On Tuesday, June 24, 2003, at 10:19 PM, Cliff and Eileen wrote:

> If the amount to be passed forward to future conventions is a budgeted
> amount that a committee tries to meet, there is the possibility that
> at some
> point a convention might have to hold back or even cut spending on
> extras to
> make sure the targeted donations are made.

I would like to differentiate between pledging (promising, announcing,
publicizing, whatever) target donations and budgeting target donations.

If the committee would choose to pledge target donations (and I think
any CC committee would be fools to do so based on historical data) then
yes, the convention might have to cut back on other expenses to meet
that pledge.

If the committee would choose to budget targeted donations (which is
what I’m suggesting) then those target donations would be (in my
opinion at least) the first things that should be cut if something goes
haywire.

Bruce mentioned the issue of “appearing to make a profit.” Last I
looked, a non-profit isn’t denied the right to make a profit in its
operations, it’s just restricted on how that profit can be distributed.
It makes sense to me to plan a small profit (cushion, margin for error,
call it what you wish) into the budget and have plans to distribute it
appropriately. It doesn’t make sense to me to budget to break-even and
have no margin for error.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.bovil.com/
“It’s not pink; it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.” –Manfred Pfirsich
Marie Rommel

CC22 thinks that passing funds forward is a lovely idea and appreciates
greatly the contribution that CC19 made to us. If we can, we plan to do
something similar, but we would also like to make at least a token
reimbursement to our volunteers, program participants, and staff. (Is that
OK? Anything in the rules that I missed that would prohibit that?)

I suspect that Salt Lake could use the funds since I’m not sure how much
they ended up with from the voting fees, so we do feel an obligation to try
and pass them something.

Trudy

>From: Betsy Delaney <betsy@hawkeswood.com>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [runacc] pass-forward funds…
>Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 18:25:20 -0400
>
>Hi, folks!
>
>I want to clarify something concerning CCXV’s passthrough funds, sent to
>CCs 16, 17 and 18:
>
>The decision to clean out the bank account at the conclusion of payment
>of everyone was made by the committee, with my primary influence. Our
>sponsor, the GCFCG, provided us with a 501(c)(3) umbrella, but no
>operating funds whatsoever. While a few of the GCFCG members argued that
>we should keep the funds, it was my belief that the funds should be put
>back into Costume-Cons, and since I was hearing that the next few were
>lower in number than ours was, they could probably use the extra cash. I
>was also President of the chapter at the time, and it was finally an
>executive decision made to disperse the funds.
>
>We didn’t have a mandate to do so. I think we received a donation from
>at least one prior CC, which is where I got the idea to do it. I’d have
>to look up the details to know which one gave it to us, but I think it
>was one of the CA CCs. The main thing was, we wanted to zero out our
>bank account.
>
>History Lesson: The GCFCG had a big problem at the time the ICG was
>incorporated (just prior to 1992), because of its original status as the
>founding ICG chapter as well as sponsor of CC3. The con made so much
>extra money, the IRS had a problem believing the chapter was non-profit.
>It took years (and an expensive accountant bill) to straighten out the
>finances as a result.
>
>We didn’t want to cause any questions to happen with the IRS. The con
>pulled in just over 20k over the entire course of its existence, but not
>all in the same year, and we very carefully documented where every penny
>went.
>
>I had hoped to start a tradition, but I don’t know how long it lasted. I
>know that at least CC16 passed on some funds, and I understand that CC19
>did as well. Without the financial records/budgets from the other CCs, I
>don’t know for sure what happened with the rest.
>
>If we do address the subject in the Run a CC document, it should be as
>historic data (what other con coms have done) and not as a requirement.
>We certainly didn’t budget for the funds. I was hoping there would be
>more, but an expensive hotel bill and extra video editing requirements
>put paid to the largest quantity of profits. We were lucky we had the
>extra to pass forward, in the end.
>
>Note: I’m finishing with putting the Summer issue of The ICG Newsletter
>sometime this weekend/early next week. I just finished labeling all the
>envelopes – now have to collate and fold all the copies (some 550 or
>so). When I’m done, I plan to spend time looking at the outline on the
>site with an eye to making the changes we discussed at the meeting at
>CC21. I would really appreciate feedback about this subject in
>particular, so we can get to writing the content. I can write a lot of
>it, but I’m not expecting to write everything!
>
>Hint.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Talk to you soon,
>
>Betsy
>
>–
>Betsy R. Delaney
>Web Mistress at large
>
>************************************************************************
> http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
> http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
> http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
>************************************************************************

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On Wednesday, June 25, 2003, at 04:56 PM, Trudy Leonard wrote:

> CC22 thinks that passing funds forward is a lovely idea and appreciates
> greatly the contribution that CC19 made to us. If we can, we plan to
> do
> something similar, but we would also like to make at least a token
> reimbursement to our volunteers, program participants, and staff. (Is
> that
> OK? Anything in the rules that I missed that would prohibit that?)

Karen has said (unless I interpreted her email wrong) there is nothing
in the Constitution that speaks to distribution of any profit from the
convention.

Personally, if I were you, I would work something into the con budget
to forecast and account for those reimbursements if you wanted to make
sure they happen. Better to have it in the budget and cut it if
necessary than to depend on chance.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.irlm.org/ – mailto:webmaster@irlm.org
“Anybody who takes this seriously deserves to”
— Donna Barr

At 05:03 PM 6/25/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>Karen has said …there is nothing in the Constitution that speaks to
>distribution of any profit from the convention.

This is absolutely correct.

Historically, excess funds have been used for:

Bailout funds for previous CC’s that fell into the red;
Pass-forward funds to future CC’s;
Printing of Memory Books for the attendees of the con that made the profit;
Printing and distribution of photo enlargements for Fashion Show designers
/ constructors / models and Masquerade winners of the con that made the profit;
Extra amenities (food & drink services put out during the day for the con
membership at large) at the con itself;
Reimbursements to con staff, volunteers, lecturers, etc.

I’m sure there are other equally worthy uses, which is why I don’t want to
mandate how any con’s excess funds (if any) should be used.

Trudy, there’s nothing in the rules to tell you what to do with your
profits. Pass-forward funds to other CC’s would be fine, and I’m sure CC-23
could use the $$$.
I’m also sure reimbursements to worthy staff, volunteers, etc. also would
be greatly appreciated. (At CC-6, we made our committee buy memberships so
we would have startup $$$, and then refunded then as soon as we were
assured the con would be in the black.)

Andy, I’m just not sure how to budget a CC for the current economy. If
anything, budget for “worst case” attendance numbers and then do the Happy
Dance when you exceed them. At CC-6, we budgeted for 400, had 500 going in,
and 100 registrations at the door (this is NOT typical for at-the-door
registrations, so don’t use these numbers for your estimates!!!). I think
CC-8 budgeted for 600 (based on CC-6), and had to shut down registration at
900+ because the hotel would not hold any more bodies. On the other hand,
other CC’s have budgeted for reasonable numbers (300), and done their
darndest to get the word out, and ended up with less than stellar
attendance. So the important message here is NOT to overextend. And if you
have to cut budget items, DO NOT CUT advertising.

I would hope that CC-26 would draw at least as well as CC-6, but I just
don’t know. All I can tell y’all is that as far as I know, the
best-attended CC’s ever were in California, but that was during the “boom”
years of Corporate jobs (80’s and early 90’s) and I don’t know if those
numbers are valid any more.

I’d like to see the attendance ?’s filled in on the CC website, but that
info needs to be supplied by the concoms in question.

–Karen

CC19 received donations from CC15, CC16, & CC17 (the CC15 donation was
received after CC16 had occurred.) We passed on donations to CC20, CC21 &
CC22, as well as to a local convention.

We are heading out tomorrow to do the family thing in B.C., so I will be
away from my computer for the next two weeks.

Eileen

—–Original Message—–
From: Betsy Delaney

I had hoped to start a tradition, but I don’t know how long it lasted. I
know that at least CC16 passed on some funds, and I understand that CC19
did as well. Without the financial records/budgets from the other CCs, I
don’t know for sure what happened with the rest.

Hi!

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> Historically, excess funds have been used for:
>
> Bailout funds for previous CC’s that fell into the red;
> Pass-forward funds to future CC’s;
> Printing of Memory Books for the attendees of the con that made the profit;
> Printing and distribution of photo enlargements for Fashion Show designers
> / constructors / models and Masquerade winners of the con that made the profit;
> Extra amenities (food & drink services put out during the day for the con
> membership at large) at the con itself;
> Reimbursements to con staff, volunteers, lecturers, etc.

And this is just the sort of information I think we should include in
the final document, for reference.

> I’m also sure reimbursements to worthy staff, volunteers, etc. also would
> be greatly appreciated. (At CC-6, we made our committee buy memberships so
> we would have startup $$$, and then refunded then as soon as we were
> assured the con would be in the black.)

We did this only after we were sure all of our bills were covered. We
were able to refund all staff who wished to receive refunds. Several
chose to make donations of their money, and that was part of what we
passed on to the next three CCs. It took over a year to straighten out
everything and pay for everything. The hotel bill in particular was in
dispute for well over four months after the conclusion of the con, and
video needed extra time as well (almost a year, by my hazy reconing).

The biggest thing to remember – you can’t close the books until you are
dead sure there are no more bills to be paid, and that can take a
considerable amount of time post-con.

Even with our budget, which was set up with three breaks (200 members,
300 members and 400 members), and with careful tracking of
income/expenditure, what our budget doesn’t show is that we modified the
numbers during the process – sometimes more than once a week as we got
close to the event – the numbers shown in the version that’s online
really doesn’t reflect the changes we made over the course of time.

It was really clear, as we crossed a deadline (raise in fees, calendar
timeline) that some of the numbers were going to shift from changeable
to fixed. We broke our numbers down into finer detail than some might
have wanted, but we knew exactly what we could afford to pay for as a
result.

We treated our budget much more like a guideline than a fixed
requirement. We simply had to be flexible. If we needed more for tech or
the con suite at the last minute, that money was going to have to come
from somewhere else.

We did have a larger than usual number of walk-ins at the last minute.
We also had some found income by offering event-only donations to family
members and Disclave members who wanted to see a masquerade but who
weren’t interested in attending the panels.

> I’d like to see the attendance ?’s filled in on the CC website, but that
> info needs to be supplied by the concoms in question.

Actually, so would I. I think I’ve asked for the data before from some
of the different chairs, but some were much easier to talk to than
others. And there are some for which I don’t think we’ll ever have
complete information.

It would be a GOOD THING(tm) to get at least the current and most recent
CCs to give us those numbers when they’re done.

And frankly, personally, I’d love to see the Whole Costumers’ Catalog
budgeted for in one of the upcoming CCs. It’s a benefit that disappeared
with CC18, but it’s a valuable resource that (if Karen actually has the
time to resurrect) all the members of the con would certainly
appreciate. Memory books are nice to have, but having that resource
guide available has been a lifesaver on several occasions.

Cheers,

Betsy

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

In a message dated 6/25/2003 7:08:36 PM Central Daylight Time,
attrembl@bovil.com writes:

> Personally, if I were you, I would work something into the con budget
> to forecast and account for those reimbursements if you wanted to make
> sure they happen. Better to have it in the budget and cut it if
> necessary than to depend on chance.

Andy,
Putting something like that into a budget can be a real hard thing to
do. CC21 did make money, which was a huge weight of relief for me. You might
remember another con in this part of the universe in the mid 90’s. It’s first
year it did alright. So much so that it gave the ConCom, me included, visions
of grandeur. The second year was just the opposite, due to bad weather. The
ConCom had to pay con bills out of our pockets.
At best, I’d advise a 50/75/100% system. I am still trying to figure
out which end of that the next CC should be on. In my opinion, and
experience, it is nicer to have a big chunk of money early on.
Henry Osier

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 11:09 AM 6/26/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>And this is just the sort of information I think we should include in
>the final document, for reference.

Absolutely.

>The biggest thing to remember – you can’t close the books until you are
>dead sure there are no more bills to be paid, and that can take a
>considerable amount of time post-con.

Many CC’s have left their books open for at least a year after the con.

>And frankly, personally, I’d love to see the Whole Costumers’ Catalog
>budgeted for in one of the upcoming CCs. It’s a benefit that disappeared
>with CC18, but it’s a valuable resource that (if Karen actually has the
>time to resurrect) all the members of the con would certainly
>appreciate. Memory books are nice to have, but having that resource
>guide available has been a lifesaver on several occasions.

I am willing to do a WCC again in conjunction with a CC.

However, that being said, the decision to do a WCC or not needs to be made
at least two years out from the convention, and preferably the moment a
convention wins its CC bid.

First, I need “advance warning” so I have time to get the manuscript
together. Doing a WCC is a very time and labor intensive undertaking, which
is why there hasn’t been one in so long.

Second, and most importantly, the price of the book needs to be amortized
into the membership fees FROM THE START, or the convention simply can’t
afford the cost of the book on top of its other expenses. [CC’s receive
discount pricing on the book (at least 50% off retail).] I’m sure members
would be happy to pay an additional $10 in membership fees if they are
receiving a $20 reference book as part of their overall convention package.

Third, I will not do a new WCC for two consecutive CC’s, as it is too
exhausting.

–Karen

Utah bid three years in a row, and won on the third try, in Australia. I don’t think we got any money from that vote. But since we did help push up the voting count in our first two bids, Atlanta has already seen that we could use some money and sent us $50. Which is very nice, since right now they are on the low end of their income balance. Thanks.

We were very concerned early on in our bid/hotel selection with CC attendance. Early information would have had us expecting too high a turn-out. (we can still hope…) But after getting more detailed information (attendee count and location), we suspect that our local area can figure on about 250. Unless we get lots of West Coast attendance (we do hope) We do have lots of hotel and masquerade space. But it was a challenge to find a hotel with lots of space, and still have less than 200 rooms per night expected.

In our license bylaws, we specifically state what information we will report to the license holders. So that info will be availabe to future bids. I expect this group to help draft such guidelines for future CCs. For us (who did not know a lot about CC, it was very important information.) Also, our bylaws state that our extra profits go to the next three CCs. This does not mean that we can’t also offer some refund to staff, but that I did see the importance of seed money for CC.
Charles

—–Original Message—–
From: Trudy Leonard <georgialei@hotmail.com>

I suspect that Salt Lake could use the funds since I’m not sure how much
they ended up with from the voting fees, so we do feel an obligation to try
and pass them something.

Trudy

.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>From: “Charles Galway” <cgalway@xmission.com>
>Subject: Re: [runacc] pass-forward funds…
>
>Utah bid three years in a row, and won on the third try, in Australia. I
>don’t think we got any money from that vote. But since we did help push up
>the voting count in our first two bids, Atlanta has already seen that we
>could use some money and sent us $50. Which is very nice, since right now
>they are on the low end of their income balance. Thanks.

Charles –

Since none of us could attend the Australian Con, we just sent you what our
usual contingent would have spent in voting fees, had we been able to vote.
We hope to have more for you later.

Contact me off list and let me know if you want to advertise in one of the
PR’s or the Program book.
The next PR will have at least a list of upcoming CC’s. I realized too late
that I had left them out of the most recent one.

Trudy

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On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 08:19 AM, henryosier@cs.com wrote:

> In a message dated 6/25/2003 7:08:36 PM Central Daylight Time,
> attrembl@bovil.com writes:
>> Personally, if I were you, I would work something into the con budget
>> to forecast and account for those reimbursements if you wanted to make
>> sure they happen. Better to have it in the budget and cut it if
>> necessary than to depend on chance.
> Andy,
> Putting something like that into a budget can be a real hard
> thing to
> do. CC21 did make money, which was a huge weight of relief for me. You
> might
> remember another con in this part of the universe in the mid 90’s.
> It’s first
> year it did alright. So much so that it gave the ConCom, me included,
> visions
> of grandeur.

