 above" would become "in semiprozines or fanzines". And in Sec. 12. "final Awards ballot" becomes "final Hugo Awards ballot" and "for the Fan Artist Award" becomes "in the Fan Artist category".

  Because of the complexity of this motion, the exact text in some places is still in doubt and should probably be settled by next year’s Business Meeting.
  (1) As noted in the debate, the exact form of the four-issue criterion for semiprozines was not specified. Should it be four issues in the previous year (the original form of Mr. Russell’s motion) or four issues total with one in the previous year (as in the fanzine rule)? If the former, the words in brackets in the above text should be omitted.
  (2) Should the subject matter for semiprozines be "science fiction or fantasy" (as in the original par. 1) or also include "related subjects" (as in the fanzine rule)? - An earlier version of Item 16 had the latter wording, but the text as submitted neglected this point. (It probably makes no practical difference.)
  (3) Note also my proposed clarification of "(non-)professional".]

At this point the Secretary reported additional information on the "licensed" question: see Appendix C for full details.

It was now 11:29 A.M.; the meeting was scheduled to adjourn at noon, but the time limits for debate on the remaining items totaled 66 minutes. MS to have a 5-minute recess, and after reconvening not adjourn until 1:30 P.M. unless all business was finished sooner: the motion passed, and the meeting recessed at 1l:30.

Meeting called back to order at 11:38 A.M. (Although a total of 116 people other than the officers signed the Sunday attendance list, only about 35 were present at this time; the number increased to about 50 later.)

MS (Skip Morris) to take the draft WSFS Constitution (Item 7, and Appendix A) from the table and consider it immediately. MS (George Mitchell) to amend the motion so as to consider the Constitution at the end of the agenda. The Chair ruled that the motion to take from the table was not amendable, was in order, and could be passed by majority vote. The point of order was made that this was old business; the Chair ruled that there was no such thing. The motion to take from the table was defeated, 13-20.

At this point we finally got back to the normal agenda, beginning with the amendments to the Constitution proposed for ratification.

• ITEM 1, as amended. -- MS to call the question: no objection. Amendment ratified unanimously.

  [Among the changes made by this amendment, in Art IV, Sec. 5 "Convention book" becomes "Worldcon book"; both phrases are dubious, since Worldcons nowadays often have more than one "book". I recommend a further change to specify "program book" or the like.]

• ITEM 2. -- MS to call the question: no objection. Amendment ratified unanimously.

• ITEM 3 -- No objection to voting. Amendment ratified unanimously.

• ITEM 4, as amended. -- No objection to voting. Amendment ratified unanimously.

  [The Secretary still feels that "The deadline for filing bids from prospective committees to be included on the ballot" is ungrammatical, and should be recast as either "for filing bids for prospective Committees to be included" or "for filing bids from prospective committees for them to be included"; alternatively, it could be "for filing bids to be included on the ballot from prospective Committees".]

• ITEM 5. -- Moved (Wendy Allen) to amend "3/4" to "2/3": ruled out of order as constituting a greater change than the original text, and no second anyway. -- No objection to voting. Amendment ratified many-5.

• ITEM 6A, constituting paragraphs A and B of motion 3 in the original Item 6. -- MS to call the question: passed 24-7 (over 2/3). Item 6A passed 29-5. -- A question was raised as to when it takes effect: i.e., if ratified at ConStellation, could the Standing Committee be named then or not till the following year (since Constitutional amendments take effect at the end of the Worldcon)? The Chair ruled that the next Business Meeting can decide.

• ITEM 6B constituting paragraph C of motion 3 in the original Item 6. -- MS to call the question: no objection. Item 6B passed many-1.

• ITEM 12. -- MS to call the question no objection. Item 12 defeated 5-many.

• ITEM 16A, constituting the portion of the original Item 16 which would rearrange the Hugo definitions to put the SF/fantasy and previous-year criteria in a single section. -- Item l6A defeated 3-many.

• ITEM 16B, constituting the portion of the original Item 16's par. 2 which would change "he" to "she or he" etc.. -- MS to call the question: passed 33-5 (over 2/3). Item 16B passed 30-4.

MS (Robert Sacks) to adjourn sine die. The Chair requested that this motion be withdrawn, since a piece of business had inadvertently been omitted: motion withdrawn. -- The Chair pointed out that the redefinition of non-English-language eligibility in par. 2 of the original Item 16 had been overlooked when the question was divided: I shall designate this as ITEM 16C. -- The Chair suggested 2 minutes as a time limit for debate: no objection. Item 16C passed 27-10.

MS (Skip Morris) to take the draft WSFS Constitution (Item 7 and Appendix A) from the table and consider it on Monday. The Chair ruled the second portion of the motion out of order, -- MS (Wendy Allen) to adjourn. The question was raised whether this adjournment would be sine die, but the point was made that this could not be done with a motion on the floor. The Chair ruled that, if the meeting now adjourned, the motion to take from the table would be the first order of business on Monday, An attempt was made to withdraw the motion to adjourn, but there was objection. The Chair ruled that a motion to adjourn sine die was not in order. The motion to adjourn was defeated 1-many. -- The motion to take from the table then recurred, and was defeated 19-30.

In response to an inquiry, the Chair ruled that a motion to reconsider the vote on eliminating the Fan Hugos was in order. MS (Rick Katze) to so reconsider the vote between Items 21 and 16: if passed, this would have required repeating the last two votes in the Fanzine-Hugo decision tree. MS (Mark Owings) to call the question: no objection. The motion to reconsider was defeated unanimously (Mr. Katze stated for the record that his purpose was to protest against peoples packing the meeting for a specific vote and not staying for the remainder of the meeting.)