Oh, yeah, I remember that con. 40 below. I also remember a committee
member or two (not present here or involved in CC) who screwed around
with things. That didn’t hurt the con’s bottom line, but may have
prevented the con from happening again regardless.

And yeah, it can be difficult to budget reimbursements in, particularly
if it’s not done very early. Betsy is right, early budgets are really
just guesses; they don’t solidify entirely until right before or
sometimes after the con. Karen’s right, large-ticket items like the
Whole Costumers’ Catalog need to be included in those early budgets.
Early budgets may be guesses, but they’ve got to include everything
because they’re the only tool for setting membership rates at a level
that will pay for the con.

Karen is also dead-on about advertising and marketing.

Last year the LA WesterCon was only about 1000 people. Insane? Yes.
Ridiculous? Yes. It should have been twice that size. But they did an
atrocious job marketing the convention. They didn’t have a marketing
person until 6 months before the con. They’re lucky they broke 600.

For the last three years Kevin and I have worked on a 400-600 person
BDSM conference that drew membership from all over the country. It sold
out (hit membership cap and went over) every year in spite of craziness
and stupidity within the committee (worse than in the convention you
didn’t name). We’ve recruited the same marketing person for our CC bid.

Right now we’re covering our marketing out of personal funds (what with
not being incorporated or having a revenue stream) but that’s what I
figure we’ve got to do. We need momentum, both locally and
internationally. We really want to get folks to Utah (or at least get
folks to buy supporting memberships) so they can vote for us. Votes may
be a hit on our bottom line (particularly if the voting fee doesn’t
cover all the expenses associated with a supporting membership), but
they’re a sign of commitment on the part of members.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 10:10 AM, Charles Galway wrote:

> But after getting more detailed information (attendee count and
> location), we suspect that our local area can figure on about 250.
> Unless we get lots of West Coast attendance (we do hope)

We hope too 🙂

For that to happen, though, you need to market out here. In the 18
months leading up to your con, we’re going to need to see you and your
folks out on the coast, and in Arizona. Colorado, St. Louis and Iowa
(and maybe as far east as Chicago) may be fertile turf for you too (tho
Chicago to Salt Lake is about a 2 day drive).

We’re starting to work on a master list of costume organizations in our
marketing sphere. When it’s better fleshed out (right now I’ve got a
few college theater and art departments and local orgs) I’ll make sure
you get access to it.

Just a suggestion: Look up your local drag court. If you don’t mind
hanging out with drag queens who drink a lot, your local coronations
and events should be a great place to market. There’s an imperial court
both in Salt Lake and in Ogden.

Ogden’s Coronation ball is in November, and this year’s theme is “An
Evening of Movies, Movie Stars and Awards From Harlow to Streisand”
http://www.impcourt.org/icis/chapters/ogden.html
Don’t know much about this; your court is fairly new, this is the
fourth coronation in Ogden.

Salt Lake City’s Coronation ball is Memorial Day Weekend, and next
year’s theme is “Namaste: An Evening in the Majestic Ruins of the
Maharaja”
http://www.impcourt.org/icis/chapters/saltlake.html
Salt Lake Coronation is huge and draws folks from all over the country.
It’s got the reputation of being a great and rowdy party. We’ve got
friends here who attend every year. If you’re interested in following
up these opportunities, we’ll talk.

> In our license bylaws, we specifically state what information we
> will report to the license holders. So that info will be available to
> future bids. I expect this group to help draft such guidelines for
> future CCs.

I would like to see a standard reporting format suggested in the guide
even if it’s not required by the constitution. I think that would
benefit the archives and upcoming conventions and bids.

> For us (who did not know a lot about CC, it was very important
> information.) Also, our bylaws state that our extra profits go to the
> next three CCs. This does not mean that we can’t also offer some
> refund to staff, but that I did see the importance of seed money for
> CC.

Oh, that’s easy. Membership refunds are expenses and are subtracted
from the gross.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

…when I really get reminded what a good marketing person is, and why
we picked the one we’ve got.

We’re cleaning up and getting ready for dinner (Lance has dinner with
us every Wednesday) and he says “you know, the only place I don’t have
fliers is in my saddlebags on the bike. By the way, do you have any
quarter-page fliers?”

I haven’t the foggiest how I spaced quarter-page fliers. Probably
because everybody does full-page fliers at cons. It’s not like we don’t
do quarter-pages for all sorts of other events.

The other thing is the Quilt Museum (2 blocks from work) is part of a
quilter’s “shop hop” this weekend so they’ve got representatives out
drumming up business and greeting folks. I’m going to print proofs of
our marketing packet and take them over to them.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/

So along with this weekend’s plans to do a party at Westercon, I’ve
been working on some of our marketing docs…

Lance and I were talking at dinner last week, he said we needed a
quarter-page flier. I’ve crunched two fliers down to quarter-page size
and also created two new quarter-page fliers to fill out the layout.
The current flier pack can be downloaded from the group file section at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cc26sv-staff/files/
It’s a pretty big download at 4.5mb, but it’s also 12 pages of text and
artwork. The 4-ups are page 12.

We’re planning to run out the current batch of ribbons at Westercon and
afterwards order a new batch that’s more graphically consistent (namely
in fonts used) with the paper fliers. They’re also going to read
“Pre-con Costume Award” rather than “Pre-con Hall Costume Award” so
they’re more versatile. If you’ve been patiently awaiting a ribbon
refresh, this is why we haven’t sent them yet (namely, we had to
survive June).

Kevin has done a new set of “ask me about CC26?” badge hangers. These
are again more consistent with the paper fliers, and (as tested at
BayCon) much more visible and likely to attract attention. We’ll be
distributing these when we run into folks. It’s a good idea to carry a
pack of quarter-page fliers with you when wearing this badge… lots of
folks do ask about it.

Another thing we’re planning for the 4-up fliers is to stake out the
door for the contestant meeting and hand fliers to folks as contestants
arrive. We’re also looking for folks to help us canvas the masquerade
line Saturday evening and hand out award ribbons (assuming we still
have some) and 4-up fliers to folks who are interested.

I’ve been adding to the marketing database
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cc26sv-staff/database
It now includes local SCA chapters with contact information on the web
and local Imperial Court chapters. The SCA chapters don’t have USnail
addresses; they don’t seem to post any of this on their websites. If
you have groups who you think ought to be on the list, please add them.

I’m going to get back to work on the calendar. Please add calendar
entries for events you believe are of interest to the bid. Set a 2-week
and 1-day reminder if you do.

You’ve probably recently received a “profile request” from Yahoo that I
sent. This is part of what I’m doing to keep track of whether folks do
or don’t know how to sign in to the web services of the group. Please
do a profile (even if it’s not too detailed… don’t want to give away
too much to the marketers).

Speaking of marketers (and not the good kind) when you sign in to do
your profile, also check your account information (it’s the “account
info” link in the group title bar). It’s nice to have real names
associated, but it’s also useful to go in and click on the “edit your
marketing preferences.” By default Yahoo assumes you want to give away
all your information, so go in and switch that off.

Finally, I’d appreciate it if you would update your entry in either the
bid committee database or the conference committee database.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

This is to inform everyone that, at this time, I have no plans to bid on
another Costume Con. This is not due to CC21 being an utterly terrible experience,
or anything like that. I have made this decision because I do not know what
my life will be like in six or seven years. It would be unfair to the costumers
in the Chicago &Milwaukee areas if I were to bid on another that far out, and
then to have my life have me move out of the area.

Henry W. Osier,
Co-Chair, CC21
<A HREF=”http://www.jennifarse.com/cc2003″>Costume-Con 21 Welcomes You!</A>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

So the whole WorldCon (Toronto) customs & immigration debate going on
over on ICG-D had me thinking, and had Kevin digging things up on the
web.

Turns out there is a whole booklet from the Canadian government
concerned with bringing international conferences to Canada. It covers:
Immigration
Customs
Taxes (besides import duties)
Work permits

Read it at http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/E/pub/cp/rc4032/README.html

Canada is very serious about attracting international conferences and
making it easy for organizers/delegates/members/participants to get the
information they need to cross the border. I’m wondering if the US
government has anything documents like this. If nothing else, it’s a
valuable resource to identify the kinds of things we should research to
help our foreign members enter the US for CC’s here.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.irlm.org/ – mailto:webmaster@irlm.org
“Anybody who takes this seriously deserves to”
— Donna Barr

That’s an excellent idea!

Elaine

> So the whole WorldCon (Toronto) customs & immigration debate going on
> over on ICG-D had me thinking, and had Kevin digging things up on the
> web.
>
> Turns out there is a whole booklet from the Canadian government
> concerned with bringing international conferences to Canada. It covers:
> Immigration
> Customs
> Taxes (besides import duties)
> Work permits
>
> Read it at http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/E/pub/cp/rc4032/README.html
>
> Canada is very serious about attracting international conferences and
> making it easy for organizers/delegates/members/participants to get the
> information they need to cross the border. I’m wondering if the US
> government has anything documents like this. If nothing else, it’s a
> valuable resource to identify the kinds of things we should research to
> help our foreign members enter the US for CC’s here.

Andy –
Where the hell are the award certificates from CC21? Don’t pull an
“Animal” on us!

Marty

On Wednesday, August 6, 2003, at 03:07 PM, martingear wrote:

> Andy –
> Where the hell are the award certificates from CC21? Don’t pull an
> “Animal” on us!

I’ll give you the same answer publicly that I gave the short list of
folks who asked privately:

I’ve got the paper stock, I’ve got the stamps and envelopes, I’ve got
the
data, I’ve got the design, I’ve got the signatures, now all I need is
time.

It’s currently in the “my fault” zone, and has been since mid-June
(when I received the last thing I needed from others).

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 05:57 AM, rookwoods wrote:

> — In ICG-D@yahoogroups.com, Lisa A Ashton <lisa58@j…> wrote:
>> What I do, as soon as I return home from the con (if not sooner) is to
>> write on the back of the ribbons in ink, what it won, the date and
>> what
>> con (which is sometimes not printed on the front ribbon).
>
> I’ve tried to do that with my ribbons as well, but again: I didn’t
> always “hear” what I won, so I”m not sure if I wrote correctly on the
> ribbon – I keep figuring that I’ll get the actually working on the
> certificate.
>
> But what do you do for wins at a con that did not hand out ribbons?
> recent example: this year’s CC. Lovely etched glasses if you won Best
> in Something, but no ribbons for anyone. (I’m not trying to pick on
> this year’s CC, it’s just the most recent. I understand that other CCs
> and other cons haven’t handed out ribbons as well).

‘k, so now that mine are mailed I’m going to talk…

First of all, there is a group (somewhat inactive, probably in need of
a kick in the pants) working on a “Costume-Con Runner’s Handbook” which
will include checklists for masquerade runners. Much of the masquerade
section, I’m sure, is going to be based on the Kennedy Compendium and
JW-A/Devereaux. This handbook will be available (I believe) on the
costume-con website once it’s in a draft that is presentable.

as to the meat:

Ribbons are nice. They’re also a tricky item to budget and order. It’s
really bad to under-order ribbons and have some winners go without.
It’s really difficult to estimate the number of ribbons actually needed
even when there’s a high level of preregistration. Unless you’re really
lucky the only safe bet is to over-order, and considering how tight
most CC budgets are, that’s not a good choice. I love ribbons (which is
why we’re giving them out to promote CC26?) but in certain budget or
planning situations they may not be feasible.

Home-crafted prizes can be cool, just look at the CC16 medallions (even
with the cure issues), but may not be any more cost-effective than
ordering ribbons in, and are going to be just as difficult to estimate.
Time is also an issue there.

As to how to tag the “special” prizes, a sticker on the underside of
the foot of the glass or on the back of the plaque is often a good
solution for an item like that.

Calligraphed certificates are insane. Printed certificates can be very
nice.

So on to “What I learned from CC21:”

We’ve both got laptops; copies of everything for the masquerade will be
on both of them.

I’m buying a portable printer this weekend. Canon i70, if you care.
Good print speed, sturdier and smaller than the average desktop inkjet
printer. The main reason is to be able to print party posters at cons,
but it’s also useful to have for printing certificates, obviously.

I’m buying a portable scanner too. Probably the Ambir Travelscan Pro
(maybe Ambir Visigo A4 or A6). Very important for scanning judge’s
signatures for certificates (so the judges don’t get tendonitis signing
tons of certificates). I will get judges’ signatures early in the
weekend, too.

I will have a database or spreadsheet set up to transcribe entry sheets
right away instead of working from paper packets that have to be
heavily manipulated.

All entrant forms will be printed from the database and reviewed with
the contestants instead of using handwritten forms for the tech crew.

Certificates will be designed before the convention and the merge
process will be tested.

Certificate paper will be chosen before the convention. Generic 20lb
bond just doesn’t make for nice certificates. High-brightness 47lb
stock is fabulous.

I think that covers everything.

For the moment, at least.

Kevin and I are running the Masquerade for ConJecture 2003 (a little
convention in San Diego, 10/3-5) and I’m starting on the certificates
for that now. Got a request in to the con to identify the fonts they’re
using in pubs and for a copy of the logo in hi-res format. Could
probably use the same spreadsheet and merge, but may want to work up
something different. Rules are done. Best guess is about 10 entrants at
most.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
hand
Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

At 04:58 PM 9/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>Calligraphed certificates are insane. Printed certificates can be very
>nice.

Printed certificates definitely seem like the way to go.

The ribbons are really cool to wear on your belt with your street clothes
like scalps on the day after the competition at the convention, but they
become a storage problem once they go home.

And some folks don’t like the ribbons because they look like the same ones
handed out to the 4-H livestock at the county fair.

Other “special” prizes are greatly appreciated, but should be in addition
to the certificate.

Sounds like you have the certificate situation well under control for
future masquerades that you and Kevin run. 🙂

–Karen

On Wednesday, September 24, 2003, at 01:39 PM, Alix Jordan wrote:

> Gentlebeings:
>
> Properly, from the dollmakers perspective, CostumeCon does not
> have a
> doll competition. In a doll competition the entire doll counts; how
> you
> made it; what you made it from; how you present it. Judging at a doll
> show
> is like presenting a costume at a masquerade…everything counts. And
> you
> can’t buy the doll, just as you can’t buy a costume. You need to
> start from
> scratch, and you aren’t allowed to adapt a commercial pattern unless
> the
> competiton rules allow it and that is only done for rank beginners and
> to be
> honest, I’ve only seen it listed once. And at a competition clothing
> is
> secondary, unless the competion rules declare that all dolls must be
> wearing
> clothing. (Big scandal one year when one of the American competitions
> disqualified an accurate reproduction of a Native American
> woman…because
> it did not have underwear!) There have been some very big prize
> winners in
> doll competitions that have been nudes. (Check out “Anatomy of a
> Doll” by
> Susan Oroyon.)
> On the other hand, the competions at CostumeCon emphasis the
> costume
> over the doll. While you can make a doll from scratch and enter it, a
> person who goes out, buys a Barbie doll and makes a costume to fit the
> doll;
> adapting doll patterns; has an equal chance of winning.

I don’t know if this is reflected in the rules, but doll contest awards
are often segregated by “scratch-made doll” and “costumed commercial
doll” awards.

They aren’t necessarily judged, though, by doll specialists.

Both are things for future committees and the RunACC group to consider

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
hand
Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

Andrew Trembley wrote:

>
> I don’t know if this is reflected in the rules, but doll contest awards
> are often segregated by “scratch-made doll” and “costumed commercial
> doll” awards.
>

If it’s a scratch-made doll, then it’s judged there. Does it get fewer
points because it doesn’t have clothes? Possibly, but not necessarily,
depending on the quality of the construction. Are clothes required? I
wouldn’t think so.

Karen

At 06:05 PM 9/24/2003, you wrote:

>I don’t know if this is reflected in the rules, but doll contest awards
>are often segregated by “scratch-made doll” and “costumed commercial
>doll” awards.
>
>They aren’t necessarily judged, though, by doll specialists.
>
>Both are things for future committees and the RunACC group to consider

While Alix’s comments are undoubtedly accurate, I don’t think we should
promote changing the basic form of our doll competitions. All competitions
at Costume-Cons, regardless of their form or other emphasis, should be
solidly biased to the costume. That is the purpose of the convention and I
don’t think we should bow to the Doll Associations any more than school
theater competitions should bow to our emphases when being judged.

Pierre

>–
>andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
>San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
>(Kevin’s)
> “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
>
>2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
>hand
>Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed To Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly–
Why They Are Simply Doomed.”

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

Pierre, I agree completely.

Costume-Con should be more about what the doll is wearing than about the
doll (or stuffed animal) itself.

Betsy, can you scan through the ConStitution and make sure any references
to “doll competition” read “doll _costume_ competition” so we can further
clarify this?

Thanks,

–Karen

At 03:50 PM 9/25/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>At 06:05 PM 9/24/2003, you wrote:
>
>
> >I don’t know if this is reflected in the rules, but doll contest awards
> >are often segregated by “scratch-made doll” and “costumed commercial
> >doll” awards.
> >
> >They aren’t necessarily judged, though, by doll specialists.
> >
> >Both are things for future committees and the RunACC group to consider
>
>
>While Alix’s comments are undoubtedly accurate, I don’t think we should
>promote changing the basic form of our doll competitions. All competitions
>at Costume-Cons, regardless of their form or other emphasis, should be
>solidly biased to the costume. That is the purpose of the convention and I
>don’t think we should bow to the Doll Associations any more than school
>theater competitions should bow to our emphases when being judged.
>
>Pierre
>
>
> >–
> >andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> >San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> >(Kevin’s)
> > “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> > –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
> >
> >2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
> >hand
> >Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet
>
>”Those Who Fail To Learn History
>Are Doomed To Repeat It;
>Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly–
>Why They Are Simply Doomed.”
>
>Achemdro’hm
>”The Illusion of Historical Fact”
>– C.Y. 4971
>
>Andromeda
>
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Will do!

And it seems to me that the rules posting should probably be the next
big project after I get the photos done.

I am really serious when I say that I could use the help in processing
the information for posting. With three months to go before delivery,
and a TON of stuff going on here, I’m finding that my time is becoming
more and more limited for working on the site and the big projects. The
fall is generally my worst time, schedule-wise: Three birthdays, two
major holidays, and last minute wrap up of work stuff before December
are all contributing to the situation. And I am presently scheduled to
deliver January 2 – subject to continued good progress in the pregnancy,
of course!

I’d be more than happy to see other people on this list volunteer to
take over particular projects – Management of the Run a CC doc comes
instantly to mind. Just because it’s on the web site I manage doesn’t
mean that I feel it’s absolutely necessary for me to personally manage
the entire process!

I’ve posted what we have so far, and have received virtually no feedback
whatsoever to any of the stuff I’ve posted. I know WorldCon interfered
with schedules and free time, but I’m not sure where we’re going if I
don’t hear back from people who’ve promised to do work.

Hint…

Betsy

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> Pierre, I agree completely.
>
> Costume-Con should be more about what the doll is wearing than about
> the
> doll (or stuffed animal) itself.
>
> Betsy, can you scan through the ConStitution and make sure any
> references
> to “doll competition” read “doll _costume_ competition” so we can
> further
> clarify this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> –Karen
>
> At 03:50 PM 9/25/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >At 06:05 PM 9/24/2003, you wrote:
> >
> >
> > >I don’t know if this is reflected in the rules, but doll contest
> awards
> > >are often segregated by “scratch-made doll” and “costumed
> commercial
> > >doll” awards.
> > >
> > >They aren’t necessarily judged, though, by doll specialists.
> > >
> > >Both are things for future committees and the RunACC group to
> consider
> >
> >
> >While Alix’s comments are undoubtedly accurate, I don’t think we
> should
> >promote changing the basic form of our doll competitions. All
> competitions
> >at Costume-Cons, regardless of their form or other emphasis, should
> be
> >solidly biased to the costume. That is the purpose of the convention
> and I
> >don’t think we should bow to the Doll Associations any more than
> school
> >theater competitions should bow to our emphases when being judged.
> >
> >Pierre
> >
> >
> > >–
> > >andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> > >San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> > >(Kevin’s)
> > > “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> > > –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
> > >
> > >2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my
> right
> > >hand
> > >Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet
> >
> >”Those Who Fail To Learn History
> >Are Doomed To Repeat It;
> >Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly–
> >Why They Are Simply Doomed.”
> >
> >Achemdro’hm
> >”The Illusion of Historical Fact”
> >– C.Y. 4971
> >
> >Andromeda
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> >
> >To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> >runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ADVERTISEMENT
> [click here]
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

Hi, Karen!

Ok, here’s the deal:

[snip]

1.4 Conference Activities

Each Costume-Con conference is required to have the following program
items: (a) at
least one (1) staged costume competition of some sort; (b) at least ten
(10)
instructional/educational presentations of some sort (which can take the
form of
lectures, panel discussions, seminars, hands-on workshops, etc.); (c)
Site Selection
voting for a future Costume-Con conference (see Article 2); and (d) at
least two hours
and a meeting area provided for the Annual Meeting of the International
Costumers’
Guild (as dictated by their By-laws).

Traditional conference activities include: (a) a Social (party) on the
first night of the
conference; (b) a Science-Fiction/Fantasy costume competition; (c) a
Historical
costume competition; (d) a Fashion Design contest (held before the
conference); and
(e) a Fashion Show featuring some of the winning designs from the
Fashion Design
contest.

[snip]

This is the *only* mention that there are competitions at Costume-Con at
all. The Doll Competition/Contest is not addressed. We could:

a. leave this section as is, and leave it up to the committees to
determine what their competitions should be
b. provide a list of “Other/Additional/Alternative Conference
Activities” (competitions held in the past as a suggestion of additional
activities)
c. add the Doll Costume Competition to the second paragraph as (f),
since it has become a tradition. (I don’t think we’ve missed it more
than a year or two since Animal started them (at CC5?))

I’m easy either way, but as soon as we make the decision to amend the
ConStitution, I want to post the change to the list so that we don’t
have any more discussion on that particular topic. Alix is WAAAAYYY too
rabid on the subject.

I’ll be gone all weekend – just trying to tie up some loose ends before
I leave – so I can take care of whatever changes are necessary on
Monday.

Thanks!!!

Betsy

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> Betsy, can you scan through the ConStitution and make sure any references
> to “doll competition” read “doll _costume_ competition” so we can further
> clarify this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> –Karen

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

Any of your suggestions work from my point of view but I kind of like the
inclusiveness of suggestion b:

> b. provide a list of “Other/Additional/Alternative Conference
> Activities” (competitions held in the past as a suggestion of additional
> activities)

It could serve as a guide of what is possible within the CC framework while
demonstrating its flexibility.

Nora

My first thought is (a). My second thought is (b).

The Doll Costume Competition has never been mandatory at CC, so if it’s not
mentioned in the ConStitution, it shouldn’t be. I thought, if anything, it
might be mentioned as an example of other sorts of possible competitions.

The Single Pattern Competition has taken place at a lot of CC’s, but it
isn’t mandatory, either.

I really want to leave individual committees room to maneuver once they
have covered the Big Four (Social, F&S/F, Historical, Fashion Show) events
at the con. Some committees may not have the time/space/energy/personnel to
deal with a doll costume competition, or they may want to try some other
sort of competition that has not been tried before (such as Iron Costumer).

I just wanted the language about the Doll Costume Competition cleaned up if
it was mentioned by name anywhere in the ConStitution. I guess that isn’t
necessary if it isn’t mentioned, although current and future CC committees
should strongly consider referring to it as the “Doll COSTUME Competition.”

I agree that Alix is out of hand on the ICG list. I tried shutting her up
with the message about “CC is about the costumes, not the dolls,” but she
seems to have tuned that right out. Gak.

–Karen

At 07:11 AM 9/27/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>Hi, Karen!
>
>Ok, here’s the deal:
>
>[snip]
>
>1.4 Conference Activities
>
>Each Costume-Con conference is required to have the following program
>items: (a) at
>least one (1) staged costume competition of some sort; (b) at least ten
>(10)
>instructional/educational presentations of some sort (which can take the
>form of
>lectures, panel discussions, seminars, hands-on workshops, etc.); (c)
>Site Selection
>voting for a future Costume-Con conference (see Article 2); and (d) at
>least two hours
>and a meeting area provided for the Annual Meeting of the International
>Costumers’
>Guild (as dictated by their By-laws).
>
>Traditional conference activities include: (a) a Social (party) on the
>first night of the
>conference; (b) a Science-Fiction/Fantasy costume competition; (c) a
>Historical
>costume competition; (d) a Fashion Design contest (held before the
>conference); and
>(e) a Fashion Show featuring some of the winning designs from the
>Fashion Design
>contest.
>
>[snip]
>
>This is the *only* mention that there are competitions at Costume-Con at
>all. The Doll Competition/Contest is not addressed. We could:
>
> a. leave this section as is, and leave it up to the committees to
>determine what their competitions should be
> b. provide a list of “Other/Additional/Alternative Conference
>Activities” (competitions held in the past as a suggestion of additional
>activities)
> c. add the Doll Costume Competition to the second paragraph as (f),
>since it has become a tradition. (I don’t think we’ve missed it more
>than a year or two since Animal started them (at CC5?))
>
>I’m easy either way, but as soon as we make the decision to amend the
>ConStitution, I want to post the change to the list so that we don’t
>have any more discussion on that particular topic. Alix is WAAAAYYY too
>rabid on the subject.
>
>I’ll be gone all weekend – just trying to tie up some loose ends before
>I leave – so I can take care of whatever changes are necessary on
>Monday.
>
>Thanks!!!
>
>Betsy
>
>Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:
> >
> > Betsy, can you scan through the ConStitution and make sure any references
> > to “doll competition” read “doll _costume_ competition” so we can further
> > clarify this?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > –Karen
>
>–
>Betsy R. Delaney
>Web Mistress at large
>
>************************************************************************
> http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
> http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
> http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
>************************************************************************
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

I’m starting to lean toward (b) myself. Anybody else care to give an opinion?

As long as it’s a list of possible activities and none of them are
mandatory, I’m OK with it.

–Karen

At 07:40 AM 9/27/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>Any of your suggestions work from my point of view but I kind of like the
>inclusiveness of suggestion b:
> > b. provide a list of “Other/Additional/Alternative Conference
> > Activities” (competitions held in the past as a suggestion of additional
> > activities)
>It could serve as a guide of what is possible within the CC framework while
>demonstrating its flexibility.
>
>Nora
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

I vote for (b) for what it is worth, with the wording, “Doll Costume
Competition”.

Marty

>
>

‘k, I went back to Betsy’s outline document from back in may:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/message/100

Thoughts & Opinions?

—–
Costume-Con is an artistic endeavour.

Costume-Con is a business endeavour.

Both are true. To be a successful artistic endeavour for its members,
Costume-Con must be a smooth-running business operation behind the scenes.

That’s why this handbook exists. Our goal is to provide conference
committees with advice, resources, checklists and timelines to better
organize, bid and run a Costume-Con.

The handbook is organized in three major sections.

Section 1 is an introduction to Costume-Con; a review of the official
operating documents and obligations that a conference committee must meet.

Section 2 looks at the organization of the conference, both from the
perspective of the events that happen and the jobs and people required
to make those events happen.

Section 3 is a very rough timeline. It breaks out conference planning
into the following phases:
I. Preparing to bid
II. Bidding
III. Frome vote to conference…
IV. Conference Operations (at-con)
V. Closing (post-con)
…and lists which responsibilities fall due during those times.

So this has nothing to do with TorCon reviews.

Something interesting came out of the business meeting.

The business meeting voted to change their voting cycle from 3 years to
2 years. This will not take effect unless the ammendment is ratified at
Noreascon 4.

andy

This is Karen’s call, but I don’t see a need to add to the required activities and thereby constrain a concom, which might not have a viable doll costume competition one year. In comparison, the WSFS constitution requires only that the concom host the business meeting and award the Hugos. All other activities are at the concom’s discretion.

Leave it the way it is, for now, if my advice.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 7:11 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Re: [ICG-D] Doll competition

Hi, Karen!

Ok, here’s the deal:

[snip]

1.4 Conference Activities

Each Costume-Con conference is required to have the following program
items: (a) at
least one (1) staged costume competition of some sort; (b) at least ten
(10)
instructional/educational presentations of some sort (which can take the
form of
lectures, panel discussions, seminars, hands-on workshops, etc.); (c)
Site Selection
voting for a future Costume-Con conference (see Article 2); and (d) at
least two hours
and a meeting area provided for the Annual Meeting of the International
Costumers’
Guild (as dictated by their By-laws).

Traditional conference activities include: (a) a Social (party) on the
first night of the
conference; (b) a Science-Fiction/Fantasy costume competition; (c) a
Historical
costume competition; (d) a Fashion Design contest (held before the
conference); and
(e) a Fashion Show featuring some of the winning designs from the
Fashion Design
contest.

[snip]

This is the *only* mention that there are competitions at Costume-Con at
all. The Doll Competition/Contest is not addressed. We could:

a. leave this section as is, and leave it up to the committees to
determine what their competitions should be
b. provide a list of “Other/Additional/Alternative Conference
Activities” (competitions held in the past as a suggestion of additional
activities)
c. add the Doll Costume Competition to the second paragraph as (f),
since it has become a tradition. (I don’t think we’ve missed it more
than a year or two since Animal started them (at CC5?))

I’m easy either way, but as soon as we make the decision to amend the
ConStitution, I want to post the change to the list so that we don’t
have any more discussion on that particular topic. Alix is WAAAAYYY too
rabid on the subject.

I’ll be gone all weekend – just trying to tie up some loose ends before
I leave – so I can take care of whatever changes are necessary on
Monday.

Thanks!!!

Betsy

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:
>
> Betsy, can you scan through the ConStitution and make sure any references
> to “doll competition” read “doll _costume_ competition” so we can further
> clarify this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> –Karen

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Andy —

Nice intro.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 2:05 PM
Subject: [runacc] A stab at the introduction…

‘k, I went back to Betsy’s outline document from back in may:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/message/100

Thoughts & Opinions?

—–
Costume-Con is an artistic endeavour.

Costume-Con is a business endeavour.

Both are true. To be a successful artistic endeavour for its members,
Costume-Con must be a smooth-running business operation behind the scenes.

That’s why this handbook exists. Our goal is to provide conference
committees with advice, resources, checklists and timelines to better
organize, bid and run a Costume-Con.

The handbook is organized in three major sections.

Section 1 is an introduction to Costume-Con; a review of the official
operating documents and obligations that a conference committee must meet.

Section 2 looks at the organization of the conference, both from the
perspective of the events that happen and the jobs and people required
to make those events happen.

Section 3 is a very rough timeline. It breaks out conference planning
into the following phases:
I. Preparing to bid
II. Bidding
III. Frome vote to conference…
IV. Conference Operations (at-con)
V. Closing (post-con)
…and lists which responsibilities fall due during those times.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I agree.

Tina

—– Original Message —–
From: Byron Connell
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] A stab at the introduction…

Andy —

Nice intro.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 2:05 PM
Subject: [runacc] A stab at the introduction…

‘k, I went back to Betsy’s outline document from back in may:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/message/100

Thoughts & Opinions?

—–
Costume-Con is an artistic endeavour.

Costume-Con is a business endeavour.

Both are true. To be a successful artistic endeavour for its members,
Costume-Con must be a smooth-running business operation behind the scenes.