MS (Robert Sacks) to adjourn sine die: -- passed 39-4, and the meeting adjourned at 12:34 P.M.

Items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 have been passed by two successive Worldcon Business Meetings, and thus are now part of the WSFS Constitution. Items 6A, 6B, l6, 16B, and 16C have been given first passage, and will be considered for ratification at ConStellation. Item 0.B has been passed and is now a part of the Standing Rules. [In certifying the text for publication, I changed "Convention" to "Worldcon" in conformity with Item 1, and merged sentences covering a single action to read "voting shall be by written preferential ballot, with all members of the Worldcon present at the Business Meeting permitted to vote. The following miscellaneous motions were passed: Item 9, motions 1 (incorporated in Item 1) and 2; and Item 20. All other items were defeated.

The Secretary recommends that the new section of Article I (Item 1, part A) be inserted between the current Sections 5 and 6: that the new section of Article II (Item 5) be inserted between the current Sections 12 and 13; and that the new Standing Rule (Item 0.B) be inserted between the current Rules 16 and 17.

According to the attendance lists, the following people attended one or more sessions of the Business Meeting: Alyson Abramowitz, Gary P. Agin, Wendy Allen, Lynn Anderson, B. Shirley Avery, Allan Beatty, Martha Beck, Charles A. Belov, R. J. Bicking, Cliff Biggers, Kent Bloom, Jane Boster, David Bratman, Seth Breidbart, Jan Brown, Rich Brown, Robert H. Brown, Brian Burley, Linda Bushyager, Tamzen L. Cannoy, Marty Cantor, Douglas S. Carey, Larry Carmody, Avedon Carol, Joe Celko, Cy Chauvin, Barbara Clifford, Lynn E. Cohen, Candy Collamer, Barb Cross, Robin Cuzzort, Angelo D'Alessio, Lea M. Day, Genny Dazzo, Scott C. Dennis, Martin E. Deutsch, Michael Du Charme, Donald Eastlake, Jill Eastlake, Lise Eisenberg, Gary Eissner, John M. Epperson, Louis Epstein, Jon Estren, Gary Farber, Cynthia Farinelli, Mike Farinelli, Doug Faunt, Moshe Feder, Gary Feldbaum, Katie Filipowicz, Jan Howard Finder, Terry L. Floyd, George Flynn, John Foyster, Steve Francis, Evelyn Frost, Judith Gaskins, Martin Gear, Janice Gelb, Larry Gelfand, Robert M. Gerber, Georges Giguere, Paul Giguere, Mike Glicksohn, Mike Glyer, David Govaker, Ralph Green Jr., Jeanne Gomoll, Gay Haldeman, Joe Haldeman, Stuart C. Hellinger, Rusty Hevelin, Don Hilley, Phoebe Hilley, Robert L. Hillis, Chip Hitchcock, Sarah-Shaindl Hines, Denys Howard, Jim Huttner, Jay Hutschnecker, Fred Isaacs, Ann Marie Jackowski, Walter Jackowski, Rick Katze, Gail S. Kaufman, Miriam Winder Kelly, Patrick Kelly Jr., Millea Kenin, Francis R. Kepple, Mike Lalor, David Larsen, Stephen Larue, Joseph Lattin, Hope Leibowitz, Alice Lewis, Anthony Lewis, Suford Lewis, Dan Lieberman, Paula Lieberman,, Ellen C, Lindow, Michael W. Lindow, Dannell Lites, Michael J. Lowrey, Dick Lynch, Diane M. Martin, George E. Martin, James McGrath, Roxanne Meida, Craig Miller, Dennis B. Miller, George Mitchell, Skip Morris, William R. Morrison, Lex Nakashima, Barry Newton, Frank C. Olbris, Mark L. Olson, Julanne Owings, Mark Owings, S. P. Parris, Bruce Pelz, Elayne Pelz, Mary Barbara Piero, Luc Pomerleau, Frederick Prophet, Alan Rachlin, Carol L. Resnick, Roger Reynolds, Joseph J. Rico, Andrew Robinson, J. Rosenstein, Eric L. Rowe, Larry Ruh, Richard S. Russell, Louise Sachter, Robert B. Sacks, Stephen M. St. Onge, Vanessa Schnatmeyer, Joyce Scrivner, James E. Shepherd, Patricia Sims, Roger Sims, Fran Skene, Kevin Smith, Victoria A. Smith, Lee Smoire, Milt Stevens, Daniel W. Story, Erwin S. Strauss, Steven Tait, Rebecca Taylor, Peter Theron, Kirk D. Thompson, Amy Thomson, Gregg T. Trend, Leslie Turek, James Turner, David Wallace, Tom Wallbank, Dalroy M. Ward, Michael Ward, Bob Webber, Mel. White, Stephen T. Whitmore, Thomas S. Whitmore, Lew Wolkoff, Tom Woods, Ben Yalow, Jim Young, Ron Zirkowski (in almost alphabetical order) for a total of 171 people. (It was 139 last year, and about 70 in 1980.) Copies of these minutes will be sent to all attendees at the Business Meeting and who submitted business.

Respectfully; submitted,
George Flynn, Secretary
Sept. 24 - Oct. 7, 1982