That’s why this handbook exists. Our goal is to provide conference
committees with advice, resources, checklists and timelines to better
organize, bid and run a Costume-Con.

The handbook is organized in three major sections.

Section 1 is an introduction to Costume-Con; a review of the official
operating documents and obligations that a conference committee must meet.

Section 2 looks at the organization of the conference, both from the
perspective of the events that happen and the jobs and people required
to make those events happen.

Section 3 is a very rough timeline. It breaks out conference planning
into the following phases:
I. Preparing to bid
II. Bidding
III. Frome vote to conference…
IV. Conference Operations (at-con)
V. Closing (post-con)
…and lists which responsibilities fall due during those times.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 11:26 AM 9/27/2003, you wrote:

>I vote for (b) for what it is worth, with the wording, “Doll Costume
>Competition”.
>
>Marty

I also would vote for (b). A listing of possible activities, none of which
are required, seems to me to be a good guideline for future committees.
We’ve been experimenting with different activities, displays and
competitions throughout the history of C-C. Such a list can spark the
creativity of a committee while re-inforcing the Costume-centric nature of
C-C’s

Pierre

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed To Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly–
Why They Are Simply Doomed.”

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

In a message dated 09/27/2003 12:37:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
MartinGear@comcast.net writes:

> I vote for (b) for what it is worth, with the wording, “Doll Costume
> Competition”.
>
> Marty

Guidelines/checkoff-lists are good references.
What the ICG constitution doesn’t mandate, we could amend to show
CostumeCon activities that may also be included. (did you know the WSFS constitution
also only mandates site selection and Hugo awards at Worldcons – everything
else is just gravy)
As for the doll contest, I vote for (b), with the wording “doll costumer
competition”, because WE are costumers.

Joni Dashoff

In a message dated 09/27/2003 4:34:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
attrembl@bovil.com writes:

> The business meeting voted to change their voting cycle from 3 years to
> 2 years. This will not take effect unless the amendment is ratified at
> Noreascon 4.
>

Proposed amendments to the WSFS constitution have been know to fail at
the second, ratification vote.
Serious opposers will ensure they are present at that meeting, because
they will know not to be scheduled elsewhere.
I would have had to give up my only program item at Torcon (costuming
with your child) to attend Saturday’s WSFS meeting; I won’t allow this to happen
to me next year.
Joni Dashoff

At 12:14 AM 9/29/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>In a message dated 09/27/2003 4:34:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>attrembl@bovil.com writes:
>
> > The business meeting voted to change their voting cycle from 3 years to
> > 2 years. This will not take effect unless the amendment is ratified at
> > Noreascon 4.
> >

Andy, was a reason given why Worldcon wants to change to a shorter cycle?

At the time they went to 3 years, it was because Worldcon had gotten so
huge that it took more time, logistics, etc. to get a committee together
and prepare all the necessary stuff.

I am also wondering how this affects CC. Bruce and Nora just submitted a
bid for CC-25 where they could not 100% lock in a venue or date because
they could not get a commitment this far out from either of their potential
hotels. So maybe we should reconsider a 2-year cycle as well.

Discussion, anyone?

–Karen

Sounds like almost everybody likes (b): a listing of possible activities,
none of which
are required.

I like having an example there so “newbie” committees have something to
look at.

Perhaps we’d also better emphasize that each CC has only done 2 or 3
additional items from the list (lest some overly ambitious committee try to
do them ALL).

Maybe there could be some kind of “tally” next to each item as to how many
CC’s have had that event? (Doll Costume Contest and Single Pattern Contest
would probably have pretty high rankings.)

How good are the records? Do we actually *know* what additional contests
were run at which CC so this kind of information can be compiled?

–Karen

Karen –

I know that when we obtained our hotel contract the rep was very
enthusiastic, very excited. Since then we’ve changed reps three times and I
am about to go and explain once again who we are and what we’re doing. I
don’t know if shortening the time would eliminate some of that or not. I do
know that some of the other SF and Anime conventions in town who haven’t
locked in their hotels to a long-term contract are having to shop around on
a yearly basis for space.

Hotels may also be holding out in hopes of an improvement in the economy,
since they are having to offer fire sale rates right now, which is actually
not a bad thing for the groups who are booking for this year. Tourism is
way down and a lot of the chains are really feeling the pinch. They may not
even be confident that they will be open three years from now.

I don’t know if you would want to change the lead time just yet. You might
want to amend the rules to specificaly allow for “date and hotel to be
announced later”.

Trudy

>From: Ricky & Karen Dick <castleb@pulsenet.com>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [runacc] worldcon fallout…
>Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 09:29:07 -0400
>
>At 12:14 AM 9/29/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> >In a message dated 09/27/2003 4:34:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> >attrembl@bovil.com writes:
> >
> > > The business meeting voted to change their voting cycle from 3 years
>to
> > > 2 years. This will not take effect unless the amendment is ratified
>at
> > > Noreascon 4.
> > >
>
>Andy, was a reason given why Worldcon wants to change to a shorter cycle?
>
>At the time they went to 3 years, it was because Worldcon had gotten so
>huge that it took more time, logistics, etc. to get a committee together
>and prepare all the necessary stuff.
>
>I am also wondering how this affects CC. Bruce and Nora just submitted a
>bid for CC-25 where they could not 100% lock in a venue or date because
>they could not get a commitment this far out from either of their potential
>hotels. So maybe we should reconsider a 2-year cycle as well.
>
>Discussion, anyone?
>
>–Karen
>

_________________________________________________________________
Instant message with integrated webcam using MSN Messenger 6.0. Try it now
FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com

According to Elspeth Kovar who was at the business meeting, the feeling
was that by having a three year lead the committees were burning out, so
to save the committees stress they want to change it to a two year
lead. IMHO this is a play by some of the SMOFs to insure that WorldCons
go only to second or third tier cities. I don’t know of any of the even
second tier cities that could accept a two year lead. BucCONeer had to
change off of Labor Day weekend because we couldn’t put up a $10K
deposit 42 months out. I hope that Joni is correct and that this gets
killed next year, but as usual there is a group within smofdom that
wants the WorldCon to be run for their convenience and screw the attendees.

Marty

>
>

I’m thinking I’m in favor of “B” myself – I just wanted to give all the
possible options, considering the existing language.

Not so sure about the tally – I think that may be a pain to manage over
time (one more thing to remember to update annually…).

OTOH, I can (or should be able to) glean from the PRs and other
paperwork in my possession what competitions took place at each CC. I
think I may have most of them posted already under each CC summary page,
but I can go back and doublecheck the contents of each PR/Program Book
to be sure. (I think I have all of them, now, with a very few possible
exceptions.)

Dolls started earlier by at least four years (I think) than the SP. And
the single item (Codpiece, Bra, etc) started after that, and then sort
of petered out afterwards.

I’ll see what I can do to compile the list for doublechecking here this
week.

Thanks!

Betsy

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> Sounds like almost everybody likes (b): a listing of possible
> activities,
> none of which
> are required.
>
> I like having an example there so “newbie” committees have something
> to
> look at.
>
> Perhaps we’d also better emphasize that each CC has only done 2 or 3
> additional items from the list (lest some overly ambitious committee
> try to
> do them ALL).
>
> Maybe there could be some kind of “tally” next to each item as to how
> many
> CC’s have had that event? (Doll Costume Contest and Single Pattern
> Contest
> would probably have pretty high rankings.)
>
> How good are the records? Do we actually *know* what additional
> contests
> were run at which CC so this kind of information can be compiled?
>
> –Karen

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

Thanks, Andy!

Here’s my original version:

http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/intro.shtml

I think adding Andy’s language to clarify the structure of the doc is a
Very Good Idea, TM.

Here’s my suggestion: Throw out everything I wrote (since Andy says it
better than I do).

Then add after his outline (at the bottom):

This publication draws heavily on several sources, including a reading
committee (listed
in Acknowledgements), the WorldCon Runner’s Guide, the Kennedy
Masquerade
Compendium, and documentation available from previous Costume-Cons,
including
Costume-Cons Fifteen and 16.

We expect that we will leave something out. It is nearly impossible to
cover all bases, but with the help of future con committees, we hope to
fill the holes as this publication evolves.

If you have any questions concerning the contents of this publication,
please contact the
editorial team.

Thanks, and have a successful Costume-Con!

Betsy Delaney
Managing Editor

Andrew T Trembley wrote:

>
> ‘k, I went back to Betsy’s outline document from back in may:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/message/100
>
> Thoughts & Opinions?
>
> —–
> Costume-Con is an artistic endeavour.
>
> Costume-Con is a business endeavour.
>
> Both are true. To be a successful artistic endeavour for its members,
> Costume-Con must be a smooth-running business operation behind the
> scenes.
>
> That’s why this handbook exists. Our goal is to provide conference
> committees with advice, resources, checklists and timelines to better
> organize, bid and run a Costume-Con.
>
> The handbook is organized in three major sections.
>
> Section 1 is an introduction to Costume-Con; a review of the official
> operating documents and obligations that a conference committee must
> meet.
>
> Section 2 looks at the organization of the conference, both from the
> perspective of the events that happen and the jobs and people required
>
> to make those events happen.
>
> Section 3 is a very rough timeline. It breaks out conference planning
> into the following phases:
> I. Preparing to bid
> II. Bidding
> III. Frome vote to conference…
> IV. Conference Operations (at-con)
> V. Closing (post-con)
> …and lists which responsibilities fall due during those times.

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 06:29 AM, Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

> At 12:14 AM 9/29/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>> In a message dated 09/27/2003 4:34:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>> attrembl@bovil.com writes:
>>
>>> The business meeting voted to change their voting cycle from 3 years
>>> to
>>> 2 years. This will not take effect unless the amendment is ratified
>>> at
>>> Noreascon 4.
>>>
>
> Andy, was a reason given why Worldcon wants to change to a shorter
> cycle?

Neither the WSFS Business Meeting minutes nor any position papers have
been posted anywhere that I know of, so I’m going off of what I heard
from folks who were there…

Marty has the “official position” of the folks promoting the amendment
correct: the length of the bid/plan/produce process is putting a lot of
strain on the people bidding and winning site selection. A shorter site
selection cycle would result in a shorter time commitment, less stress,
and more cohesive committees.

I’m not sure I entirely agree with this argument, but I see (looking at
our CC schedule, and the way recent CCs have run) an issue with
maintaining momentum on a committee for 6-8 years. There’s definitely
an excitement cycle that surrounds a bid; high at kick-off, fading
until submission deadlines are near, high at site selection, fading
until convention deadlines come due, and possibly partial-burn-out by
the time the con happens.

I’m also not sure that I agree with the “evil smof” argument against
the amendment. While I’m certain there are backers of this change who
think it will result in smaller, easier-to-run WorldCons in smaller
cities, I think they’re going to be sorely disappointed (at least in
that it will result in WorldCon naturally scaling back or becoming
easier to run because of that).

There are people I know and trust who support the amendment, but do not
support changing the complexion of WorldCon.

I definitely agree that the impact on facilities negotiation is a big
deal, and must be more closely examined.

The 3-year vote cycle was also interestingly related to the 3-zone
cycle; since WorldCon is now in no-zone bidding that opens up a lot of
new possibilities. There is an argument against the amendment that more
time is needed to let no-zone bidding shake out before other changes to
the voting cycle is changed.

> I am also wondering how this affects CC. Bruce and Nora just submitted
> a
> bid for CC-25 where they could not 100% lock in a venue or date because
> they could not get a commitment this far out from either of their
> potential
> hotels. So maybe we should reconsider a 2-year cycle as well.

Well, this doesn’t directly affect CC in any way.

From a facilities standpoint (one of the arguments), WorldCon does
share our need for a very large amount of function space relative to
the number of hotel guests/convention members, but it’s also an
entirely different animal because it’s an order of magnitude larger.
We’re not negotiating multiple hotels and municipal convention centers.

I believe CC could operate on a 2-year cycle; WesterCon does
successfully and it’s a much larger convention. I’m not going to
suggest, though, that we change our cycle. Right now we’ve got to work
on building better momentum with the attendees, and I think active bid
committees for different bids and conventions around the country can
help do that in their regions. With a longer bid/vote cycle, we’re more
likely to have more groups spread further across the continent actively
promoting their bid/conference and Costume-Con in general. I do think
that committees need to work, though, to maintain their own momentum;
it’s no good if momentum builds with the attendees but the committees
end up crashing.

Since our Constitution is based at least in part on the WSFS
constitution, it behooves us to watch what’s happening in WSFS, at
least with regards to how it regulates WorldCon. If people are asking
questions or proposing changes there, it’s something we can learn from.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/

On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 08:27 AM, Betsy Delaney wrote:

> Thanks, Andy!
>
> Here’s my original version:
>
> http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/intro.shtml
>
> I think adding Andy’s language to clarify the structure of the doc is a
> Very Good Idea, TM.
>
> Here’s my suggestion: Throw out everything I wrote (since Andy says it
> better than I do).
>
> Then add after his outline (at the bottom):
>
> This publication draws heavily on several sources, including a reading
> committee (listed
> in Acknowledgements), the WorldCon Runner’s Guide, the Kennedy
> Masquerade
> Compendium, and documentation available from previous Costume-Cons,
> including
> Costume-Cons Fifteen and 16.
>
> We expect that we will leave something out. It is nearly impossible to
> cover all bases, but with the help of future con committees, we hope to
> fill the holes as this publication evolves.
>
> If you have any questions concerning the contents of this publication,
> please contact the
> editorial team.
>
> Thanks, and have a successful Costume-Con!

I lost track of your original docs on costume.org. I think this wraps
up the introduction quite nicely.

—
Andy Trembley, Bull-in-Drag
The Bovine Illuminati (It’s the Cows, Inc.)
http://www.bovil.com/
Moo!

I attended the business meeting this year. A number of people, in
discussing the history of the lead time, stated that the move from two
years to three years was done because people believed it would help
worldcon secure facilities that would otherwise be rented.

The problem is that there isn’t any evidence, after 15+ years, that this
is true. The big conventions make their decisions more than three years
out, often much more. As Marty pointed out, Bucconeer lost its original
date 42 months before labor day 1998. That’s 3 1/2 years. To have saved
that date worldcon would have to move to a 4 year cycle. Worldcon can’t
compete against organizations that can put up the hard cash 4-8 years out.

I don’t think that the change will have much of an effect on the cities
that bid for worldcons. I think it may have a continuing effect on the
date of worldcon, as it did for Bucconeer. In the big cities worldcons do
not take the entire convention center. In Baltimore we had half. In
Boston N4 is renting 2/3 of the Hynes. Worldcon will get those off
weekends where there isn’t a major convention taking the whole space.
This has its positive and negative implications. A lot of fans with
children (or who are teachers) want worldcon to be earlier in August. A
lot of fans prefer worldcon to be over a holiday weekend (Labor Day).

I think the change will have a positive effect on committees. It doesn’t
take three years to put on a worldcon. It takes a year of work (in the
last year), preceded by a year of planning and recruitment. Most
committees I’ve been involved with have done precious little useful work
in the first year after the bid was won other than bicker and fracture.

-Marc

<edmond@radix.net>
After ecstasy, the laundry. — Zen koan

Sec 1 should be easy, and relatively short…

A. A brief history
Costume-Con was born out of the vision of Adrienne Martinez (Adrienne
Martine-Barnes), and first realized in 1983 by Karen Dick, Kelly Turner
and a crew of amateur and professional science fiction and historical
costumers in southern California. It began as (and still is) a
costume-centered weekend of competitions, classes, panel discussions
and social events. At Costume-Con 3 (1985) in Columbia, Maryland, the
International Costumers’ Guild was founded, bringing together costume
organizations from around the world; Costume-Con and the ICG have
enjoyed a symbiotic relationship ever since.

In the last two decades, Costume-Con has grown and adapted to the needs
and interests of its members. Committees have introduced new seminars,
social activities and competitions. Some have failed, some have
succeeded and a few have developed into new “traditional” activities.

For a detailed history of Costume-Con, please see the timeline at
http://www.costume-con.org/CClink/index.shtml.

B. The process in a nutshell…
If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in putting together
a Costume-Con. Costume-Con is not operated year-to-year by the same
organization and staff. It is overseen by Karen Dick and Kelly Turner,
the holders of the “Costume-Con” trademark, but each year planning and
operations are the responsibility of a conference committee.

Putting together a Costume-Con is a multi-year process, so there are
always at least 3 seated conference committees active, and often
several “bid committees” exploring the possibility of running a
Costume-Con or actively campaigning to be selected to run a Costume-Con.

A conference committee starts, as mentioned above, with bidding. During
the bid phase, the conference committee develops its business
structure, obtains hotel/facilities agreements, and campaigns to get
people to attend or support the costume-con where their bid is voted
upon. This is at minimum a 6-month process (the deadline to be placed
on the ballot is 6 months before the vote) but is often done over a
period of 1-2 years.

After a conference committee has won their bid, they’re described as a
“seated conference committee” and have approximately 3 years to
complete the planning for their conference. During this time, the
marketing and promotion of the conference continues.

All of this culminates in the actual conference: panel discussions,
seminars, social events and competitions. It’s not over, though, when
the conference is done. It often takes a few weeks (sometimes a few
months) to wind up final business after the conference.

All in all, that’s 4-6 years from start to finish. A long time, yes,
but enough time to spread the workload out if you and your committee
pace things carefully.

C. The ConStitution
<When was the constitution originally drafted? Insert capsule history
here.>

Minimum performance standards and responsibilities are laid out in the
ConStitution. Note that carefully: Minimum performance standards and
responsibilities. The ConStitution isn’t a recipe for how to run a
Costume-Con.

As a conference committee member, you should be intimately familiar
with the contents of the ConStitution, and what it requires of you.
Conversely, when somebody tells you something is required, you should
review the ConStitution for yourself and determine whether that is
still true or not.

The ConStitution is a living document and is amended on a regular
basis. For the convenience and sanity of conference committees,
revisions will generally be made in the 60 days immediately following
the annual conference and not made in the 6 months leading up to the
next conference. Still, it is best to review the Constitution on a
regular basis.

If you have any questions about expectations or responsibilities of
your committee, ask them.

For more information, including contact information, see the
ConStitution at
http://www.costume-con.org/procedure/ccconstitution.shtml

D. The ICG Masquerade Guidelines
Several years ago, Costume-Con agreed to operate its costume
competitions in accordance with the ICG Masquerade Guidelines.

As the name says, these are guidelines. Their purpose is to help
competition directors write their rules and operate their competitions
in a manner that is fair and impartial. While they’re framed for
competition masquerades, there are aspects of the guidelines which may
be applicable to other competitions. Committee chairpersons and
competition directors should review the guidelines on a regular basis.

If you are uncertain about how to interpret any part of the guidelines,
the best course of action is to talk with past competition directors
and ask them how they interpreted the guidelines in the past, and how
their interpretations worked for them.

For more information, see the ICG Masquerade Guidelines at
http://www.costume.org/documents/guidelines.html

I do not agree. The ConStitution is the framework under which CCs are run. As such, I believe that it should not include nonmandatory suggestions. A list of possible activities would be appropriate for a CC Runners’ Guide.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Pierre & Sandy Pettinger
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Re: Doll competition

At 11:26 AM 9/27/2003, you wrote:
>I vote for (b) for what it is worth, with the wording, “Doll Costume
>Competition”.
>
>Marty

I also would vote for (b). A listing of possible activities, none of which
are required, seems to me to be a good guideline for future committees.
We’ve been experimenting with different activities, displays and
competitions throughout the history of C-C. Such a list can spark the
creativity of a committee while re-inforcing the Costume-centric nature of
C-C’s

Pierre

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

We have collected a lot of info from our Visitor and Convention Bureau. It’s not all useful, but it does help.
Charles CC-23

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Monday, June 2, 2003, at 07:21 PM, henryosier@cs.com wrote:

> With a little modification, this would be a good thing to hand to the
> hotel
> staff so they know what we are all about.

That may just be a matter of writing up a “hotel info” sheet to include
for sales visits.

andy
—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.irlm.org/ – mailto:webmaster@irlm.org
“Anybody who takes this seriously deserves to”
— Donna Barr

Trust me, taking pictures from past Costume Cons (both S&S-F and
Historical Masquerades) to show to the hotels when you make your visits
can be very educational. Watch for the sales droids reactions and body
language. It can save you from signing with a property that will be
hostile to the convention once it gets there, and possibly point you to
a hotel that will be thrilled to have us.

Marty who’s been there and done that.

Andrew Trembley wrote:

> On Monday, June 2, 2003, at 07:21 PM, henryosier@cs.com wrote:
>
>>With a little modification, this would be a good thing to hand to the
>>hotel
>>staff so they know what we are all about.
>
> That may just be a matter of writing up a “hotel info” sheet to include
> for sales visits.
>
> andy

…or not. Anybody know if any past Costume-Cons have had any problems
meeting their financial obligations to the hotel?

I’ve taken Marty and Henry’s comments to heart and am working on a
“Costume-Con Venue Information Guide” (and looking for a better title).
It’s based on the briefing list in the WorldCon runners’ guide, and one
of the things they suggest emphasizing is the con’s financial history
and creditworthiness in the eyes of hotels.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/

http://www.cc26.info/Posters/Packet.pdf

take a look, give me your comments. This is the “pre-vote” packet.
First page is cover-letter, next two sides are marketing/campaign
report, last two sides are hotel introduction. Doesn’t include photo
portfolio pages.

Once we’ve got a hotel agreement, the marketing/campaign report will be
expanded, and the hotel introduction won’t be as important (and
obviously won’t be sent out to anybody but the hotel we’ve got). Post
vote expect more details on panels and other such things.

I’m running this by my hotel and marketing people too, of course…

andy

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

On Monday, June 2, 2003, at 03:53 PM, Andrew Trembley wrote:

> So what really needs to go into the packet?

1. A cover letter
2. A 2- or 4-side report with more detailed information about the
conference
3. A 2-side report tailored to hotel sales staff
4. A 1-4 page “portfolio” showing examples of masquerade and contest
entries
5. Copies of event fliers relevant to the organization

All can go into a simple pocket folder with the conference name and
logo stickered on to the front.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.bovil.com/
“It’s not pink; it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.” –Manfred Pfirsich
Marie Rommel

Not to my knowledge. The only one I know of that might have come close
to having trouble with paying the hotel was CC7, since I recall there
were a lot of financial issues with the Kennedys’ con. I think that CCs
which came after took the lessons of CC7 to heart and most or all came
out ahead in some way.

CCXV got stung at the end by problems with our hotel’s electric bill,
and so didn’t make as much as we expected to, and we had to pay for
video editing that wasn’t originally budgeted (which came directly out
of the income from the video sales), but we were still able to pass on
somewhere between two and three thousand dollars to future CCs.

-Betsy

Andrew T Trembley wrote:

>
> …or not. Anybody know if any past Costume-Cons have had any problems
>
> meeting their financial obligations to the hotel?
>
> I’ve taken Marty and Henry’s comments to heart and am working on a
> “Costume-Con Venue Information Guide” (and looking for a better
> title).
> It’s based on the briefing list in the WorldCon runners’ guide, and
> one
> of the things they suggest emphasizing is the con’s financial history
> and creditworthiness in the eyes of hotels.
>
> —
> andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> (Kevin’s)
> “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

CC7 paid the hotel in full at the end of the con. The “financial trouble” was a result of Pat and Peggy writing a personal check to the hotel instead of a check on the con’s account! We then had the difficulty of justifying why a not-for-profit organization was paying a sizable sum to them.

No one on the committee knew what they had done until it was too late.

The CC7 treasurer (Tina) was not amused. The mere appearance of self-dealing between a not-for-profit corporation and its officers could lead to audit disallowances, revocation of recognition of tax-exempt status, and both civil and criminal prosecution. Fortunately, that didn’t happen in the case of CC7; the fiscal agent for the con was LASTsfa, the local science fiction club, of which Pat and Peggy were not even members (thank Ghod!). The lesson to be learned is that ALL members of the concom need to exercise self-discipline.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…

Not to my knowledge. The only one I know of that might have come close
to having trouble with paying the hotel was CC7, since I recall there
were a lot of financial issues with the Kennedys’ con. I think that CCs
which came after took the lessons of CC7 to heart and most or all came
out ahead in some way.

CCXV got stung at the end by problems with our hotel’s electric bill,
and so didn’t make as much as we expected to, and we had to pay for
video editing that wasn’t originally budgeted (which came directly out
of the income from the video sales), but we were still able to pass on
somewhere between two and three thousand dollars to future CCs.

-Betsy

Andrew T Trembley wrote:
>
> …or not. Anybody know if any past Costume-Cons have had any problems
>
> meeting their financial obligations to the hotel?
>
> I’ve taken Marty and Henry’s comments to heart and am working on a
> “Costume-Con Venue Information Guide” (and looking for a better
> title).
> It’s based on the briefing list in the WorldCon runners’ guide, and
> one
> of the things they suggest emphasizing is the con’s financial history
> and creditworthiness in the eyes of hotels.
>
> —
> andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> (Kevin’s)
> “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Did CC17 have problems? I thought I remembered Rob Himmelsbach saying
something about financial problems with the hotel, but perhaps they got
settled out OK at the end.

Trudy

>From: “Byron Connell” <bconnel1@nycap.rr.com>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…
>Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 21:20:25 -0400
>
>CC7 paid the hotel in full at the end of the con. The “financial trouble”
>was a result of Pat and Peggy writing a personal check to the hotel instead
>of a check on the con’s account! We then had the difficulty of justifying
>why a not-for-profit organization was paying a sizable sum to them.
>
>No one on the committee knew what they had done until it was too late.
>
>The CC7 treasurer (Tina) was not amused. The mere appearance of
>self-dealing between a not-for-profit corporation and its officers could
>lead to audit disallowances, revocation of recognition of tax-exempt
>status, and both civil and criminal prosecution. Fortunately, that didn’t
>happen in the case of CC7; the fiscal agent for the con was LASTsfa, the
>local science fiction club, of which Pat and Peggy were not even members
>(thank Ghod!). The lesson to be learned is that ALL members of the concom
>need to exercise self-discipline.
>
>Byron
>
>
>—– Original Message —–
> From: Betsy Delaney
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 8:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…
>
>
> Not to my knowledge. The only one I know of that might have come close
> to having trouble with paying the hotel was CC7, since I recall there
> were a lot of financial issues with the Kennedys’ con. I think that CCs
> which came after took the lessons of CC7 to heart and most or all came
> out ahead in some way.
>
> CCXV got stung at the end by problems with our hotel’s electric bill,
> and so didn’t make as much as we expected to, and we had to pay for
> video editing that wasn’t originally budgeted (which came directly out
> of the income from the video sales), but we were still able to pass on
> somewhere between two and three thousand dollars to future CCs.
>
> -Betsy
>
> Andrew T Trembley wrote:
> >
> > …or not. Anybody know if any past Costume-Cons have had any problems
> >
> > meeting their financial obligations to the hotel?
> >
> > I’ve taken Marty and Henry’s comments to heart and am working on a
> > “Costume-Con Venue Information Guide” (and looking for a better
> > title).
> > It’s based on the briefing list in the WorldCon runners’ guide, and
> > one
> > of the things they suggest emphasizing is the con’s financial history
> > and creditworthiness in the eyes of hotels.
> >
> > —
> > andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> > San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> > (Kevin’s)
> > “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> > –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
>
>
> —
> Betsy R. Delaney
> Costume-Con Archivist
> Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

_________________________________________________________________
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http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

Byron, it was my understanding that the con was $$$$ over budget (mostly
due to the hotel bill), and that was why Pat & Peggy had to kick in their
personal funds…? But I was not on the committee and don’t know the whole
story.

–Karen

At 09:20 PM 6/3/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>CC7 paid the hotel in full at the end of the con. The “financial trouble”
>was a result of Pat and Peggy writing a personal check to the hotel
>instead of a check on the con’s account! We then had the difficulty of
>justifying why a not-for-profit organization was paying a sizable sum to them.
>
>No one on the committee knew what they had done until it was too late.
>
>The CC7 treasurer (Tina) was not amused. The mere appearance of
>self-dealing between a not-for-profit corporation and its officers could
>lead to audit disallowances, revocation of recognition of tax-exempt
>status, and both civil and criminal prosecution. Fortunately, that didn’t
>happen in the case of CC7; the fiscal agent for the con was LASTsfa, the
>local science fiction club, of which Pat and Peggy were not even members
>(thank Ghod!). The lesson to be learned is that ALL members of the concom
>need to exercise self-discipline.
>
>Byron
>
>
>—– Original Message —–
> From: Betsy Delaney
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 8:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…
>
>
> Not to my knowledge. The only one I know of that might have come close
> to having trouble with paying the hotel was CC7, since I recall there
> were a lot of financial issues with the Kennedys’ con. I think that CCs
> which came after took the lessons of CC7 to heart and most or all came
> out ahead in some way.
>
> CCXV got stung at the end by problems with our hotel’s electric bill,
> and so didn’t make as much as we expected to, and we had to pay for
> video editing that wasn’t originally budgeted (which came directly out
> of the income from the video sales), but we were still able to pass on
> somewhere between two and three thousand dollars to future CCs.
>
> -Betsy
>
> Andrew T Trembley wrote:
> >
> > …or not. Anybody know if any past Costume-Cons have had any problems
> >
> > meeting their financial obligations to the hotel?
> >
> > I’ve taken Marty and Henry’s comments to heart and am working on a
> > “Costume-Con Venue Information Guide” (and looking for a better
> > title).
> > It’s based on the briefing list in the WorldCon runners’ guide, and
> > one
> > of the things they suggest emphasizing is the con’s financial history
> > and creditworthiness in the eyes of hotels.
> >
> > —
> > andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> > San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> > (Kevin’s)
> > “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> > –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
>
>
> —
> Betsy R. Delaney
> Costume-Con Archivist
> Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Since I was probably closest to that one (aside from the dear departed – SIGH!) I think it is safe to say that the hotel got paid O.K., it was the Kennedy’s who took the hit. I don’t believe that the hotel had any inkling that there were financial issues, so there wouldn’t be anything in “the record” that would cause a problem that way for future CC’s.

The real problem there was that the hotel kept the housing and banquet departments separate. The banquet (i.e., function space) dept. didn’t really give a **** how many rooms we filled. They wanted their department’s budget to make a bundle, regardless. That’s something to look out for in doing a hotel search.

Tina

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…

Not to my knowledge. The only one I know of that might have come close
to having trouble with paying the hotel was CC7, since I recall there
were a lot of financial issues with the Kennedys’ con. I think that CCs
which came after took the lessons of CC7 to heart and most or all came
out ahead in some way.

CCXV got stung at the end by problems with our hotel’s electric bill,
and so didn’t make as much as we expected to, and we had to pay for
video editing that wasn’t originally budgeted (which came directly out
of the income from the video sales), but we were still able to pass on
somewhere between two and three thousand dollars to future CCs.

-Betsy

Andrew T Trembley wrote:
>
> …or not. Anybody know if any past Costume-Cons have had any problems
>
> meeting their financial obligations to the hotel?
>
> I’ve taken Marty and Henry’s comments to heart and am working on a
> “Costume-Con Venue Information Guide” (and looking for a better
> title).
> It’s based on the briefing list in the WorldCon runners’ guide, and
> one
> of the things they suggest emphasizing is the con’s financial history
> and creditworthiness in the eyes of hotels.
>
> —
> andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> (Kevin’s)
> “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Having the banquet and rooms sales separate seems to be the exception. Usually the hotels seem to have “sales and catering” which are very aware of the combined income of rooms and function space. The odd case of a hotel just opening seems to break those rules. They seem to have a sales agent that is willing to say anything, and then let the hotel sort it out later. Be cautious of deals that look “too good to be true” it that situation. This is just my local experience.
Charles
–

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.cc26.info/Posters/Packet.pdf

I’ve made revisions. Still no portfolio pics, just the reports. I would
particularly like to hear what folks who have done hotel negotiations
have to say about the last two pages (venue information guide).

andy

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.irlm.org/ – mailto:webmaster@irlm.org
“Anybody who takes this seriously deserves to”
— Donna Barr

Unfortunately, that wasn’t true in New York’s Capital District at the time, nor, I believe, today. All our major hotels have split catering/functions as a separate profit center from rooms. This may be a local headache caused by demand for function space for events unrelated to the need for sleeping rooms that results from our government/academic/research economic mix, but other state capitals with similar needs might find similar hotel policies.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Charles Galway
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…

Having the banquet and rooms sales separate seems to be the exception. Usually the hotels seem to have “sales and catering” which are very aware of the combined income of rooms and function space. The odd case of a hotel just opening seems to break those rules. They seem to have a sales agent that is willing to say anything, and then let the hotel sort it out later. Be cautious of deals that look “too good to be true” it that situation. This is just my local experience.
Charles

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I was just over on the Costume-Con site, compiling a list of designers
whose work has appeared in the Costume-Con Fashion Show over the last 21
years. This is part of a side project I am doing to try to track down all
these designers and get permissions (or definite refusals) to use the line
art for their designs next to the photos of the Fashion Show pieces
displayed on the CC website.

Anyway, since I was in and out of ALL the Fashion Show stuff in one sitting
tonight, I noticed a very interesting pattern in the number of participants
and felt I should comment on it here.

The Fashion Show was a very strong part of Costume-Con 1-11, with the
smallest show being 16 entries (CC-2), the largest show being 49 entries
(CC-8), and the average being around 28 entries (with 8 of the 11
conventions having Fashion Shows of 20+ entries).

The numbers drop DRAMATICALLY at Costume-Con 12 (from 24 entries in the
show the year before to only 9 entries at CC-12). They continue to be low
thoughout the next 8 Costume-Cons, with the smallest show being 4 (CC-19),
and the largest show being 14 (CC-15). I kept asking myself why the Fashion
Show would be so small, especially at CC-12 and CC-15, which were
well-attended cons in large cities.

Then it hit me. CC-12 was the first CC to try the Single Pattern Contest.
The dropping numbers in the Fashion Show indicate to me that CC attendees
have only so much time/energy/$$$ to devote to preparing for CC, so when
further competitions are added that require advance preparation (and are
run on the same day as the Fashion Show), the Fashion Show numbers suffer.

I don’t think Iron Costumer impacted CC-21 in quite the same way, as the
teams did not have to prepare anything in advance. [Although I would be
interested in hearing the Swopes’ comments on being on one of the teams for
Iron Costumer AND trying to compete in the Historical on the same
night(!).] [I also would STRONGLY suggest running Iron Costumer in a
different time slot so it does not impact the Historical Masquerade awards.]

CC-21’s Fashion Show, at a respectable 19 entries, was the largest in the
last 9 years.

Trudy, I know CC-22 is running a Single Pattern Contest, and you have
selected some really cool patterns. However, if there is any way to
schedule the modeling of items for the Single Pattern Contest so it is not
essentially in the same time slot as the Fashion Show, it might help to
increase participation in the Fashion Show. Just a thought.

–Karen

Andy —

While I can’t speak as someone who has been involved recently in hotel negotiations, generally speaking, I like the draft very much. Good job!

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew Trembley
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Lance Moore
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 8:57 PM
Subject: [runacc] Packet 0.2

http://www.cc26.info/Posters/Packet.pdf

I’ve made revisions. Still no portfolio pics, just the reports. I would
particularly like to hear what folks who have done hotel negotiations
have to say about the last two pages (venue information guide).

andy

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.irlm.org/ – mailto:webmaster@irlm.org
“Anybody who takes this seriously deserves to”
— Donna Barr

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Karen,

I have to agree with you on all points. It is impossible (or nearly so) to
enter the FFF and Single Pattern contest at the same time. Doing Iron
Costumer and competing in the Historical was also a real challenge. The
Swopes partially changed between events, and I just charged through without
changing. (We were on the same team.). Also, although we were directly
below the MC, I have practically no memory of any of the Historical awards,
because we were so totally concentrated in our event.

Elaine

> I was just over on the Costume-Con site, compiling a list of designers
> whose work has appeared in the Costume-Con Fashion Show over the last 21
> years. This is part of a side project I am doing to try to track down all
> these designers and get permissions (or definite refusals) to use the line
> art for their designs next to the photos of the Fashion Show pieces
> displayed on the CC website.
>
> Anyway, since I was in and out of ALL the Fashion Show stuff in one

sitting

> tonight, I noticed a very interesting pattern in the number of

participants

> and felt I should comment on it here.
>
> The Fashion Show was a very strong part of Costume-Con 1-11, with the
> smallest show being 16 entries (CC-2), the largest show being 49 entries
> (CC-8), and the average being around 28 entries (with 8 of the 11
> conventions having Fashion Shows of 20+ entries).
>
> The numbers drop DRAMATICALLY at Costume-Con 12 (from 24 entries in the
> show the year before to only 9 entries at CC-12). They continue to be low
> thoughout the next 8 Costume-Cons, with the smallest show being 4 (CC-19),
> and the largest show being 14 (CC-15). I kept asking myself why the

Fashion

> Show would be so small, especially at CC-12 and CC-15, which were
> well-attended cons in large cities.
>
> Then it hit me. CC-12 was the first CC to try the Single Pattern Contest.
> The dropping numbers in the Fashion Show indicate to me that CC attendees
> have only so much time/energy/$$$ to devote to preparing for CC, so when
> further competitions are added that require advance preparation (and are
> run on the same day as the Fashion Show), the Fashion Show numbers suffer.
>
> I don’t think Iron Costumer impacted CC-21 in quite the same way, as the
> teams did not have to prepare anything in advance. [Although I would be
> interested in hearing the Swopes’ comments on being on one of the teams

for

> Iron Costumer AND trying to compete in the Historical on the same
> night(!).] [I also would STRONGLY suggest running Iron Costumer in a
> different time slot so it does not impact the Historical Masquerade

awards.]

>
> CC-21’s Fashion Show, at a respectable 19 entries, was the largest in the
> last 9 years.
>
> Trudy, I know CC-22 is running a Single Pattern Contest, and you have
> selected some really cool patterns. However, if there is any way to
> schedule the modeling of items for the Single Pattern Contest so it is not
> essentially in the same time slot as the Fashion Show, it might help to
> increase participation in the Fashion Show. Just a thought.
>
> –Karen
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

Nora and I did this at a CC. The Single Pattern contest was first (the
one with the Irish dress), followed immediately by the FFS. We had to
be scheduled early in the Single Pattern show so that we could change.
We ran back to the green room, literally stripped down to nothing, and
got our FFS outfits on. If a lot of people tried to do that, scheduling
everyone so that they would have enough time to change is doubtful.

Karen

Elaine wrote:

> Karen,
>
> I have to agree with you on all points. It is impossible (or nearly
> so) to
> enter the FFF and Single Pattern contest at the same time.

Since the Single Pattern Contest and Iron Costumer were both first produced
by me, I’m going to address them both in one response. My apologies for the
mild bits of ranting that will occur. There are many bits of strong and
not-so-humble opinion herein.

> Then it hit me. CC-12 was the first CC to try the Single Pattern Contest.
> The dropping numbers in the Fashion Show indicate to me that CC attendees
> have only so much time/energy/$$$ to devote to preparing for CC, so when
> further competitions are added that require advance preparation (and are
> run on the same day as the Fashion Show), the Fashion Show numbers suffer.

The SPC was started because for several years in a row I heard from people
who were afraid to make anything for the Future Fashion show because they
were afraid to try to draft the patterns.

CC-12 also very definitely restricted accepted designs for the FFF to
FASHION. If you review the FF show photos for the years immediately prior to
CC-12, you will note that there was a huge swing towards making the
“theatrical” designs in the folio. In other words, making a STAGE COSTUME
that didn’t have to compete in a masquerade. After having to follow the
“Goth Vampire Queen Elizabeth Opera Dress” (or whatever it was actually
called) on stage I was personally *sick to death* of having really cool
*fashion* being upstaged by stage diva chic. And I had also noticed a
disturbing sameness (to me) developing in the designs appearing in the
Folios in those years — there wasn’t a whole lot that felt *new* from year
to year.

This year I suggested to Pierre and Sandy a modified Single Pattern Contest:
that instead of having a competition of constructed garments, they roll the
SPC into the DESIGN contest that creates the folio. In other words, the
single pattern designs would go into the folio and any garments made from
those designs would be part of the regular Future Fashion Show. I came up
with the idea too late, but I offer it as a recommendation to other CCs. The
fear of scratch pattern drafting is a very real one; knowing what pattern a
design is based on could actually further increase participation in the
show.

So while there is definitely a synchronicity with CC 12, the single pattern
contest, and reduced number of FF designs being made, don’t discount the
fact that the content of the folio will also have a strong effect. (Also, at
CC12 we had the wearable art display as part of the runway show, too. All
three were combined and mixed into a single “Dimensions in Design” show on
Sunday — we put 40-odd designs down that runway in 45 minutes)

> night(!).] [I also would STRONGLY suggest running Iron Costumer in a
> different time slot so it does not impact the Historical Masquerade

awards.]

Now — as to this. I agree that we screwed up the impact of the historical
awards at I.C. Give me a break — no one had tried this as a real production
(meaning staged, narrated, the works) before.

I had thought we would actually be bringing the house lights down and stage
lights up for each of those commercial breaks, so that they would have far
greater dramatic impact. I failed to realize until too late that we would
need task lighting for the work tables to do that. In hindsight, the correct
decision would have been, as others have suggested, holding all the
historical awards until after Iron Costumer was finished.

As to finding another time slot: THERE WEREN’T ANY. The stage and tech were
not installed until Saturday, so we couldn’t do it as a Friday night
entertainment. Saturday afternoon was tech rehearsal for F&SF. Sunday day
was the Fashion Show. Sunday night was the Historical masquerade — and then
it occurred to me to ask if Nancy had any half-time entertainment scheduled.
She didn’t, and so I offered Iron Costumer as that entertainment.

For those who commented that IC seemed to be designed to keep everyone in
the room while the judges deliberated: duh. That’s what half-time
entertainment is SUPPOSED to do.
And for the record — we finished just as the judges returned with the final
awards.

OK, I’m off my soapbox now. Sorry for the rant.

Kevin

Karen –

If you don’t mind, I’m going to forward your comments on over to Nora Mai
who is running both the FFF and Single Pattern shows. We have not yet
settled on a time and day for them, although I know that Sunday is
traditional. I hate to admit that I haven’t even seen the Single Pattern
and FFF for the past couple of years. In Chicago, it was the same time as
when we were hosting the Con-suite, but I have noticed previously that the
numbers on both seemed to be dropping from the first CCs that we attended.
Thanks for your comments,

Trudy

>From: Ricky & Karen Dick <castleb@pulsenet.com>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [runacc] Fashion Show
>Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 22:10:20 -0400
>
>I was just over on the Costume-Con site, compiling a list of designers
>whose work has appeared in the Costume-Con Fashion Show over the last 21
>years. This is part of a side project I am doing to try to track down all
>these designers and get permissions (or definite refusals) to use the line
>art for their designs next to the photos of the Fashion Show pieces
>displayed on the CC website.
>
>Anyway, since I was in and out of ALL the Fashion Show stuff in one sitting
>tonight, I noticed a very interesting pattern in the number of participants
>and felt I should comment on it here.
>
>The Fashion Show was a very strong part of Costume-Con 1-11, with the
>smallest show being 16 entries (CC-2), the largest show being 49 entries
>(CC-8), and the average being around 28 entries (with 8 of the 11
>conventions having Fashion Shows of 20+ entries).
>
>The numbers drop DRAMATICALLY at Costume-Con 12 (from 24 entries in the
>show the year before to only 9 entries at CC-12). They continue to be low
>thoughout the next 8 Costume-Cons, with the smallest show being 4 (CC-19),
>and the largest show being 14 (CC-15). I kept asking myself why the Fashion
>Show would be so small, especially at CC-12 and CC-15, which were
>well-attended cons in large cities.
>
>Then it hit me. CC-12 was the first CC to try the Single Pattern Contest.
>The dropping numbers in the Fashion Show indicate to me that CC attendees
>have only so much time/energy/$$$ to devote to preparing for CC, so when
>further competitions are added that require advance preparation (and are
>run on the same day as the Fashion Show), the Fashion Show numbers suffer.
>
>I don’t think Iron Costumer impacted CC-21 in quite the same way, as the
>teams did not have to prepare anything in advance. [Although I would be
>interested in hearing the Swopes’ comments on being on one of the teams for
>Iron Costumer AND trying to compete in the Historical on the same
>night(!).] [I also would STRONGLY suggest running Iron Costumer in a
>different time slot so it does not impact the Historical Masquerade
>awards.]
>
>CC-21’s Fashion Show, at a respectable 19 entries, was the largest in the
>last 9 years.
>
>Trudy, I know CC-22 is running a Single Pattern Contest, and you have
>selected some really cool patterns. However, if there is any way to
>schedule the modeling of items for the Single Pattern Contest so it is not
>essentially in the same time slot as the Fashion Show, it might help to
>increase participation in the Fashion Show. Just a thought.
>
>–Karen
>

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

Kevin–

Wasn’t trying to pick on you or contests you started; just trying to figure
out whattheheck happened to the Fashion Show (which has been a personal
favorite of mine since I was attending cons in the early 70’s with Fashion
Shows run by Bjo Trimble) and figure out if there is some hope of fixing it.

At 11:32 PM 6/4/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>The SPC was started because for several years in a row I heard from people
>who were afraid to make anything for the Future Fashion show because they
>were afraid to try to draft the patterns.

That doesn’t explain why the Fashion Show numbers held so uniformly for 11
years and then dropped off. (It also doesn’t explain the large fashion
shows at the Equicons in the 70’s.) If people couldn’t draft patterns, it
should have been a problem from the beginning.

With so many costume patterns on the market now from Simplicity and other
sources, it seems to me that someone making a design for the Fashion Show
could find something *close* and go from there. A savvy designer might even
suggest potential patterns for someone wanting to make up the design.

Now that I think about it, I’m wondering if the Historical Masquerade is
impacting the Fashion Show as well, as the Historical has grown in size and
complexity (and pre-judging) over the years and more people are
participating in that.

>CC-12 also very definitely restricted accepted designs for the FFF to
>FASHION.

But Fashion always has included stage, theatrical, and ceremonial costume.

>If you review the FF show photos for the years immediately prior to
>CC-12, you will note that there was a huge swing towards making the
>”theatrical” designs in the folio. In other words, making a STAGE COSTUME
>that didn’t have to compete in a masquerade.

I think part of the appeal of the Fashion Show was that you could make a
cool costume that had ALREADY WON something on the strength of its design.
So there was no competition pressure.

And yes, there were some grandiose designs that got made up.

And some less overblown stuff that got made up as well.

>After having to follow the “Goth Vampire Queen Elizabeth Opera Dress” (or
>whatever it was actually called) on stage I was personally *sick to death*
>of having really cool
>*fashion* being upstaged by stage diva chic.

And fashion shows by real runway designers today have always included some
theatrical/grandiose designs (and presentations!) that were *never*
intended for street wear. Witness Thierry Mugler, Alexander McQueen, and
Jean Paul Gaultier. And the excessive Oscar de la Renta sows in the 80’s.

>And I had also noticed a disturbing sameness (to me) developing in the
>designs appearing in the
>Folios in those years — there wasn’t a whole lot that felt *new* from
>year to year.

There was a trend for designers to resubmit their designs that hadn’t made
it into the Folio in one year until they got in.

There was a dwindling pool of designers. The traditional designers were
going through Life stuff or whatever and not submitting new stuff, and the
FFF was not attracting new designers for whatever reason.

I haven’t gone through the actual Folios, but of the stuff that got made up
for the Fashion Show, only 123 designers are represented over 21 years.
That isn’t very many names, if you think about it. That means there’s a lot
of the same names participating from year to year.

>This year I suggested to Pierre and Sandy a modified Single Pattern Contest:
>that instead of having a competition of constructed garments, they roll the
>SPC into the DESIGN contest that creates the folio. In other words, the
>single pattern designs would go into the folio and any garments made from
>those designs would be part of the regular Future Fashion Show. I came up
>with the idea too late, but I offer it as a recommendation to other CCs. The
>fear of scratch pattern drafting is a very real one; knowing what pattern a
>design is based on could actually further increase participation in the
>show.

This is an interesting idea and worth pursuing.

Also sounds like CC could use some panels/workshops on scratch pattern
drafting so people can get over their fears and get on with making cool
costumes, LOL!

>All three were combined and mixed into a single “Dimensions in Design” show on
>Sunday — we put 40-odd designs down that runway in 45 minutes)

Ricky, playing Devil’s Advocate, says if there are 20+ costumes of *any*
variety on stage on Sunday afternoon, then I shouldn’t complain, so Trudy,
you should take his dissenting opinion under advisement as well…Maybe
people don’t care about the source of what’s on stage as long as it’s a
good show.

But, personally, I would like to see more participation in the Fashion
Show. And I freely admit I have been one of the laggards who hasn’t been
making anything lately.

>[Re Iron Costumer] I agree that we screwed up the impact of the historical
>awards at I.C. Give me a break — no one had tried this as a real production
>(meaning staged, narrated, the works) before.

Wasn’t your fault. I.C. had never been tried before. Only reason I’m
commenting on it is to try to figure out solutions for next time, because,
overall, I.C. was a hoot.

>As to finding another time slot: THERE WEREN’T ANY. The stage and tech were
>not installed until Saturday, so we couldn’t do it as a Friday night
>entertainment.

But maybe Friday Night might be a possibility at Future CC’s that care to
run I.C.?

Other events have been run successfully at the same time as the Social (I
think the original $1.98 competition was, and at least one “retro” Fashion
Show), so this is a possibility if the Social is being run in the same
ballroom space as the other staged events.

>OK, I’m off my soapbox now. Sorry for the rant.

Again, not picking on the events…just trying to figure out ways we can
have all these events and let as many people as possible participate in them.

–Karen

I’ve made a few changes to the text based on comments I’ve received,
and I’ve pulled a few pictures from the archives to make up sample
portfolio pages. If I can get permissions from folks, they may end up
being my final portfolio pages.

Warning: the PDF is pretty big now that the photos have been added, so
it may take a while to download if you’re on dial-up.
http://www.bovil.com/Posters/Packet.pdf

andy
—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

It’s not impossible. With a lot of green room help — and a little bit of luck — it can be done! The green room needs to know what the sequence of both sets of entries is and be prepared to assist in lightning changes. If I knew what was needed, I’d be willing to do it.

Otherwise, the FFS/SPC usually is a walk in the park for the green room crew.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Karen Heim
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 1:25 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Fashion Show

Nora and I did this at a CC. The Single Pattern contest was first (the
one with the Irish dress), followed immediately by the FFS. We had to
be scheduled early in the Single Pattern show so that we could change.
We ran back to the green room, literally stripped down to nothing, and
got our FFS outfits on. If a lot of people tried to do that, scheduling
everyone so that they would have enough time to change is doubtful.

Karen

Elaine wrote:

> Karen,
>
> I have to agree with you on all points. It is impossible (or nearly
> so) to
> enter the FFF and Single Pattern contest at the same time.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Kevin,

After all of that, I still would enter I.C. again. It was a blast from
start to finish! The hungry hovering over select stacks-o-stuph before we
could begin grabbing, the fruitless search for a rotary cutter – which led
us to resort to an exacto knife, the feverish working with unfamiliar
machines…………….I loved it! PLEASE put me in for the next one!

Elaine

Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall always be amused!

> Since the Single Pattern Contest and Iron Costumer were both first

produced

> by me, I’m going to address them both in one response. My apologies for

the

> mild bits of ranting that will occur. There are many bits of strong and
> not-so-humble opinion herein.
>

Andy, I’m getting a “404 Not Found” for this URL.

???

–Karen

At 04:14 PM 6/5/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>Warning: the PDF is pretty big now that the photos have been added, so
>it may take a while to download if you’re on dial-up.
>http://www.bovil.com/Posters/Packet.pdf
>
>andy

On Thursday, June 5, 2003, at 08:18 PM, Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

> Andy, I’m getting a “404 Not Found” for this URL.

That would be because I botched it…

http://www.cc26.info/Posters/Packet.pdf

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

At 09:10 PM 6/4/2003, you wrote:

Karen,

CC21’s not having a Single Pattern competition was largely because Sandy
and I strongly opposed it precisely because we thought it was having an
effect on Show entries. Also of concern was the lateness of many folios,
though I don’t have a list of release dates. That was one of the reasons we
were strongly committed to getting the folio out by mid-November to allow
everyone at least 5 months for construction.

Pierre

>I was just over on the Costume-Con site, compiling a list of designers
>whose work has appeared in the Costume-Con Fashion Show over the last 21
>years. This is part of a side project I am doing to try to track down all
>these designers and get permissions (or definite refusals) to use the line
>art for their designs next to the photos of the Fashion Show pieces
>displayed on the CC website.
>
>Anyway, since I was in and out of ALL the Fashion Show stuff in one sitting
>tonight, I noticed a very interesting pattern in the number of participants
>and felt I should comment on it here.
>
>The Fashion Show was a very strong part of Costume-Con 1-11, with the
>smallest show being 16 entries (CC-2), the largest show being 49 entries
>(CC-8), and the average being around 28 entries (with 8 of the 11
>conventions having Fashion Shows of 20+ entries).
>
>The numbers drop DRAMATICALLY at Costume-Con 12 (from 24 entries in the
>show the year before to only 9 entries at CC-12). They continue to be low
>thoughout the next 8 Costume-Cons, with the smallest show being 4 (CC-19),
>and the largest show being 14 (CC-15). I kept asking myself why the Fashion
>Show would be so small, especially at CC-12 and CC-15, which were
>well-attended cons in large cities.
>
>Then it hit me. CC-12 was the first CC to try the Single Pattern Contest.
>The dropping numbers in the Fashion Show indicate to me that CC attendees
>have only so much time/energy/$$$ to devote to preparing for CC, so when
>further competitions are added that require advance preparation (and are
>run on the same day as the Fashion Show), the Fashion Show numbers suffer.
>
>I don’t think Iron Costumer impacted CC-21 in quite the same way, as the
>teams did not have to prepare anything in advance. [Although I would be
>interested in hearing the Swopes’ comments on being on one of the teams for
>Iron Costumer AND trying to compete in the Historical on the same
>night(!).] [I also would STRONGLY suggest running Iron Costumer in a
>different time slot so it does not impact the Historical Masquerade awards.]
>
>CC-21’s Fashion Show, at a respectable 19 entries, was the largest in the
>last 9 years.
>
>Trudy, I know CC-22 is running a Single Pattern Contest, and you have
>selected some really cool patterns. However, if there is any way to
>schedule the modeling of items for the Single Pattern Contest so it is not
>essentially in the same time slot as the Fashion Show, it might help to
>increase participation in the Fashion Show. Just a thought.
>
>–Karen

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed To Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly–
Why They Are Simply Doomed.”

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

At 05:01 PM 6/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>CC21’s not having a Single Pattern competition was largely because Sandy
>and I strongly opposed it precisely because we thought it was having an
>effect on Show entries.

And CC-21’s Fashion Show was the strongest in the last 10 years. Good work!

I like the Single Pattern Contest, but we need to find a way to not have it
impact the Fashion Show so badly.

–Karen

Andy–

Looks good!

Two very minor corrections:

Forgot to note the page number, but Costume-Con 1 was held in 1983, not 1982.

And on the page showing examples of Historical costume (pg .7?), it says
CC_15 in St. Louis, MO. Should be CC-16.

This took FOREVER to load on my pitiful dial-up connection. Had to leave
the room and go watch TV for awhile, LOL!

–Karen

At 09:54 PM 6/5/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>On Thursday, June 5, 2003, at 08:18 PM, Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:
>
> > Andy, I’m getting a “404 Not Found” for this URL.
>
>That would be because I botched it…
>
>http://www.cc26.info/Posters/Packet.pdf
>
>
>–
>andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
>San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
>(Kevin’s)
>…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

On Thursday, June 5, 2003, at 11:15 PM, Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

> Forgot to note the page number, but Costume-Con 1 was held in 1983,
> not 1982.

Got it. 2 spots.

> And on the page showing examples of Historical costume (pg .7?), it
> says
> CC_15 in St. Louis, MO. Should be CC-16.

Either I corrected this before you sent me this message, or one of us
was hallucinating.

> This took FOREVER to load on my pitiful dial-up connection. Had to
> leave
> the room and go watch TV for awhile, LOL!

This packet is intended only for print distribution, so I’m not worried
about the size or download time.

andy

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
hand
Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

OK. If we just eliminate sleeping and bathroom breaks
altogether…………….

Elaine

Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall always be amused!

>
> I like the Single Pattern Contest, but we need to find a way to not have

it

> impact the Fashion Show so badly.
>

At 08:16 PM 6/6/2003, you wrote:

>OK. If we just eliminate sleeping and bathroom breaks
>altogether…………….

You mean you haven’t got that down yet?

Pierre and Sandy

>Elaine
>
>Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall always be amused!
> >
> > I like the Single Pattern Contest, but we need to find a way to not have
>it
> > impact the Fashion Show so badly.
> >
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed To Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly–
Why They Are Simply Doomed.”

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

Well, I have learned to sleep in the bathroom. It’s a start.

Elaine

> At 08:16 PM 6/6/2003, you wrote:
> >OK. If we just eliminate sleeping and bathroom breaks
> >altogether…………….
>
>
> You mean you haven’t got that down yet?
>
> Pierre and Sandy

CC17 was one of the conventions which passed a donation on to us from its
profits, so I would have to assume that their hotel bill was covered.

Eileen

—–Original Message—–
From: Trudy Leonard

Did CC17 have problems? I thought I remembered Rob Himmelsbach saying
something about financial problems with the hotel, but perhaps they got
settled out OK at the end.

Trudy

Then I think that pretty much answers the question: No, we’ve never had
a hotel that didn’t get paid. It just cost us more than we budgeted for
on a number of occasions. Now we just need to identify what happened, so
we can try to stop the problem from happening again in the future.

Agreed?

Cheers,

Betsy

Cliff and Eileen wrote:

>
> CC17 was one of the conventions which passed a donation on to us from
> its
> profits, so I would have to assume that their hotel bill was covered.
>
> Eileen

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 01:42 PM, Betsy Delaney wrote:

> Then I think that pretty much answers the question: No, we’ve never had
> a hotel that didn’t get paid. It just cost us more than we budgeted for
> on a number of occasions. Now we just need to identify what happened,
> so
> we can try to stop the problem from happening again in the future.

I added (if you haven’t looked recently) a paragraph about how CC’s are
run by different groups but what we all have in common has been a
history of fiscal responsibility, and creditworthiness. Glad to hear
that if anybody decides to check up on it, we’re in the clear.

http://www.cc26.info/Posters/Packet.pdf
(warning, 7.6mb file, will take long time to download over dial-up)

andy

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

A new “Gotcha!” to look out for. Hotels have started charging a
“service charge” (around 15%) on the rental for the function space, and
they are hiding it in some part of the agreement that is not directly
related to the function space charges. You may be able to negotiate it
away or at least a smaller percentage as you are also going to be
charged for set-ups beyond the initial one, but even if you can’t get
rid of it, you had better be prepared for it in your budgeting. This
has just become prevalent in the past couple of years.

Marty

Betsy Delaney wrote:

>Then I think that pretty much answers the question: No, we’ve never had
>a hotel that didn’t get paid. It just cost us more than we budgeted for
>on a number of occasions. Now we just need to identify what happened, so
>we can try to stop the problem from happening again in the future.
>
>Agreed?
>
>

Service charges became common in Iowa quite some time ago. Currently
the range from 18% – 21%. You need to add up all of the costs: base
price, service charge, and sales tax when figuring out what your hotel
is costing you.

Les

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 04:26 PM, martingear wrote:

> A new “Gotcha!” to look out for. Hotels have started charging a
> “service charge” (around 15%) on the rental for the function space, and
> they are hiding it in some part of the agreement that is not directly
> related to the function space charges. You may be able to negotiate it
> away or at least a smaller percentage as you are also going to be
> charged for set-ups beyond the initial one, but even if you can’t get
> rid of it, you had better be prepared for it in your budgeting. This
> has just become prevalent in the past couple of years.
>
> Marty
>
> Betsy Delaney wrote:
>
>> Then I think that pretty much answers the question: No, we’ve never
>> had
>> a hotel that didn’t get paid. It just cost us more than we budgeted
>> for
>> on a number of occasions. Now we just need to identify what happened,
>> so
>> we can try to stop the problem from happening again in the future.
>>
>> Agreed?
>>
>>
>
>
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Les

—

Live, never to be ashamed if everything you do is published around the
world. Even if what is published is not true. — Richard Bach

We really do need to build the Tucker Inn!

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: martingear
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…

A new “Gotcha!” to look out for. Hotels have started charging a
“service charge” (around 15%) on the rental for the function space, and
they are hiding it in some part of the agreement that is not directly
related to the function space charges. You may be able to negotiate it
away or at least a smaller percentage as you are also going to be
charged for set-ups beyond the initial one, but even if you can’t get
rid of it, you had better be prepared for it in your budgeting. This
has just become prevalent in the past couple of years.

Marty

Betsy Delaney wrote:

>Then I think that pretty much answers the question: No, we’ve never had
>a hotel that didn’t get paid. It just cost us more than we budgeted for
>on a number of occasions. Now we just need to identify what happened, so
>we can try to stop the problem from happening again in the future.
>
>Agreed?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 02:26 PM, martingear wrote:

> A new “Gotcha!” to look out for. Hotels have started charging a
> “service charge” (around 15%) on the rental for the function space, and
> they are hiding it in some part of the agreement that is not directly
> related to the function space charges. You may be able to negotiate it
> away or at least a smaller percentage as you are also going to be
> charged for set-ups beyond the initial one, but even if you can’t get
> rid of it, you had better be prepared for it in your budgeting. This
> has just become prevalent in the past couple of years.

Well, (and maybe I’m naive) it would be worth getting the hotel to sign
off on a spreadsheet that details all line items including service
charges before signing the final contract. If they sign off and say
there are no service charges, it’s great grounds to have the service
charges stricken from whatever areas they’re hidden in, or ammo to push
the salescritter on other areas if he won’t give up the service charges.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/

Re-reading this, I recall we sent money to the next 3 CCs. We felt and
obligation, since CC15 had sent us (16) some seed money, as I recall.

Bruce

—– Original Message —–
From: “Cliff and Eileen” <capsam@nucleus.com>
To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 11:22 PM
Subject: RE: [runacc] Venue question…

> CC17 was one of the conventions which passed a donation on to us from its
> profits, so I would have to assume that their hotel bill was covered.
>
> Eileen
>
> —–Original Message—–
> From: Trudy Leonard
>
> Did CC17 have problems? I thought I remembered Rob Himmelsbach saying
> something about financial problems with the hotel, but perhaps they got
> settled out OK at the end.
>
> Trudy
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

We (CC22) received funds from Calgary. Thanks again, guys.

Trudy

>From: “Bruce & Nora Mai” <casamai@sbcglobal.net>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: Re: [runacc] Venue question…
>Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 19:33:25 -0500
>
>Re-reading this, I recall we sent money to the next 3 CCs. We felt and
>obligation, since CC15 had sent us (16) some seed money, as I recall.
>
>Bruce
>
>—– Original Message —–
>From: “Cliff and Eileen” <capsam@nucleus.com>
>To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 11:22 PM
>Subject: RE: [runacc] Venue question…
>
>
> > CC17 was one of the conventions which passed a donation on to us from
>its
> > profits, so I would have to assume that their hotel bill was covered.
> >
> > Eileen
> >
> > —–Original Message—–
> > From: Trudy Leonard
> >
> > Did CC17 have problems? I thought I remembered Rob Himmelsbach saying
> > something about financial problems with the hotel, but perhaps they got
> > settled out OK at the end.
> >
> > Trudy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
>http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
>

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CCXV sent money (whatever was remaining after paying all bills and
refunding memberships to staff who wished the refunds) to CC16, CC17 and
CC18. As soon as the checks were cashed, and our bank balance was zero,
we closed our bank account and our books. It was the final act in
bookkeeping.

We divided the total amount between the three, roughly evenly.

I don’t know how long the practice continued after CCXV, but it only
made sense to me, since our books were entirely separate from the
GCFCG’s, and we didn’t want to muddy the bookkeeping waters for them,
after the accounting mess from CC3. As we got no cash from the chapter
at all, it seemed the logical thing to do, to keep it in the CC family.

Just an FYI.

Betsy

Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:

>
> Re-reading this, I recall we sent money to the next 3 CCs. We felt and
> obligation, since CC15 had sent us (16) some seed money, as I recall.
>
> Bruce
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “Cliff and Eileen” <capsam@nucleus.com>
> To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 11:22 PM
> Subject: RE: [runacc] Venue question…
>
> > CC17 was one of the conventions which passed a donation on to us from its
> > profits, so I would have to assume that their hotel bill was covered.
> >
> > Eileen
> >
> > —–Original Message—–
> > From: Trudy Leonard
> >
> > Did CC17 have problems? I thought I remembered Rob Himmelsbach saying
> > something about financial problems with the hotel, but perhaps they got
> > settled out OK at the end.
> >
> > Trudy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

So this discussion of pass-forward funds has got me thinking…

(between the discussion of CC’s that have passed forward and reading in
my last TorCon PR where they said that they’ve received their
pass-forward funds from ChiCon2k, MilPhil and ConJose)

WorldCon committees commonly have budget line-items for estimated
pass-forward funds to successive cons. Also budget line-items for
membership reimbursements. This allows them to set goals for
pass-forward funds, and gives them a bit of cushion should membership
forecasts go drastically wrong.

Granted, I’ve only seen CCXV’s budget spreadsheets (because that’s all
that’s posted) so this may have started happening in CC budgets
already. If it hasn’t, I think it should. We should be setting goals
for pass-forward funds.

On a tangent, I would like to suggest that we include in the
pass-forward funds a line item to support the Costumers’ Suite at
WorldCon. This is not a convention-run activity. It’s rarely even a
convention-supported activity.

The Costumers’ Suite is (or at least should be) and “embassy to fandom”
for the costume community at WorldCon, and (if well-run) a great venue
to promote Costume-Con. I’m kind of concerned that at TorCon it’s going
to be shuffled off to some hotel other than the main hospitality hotel,
primarily for budget reasons. That’s not something that can be fixed
this year, but it’s something we could help avoid in the future.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/

Uhhhh, Andy, while your ideas are good ones, I’m not real comfortable with
setting “goals” in budgets for what you mention below. Beyond the whole
notion of appearing like having to make a profit (doesnt’ mean we have to be
poor), Things are usually too dicey money-wise , and I don’t want other
cons to feel pressured that they have to make some sort of goal. I’d rather
con-coms make their own decisions.as to how much to give. Expectations
might become an issue.

Bruce

—– Original Message —–
From: “Andrew Trembley” <attrembl@bovil.com>
To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 7:58 PM
Subject: [runacc] pass-forward funds…

> So this discussion of pass-forward funds has got me thinking…
>
> (between the discussion of CC’s that have passed forward and reading in
> my last TorCon PR where they said that they’ve received their
> pass-forward funds from ChiCon2k, MilPhil and ConJose)
>
> WorldCon committees commonly have budget line-items for estimated
> pass-forward funds to successive cons. Also budget line-items for
> membership reimbursements. This allows them to set goals for
> pass-forward funds, and gives them a bit of cushion should membership
> forecasts go drastically wrong.
>
> Granted, I’ve only seen CCXV’s budget spreadsheets (because that’s all
> that’s posted) so this may have started happening in CC budgets
> already. If it hasn’t, I think it should. We should be setting goals
> for pass-forward funds.
>
> On a tangent, I would like to suggest that we include in the
> pass-forward funds a line item to support the Costumers’ Suite at
> WorldCon. This is not a convention-run activity. It’s rarely even a
> convention-supported activity.
>
> The Costumers’ Suite is (or at least should be) and “embassy to fandom”
> for the costume community at WorldCon, and (if well-run) a great venue
> to promote Costume-Con. I’m kind of concerned that at TorCon it’s going
> to be shuffled off to some hotel other than the main hospitality hotel,
> primarily for budget reasons. That’s not something that can be fixed
> this year, but it’s something we could help avoid in the future.
>
> —
> andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> (Kevin’s)
> “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
>
> read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
> read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
> read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
> read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

At 05:58 PM 6/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>We should be setting goals for pass-forward funds.

As CC founder/owner, I don’t think it is prudent to mandate pass-forward funds.

Many CC’s have had NO excess funds after the convention.

Others have chosen to use excess funds for other items benefitting their
own membership, such as CC-6’s Memory Book, which was compiled and mailed
to its members after the convention.

I think there can be some language about suggested ways of using excess
funds, including, but not limited to pass-along funds, but I am STRONGLY
opposed to anything else. As each committee is financially responsible for
their own CC, good or bad, it is NOT OUR BUSINESS to be telling them what
to do with their money. They earned it–it is up to them to decide what to
do with it. Period. If they choose to help out another CC that’s in
financial trouble, or pass forward funds to one or more future CC’s, that’s
really nice, but we cannot force them to do it.

>On a tangent, I would like to suggest that we include in the
>pass-forward funds a line item to support the Costumers’ Suite at
>WorldCon. This is not a convention-run activity. It’s rarely even a
>convention-supported activity.

Andy, I think we need to be taking care of our own business before we are
mandating ANYTHING having to do with WorldCon. Costume-Cons draw most of
their membership from the locality they are held in, with maybe two dozen
people following CC around the country. Therefore, the needs of a
Costume-Con in Moose Crotch, MN are probably NOT filled by sponsoring a
con suite at a WorldCon in Dallas, TX or Miami, FL. [If WorldCon was in
Minneapolis, maybe…]

Also, after 20 years, Costume-Con is still a VERY small convention,
probably averaging 300 members (with highs around 800 and lows around 150).
You are asking for inclusion of budgetary line items better suited for a
large regional. That’s just not practical or affordable for Costume-Con.

>The Costumers’ Suite is (or at least should be) and “embassy to fandom”
>for the costume community at WorldCon, and (if well-run) a great venue
>to promote Costume-Con.

WorldCon is not the be-all and end-all of promoting costuming. We’d be
better off doing “grassroots” marketing (or sponsoring parties) at
conventions in the same geographic area as an upcoming Costume-Con. For
example, I’m pretty sure in stating that CC-22 will probably have more of
its membership derived from the attendees of DragonCon than TorCon.

>I’m kind of concerned that at TorCon it’s going to be shuffled off to some
>hotel other than the main hospitality hotel, primarily for budget reasons.
>That’s not something that can be fixed
>this year, but it’s something we could help avoid in the future.

Andy, plain and simple, Costume-Con cannot afford to be the one “upgrading”
the Costumer’s Suite to the hotel *you* think it should be in. If you want
to pay for it out of your own funds, that’s fine, but Costume-Con doesn’t
have that kind of deep pockets.

I hope I am making myself crystal clear here.

–Karen

I agree. That should be listed (if at all) as a good thing to do, but don’t
lose sight of other needs in the meantime.
Elaine
“Sit potentia tecum”
…..Yoda

> Uhhhh, Andy, while your ideas are good ones, I’m not real comfortable with
> setting “goals” in budgets for what you mention below. Beyond the whole
> notion of appearing like having to make a profit (doesnt’ mean we have to

be

> poor), Things are usually too dicey money-wise , and I don’t want other
> cons to feel pressured that they have to make some sort of goal. I’d

rather

> con-coms make their own decisions.as to how much to give. Expectations
> might become an issue.
>
> Bruce
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “Andrew Trembley” <attrembl@bovil.com>
> To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 7:58 PM
> Subject: [runacc] pass-forward funds…
>
>
> > So this discussion of pass-forward funds has got me thinking…
> >
> > (between the discussion of CC’s that have passed forward and reading in
> > my last TorCon PR where they said that they’ve received their
> > pass-forward funds from ChiCon2k, MilPhil and ConJose)
> >
> > WorldCon committees commonly have budget line-items for estimated
> > pass-forward funds to successive cons. Also budget line-items for
> > membership reimbursements. This allows them to set goals for
> > pass-forward funds, and gives them a bit of cushion should membership
> > forecasts go drastically wrong.
> >
> > Granted, I’ve only seen CCXV’s budget spreadsheets (because that’s all
> > that’s posted) so this may have started happening in CC budgets
> > already. If it hasn’t, I think it should. We should be setting goals
> > for pass-forward funds.
> >
> > On a tangent, I would like to suggest that we include in the
> > pass-forward funds a line item to support the Costumers’ Suite at
> > WorldCon. This is not a convention-run activity. It’s rarely even a
> > convention-supported activity.
> >
> > The Costumers’ Suite is (or at least should be) and “embassy to fandom”
> > for the costume community at WorldCon, and (if well-run) a great venue
> > to promote Costume-Con. I’m kind of concerned that at TorCon it’s going
> > to be shuffled off to some hotel other than the main hospitality hotel,
> > primarily for budget reasons. That’s not something that can be fixed
> > this year, but it’s something we could help avoid in the future.
> >
> > —
> > andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
> > San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
> > (Kevin’s)
> > “It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
> > –Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel
> >
> > read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
> > read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
> > read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
> > read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/
> >
> >
> >
> > View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

> >
> >
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

On Tuesday, June 24, 2003, at 07:27 AM, Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

> At 05:58 PM 6/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>> We should be setting goals for pass-forward funds.
>
> As CC founder/owner, I don’t think it is prudent to mandate
> pass-forward funds.

I was imprecise in my phrasing. The “we” I’m speaking of here is “we
concom members,” not “we RunACC folks.” I agree that pass-forward funds
should not be mandated by the constitution or guide.

If a convention committee wishes to give pass-forward funds or do
something else “for the public benefit” it’s a good idea to define
those as line items in the convention’s budget. That makes it much more
likely that such funds will exist when the con is over, and provides a
bit of cushion where the budget can be cut if something drastic happens.

>> On a tangent, I would like to suggest that we include in the
>> pass-forward funds a line item to support the Costumers’ Suite at
>> WorldCon. This is not a convention-run activity. It’s rarely even a
>> convention-supported activity.
>
> Andy, I think we need to be taking care of our own business before we
> are
> mandating ANYTHING having to do with WorldCon.

Again, I’m sorry if I made it look like I’m suggesting mandating
something here. I was thinking more in terms of including it in a list
of uses of “public benefit funds” that concoms could look to for
guidance.

> Costume-Cons draw most of
> their membership from the locality they are held in, with maybe two
> dozen
> people following CC around the country.

I’d set that number a bit higher, 50-100 folks who attend 3-4
Costume-Cons within a 5 year period.

> Therefore, the needs of a
> Costume-Con in Moose Crotch, MN are probably NOT filled by sponsoring
> a
> con suite at a WorldCon in Dallas, TX or Miami, FL. [If WorldCon was in
> Minneapolis, maybe…]

This is true, but it’s also a matter of perspective. There are a lot of
myths and urban legends floating around about Costume-Con, and WorldCon
is not a bad place to address them. There are a lot of costume fans
that travel to every WorldCon, and many of them could afford to travel
to Costume-Con too.

From a purely selfish perspective, it’s the folks who are done who are
giving the donation. They’re probably not bidding another CC for a few
years, so it doesn’t matter to them if they’re supporting something a
continent away.

> Also, after 20 years, Costume-Con is still a VERY small convention,
> probably averaging 300 members (with highs around 800 and lows around
> 150).

It’s hard to make numbers on this; there are so many “?”
membership/attendance figures in the published timeline. I do notice in
the first decade that when CC was in a major metro area memberships
were often above 400, and afterwards it dropped more to the 200 member
range in the same sorts of areas at least from the numbers I can read
or estimate from memory.

> You are asking for inclusion of budgetary line items better suited for
> a
> large regional. That’s just not practical or affordable for
> Costume-Con.

I don’t agree. We’re not talking $20k line items like a WorldCon; we’re
talking $250-500 line items (or whatever the concom thinks is prudent).

>> The Costumers’ Suite is (or at least should be) and “embassy to
>> fandom”
>> for the costume community at WorldCon, and (if well-run) a great venue
>> to promote Costume-Con.
>
> WorldCon is not the be-all and end-all of promoting costuming. We’d be
> better off doing “grassroots” marketing (or sponsoring parties) at
> conventions in the same geographic area as an upcoming Costume-Con. For
> example, I’m pretty sure in stating that CC-22 will probably have more
> of
> its membership derived from the attendees of DragonCon than TorCon.

I’m way ahead of you here. We’re working heavily with local
conventions, hosting parties here and at the cons we travel to. In the
last year we put in an appearance at last year’s Fanime. were landlords
for Costumers’ Suite at ConJose, hosted ConSuite at CC21, and hosted
parties at SiliCon, YaoiCon, FurtherConfusion, Gallifrey (LA), DemiCon
(Des Moines) and BayCon, WesterCon is coming up July 4 weekend, and
we’re going to be having a party there too.

We’re looking beyond the fannish costuming community, though.

We’ve got plans in place to heavily promote within the historical
reenactment organizations and other costume groups. We’ve got 3
imperial coronations and 2 ducal coronations in the Bay Area that we
can walk at as an “in-town organization.” That’s just the beginning of
non-fannish outreach.

>> I’m kind of concerned that at TorCon it’s going to be shuffled off to
>> some
>> hotel other than the main hospitality hotel, primarily for budget
>> reasons.
>> That’s not something that can be fixed
>> this year, but it’s something we could help avoid in the future.
>
> Andy, plain and simple, Costume-Con cannot afford to be the one
> “upgrading”
> the Costumer’s Suite to the hotel *you* think it should be in. If you
> want
> to pay for it out of your own funds, that’s fine, but Costume-Con
> doesn’t
> have that kind of deep pockets.

I’m doing my part.

Last year my Fairmont bill was $3k. I got some donations from folks,
but most of the cost of the Costumers’ Suite at ConJose came out of my
pocket.

This year Kevin and I have committed (I think) C$300 to the suite (cost
of 1 night) and we will continue to support the suite at WorldCons in
the future.

I agree that this kind of thing is something that not every CC could
afford, and not every CC would choose to do, but I still think it’s
something worth keeping on the radar.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
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