incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

I posted this on Twitter in hopes of those RTs, but I'll paste it over here too, with minor formatting modifications:

As noted in the linked blog post, con_or_bust is looking for volunteers, long- and short-term. If you value CoB's work increasing racial diversity in SFF fandom, I urge you to consider helping. A thread follows with more about CoB's work and the help it needs. Please RT!

( Read more... )

I'm stepping down (!) from Con or Bust after a decade (!!) so if you value its work, now's a great time to get involved: there will be three Board members left, which is the bare minimum under the bylaws and almost certainly not enough to make it sustainable, so we're holding elections early to allow for lots of transition time. Find out more, spread the word, and consider joining!

I have still basically not been here, sorry, but fyi:

Con or Bust is taking auction offers through tomorrow, Sunday April 23 (end of the day Eastern time).

Bidding starts Monday April 24!

There's a bunch of cool stuff up already, a few more things going up today, and, I hope, more coming in that just haven't been submitted yet. So check it out!

As I said on Con or Bust's site:

In March, Con or Bust’s Board of Directors will be electing up to four members to the Board, for terms of up to three years. Anyone can be a candidate; if you are interested, or if you want to encourage someone else to run, please read on for more information.

Please see the link for more details and spread the word!

I announced this earlier in the week, but forgot to mention it here:

Con or Bust's annual online auction, which is its principal source of funds to help fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF cons, is now accepting items for auction. Bidding will begin on Monday, April 20, and run for just under two weeks. You can get more details at the announcement post, which is also a good thing to link to! (I've been swamped this week but will be sending emails to various people who've donated items in the past, but you don't have to wait for that!)

Despite making it a four-panel day, I asked to be added to this because it specifically mentions Con or Bust and it sounded really interesting. And it was!

Description:

Fan Activism takes many forms: campaigning for wider representation for people of colour in media (racebending.com); performing charitable acts inspired by celebrities (Misha Collins's therandomact.org); pushing for films to be made (Dredd 2, Serenity 2, Xena: The Warrior Princess), organising charitable funds to enable fans to travel to conventions (TAFF, GUFF, Con or Bust), expressing political discontent (Anon/V for Vendetta, The Hunger Games salute in Thailand). The different kinds of fan activities and how the activism is undertaken varies depending upon the community and desired outcome. In this session people experienced in and knowledgeable about fan activism share their practices with anyone who is interested whether for curiosity's sake or because they wish to be an activist.

Crystal Huff, Eylul Dogruel, Kate Nepveu

Crystal does lots of con-running stuff, including chairing Readercon during this and working on Helsinki's bid for the 2017 WorldCon. Eylul was involved in the Gezi protests in Turkey. I run Con or Bust and am on the Readercon safety committee that was formed as a result of the above link.

I am giving myself half an hour to do this before I get lunch before my next panel, so this will be short. I always welcome corrections and additions, but particularly here since I will be specifically referencing personal experiences described by the other panelists.

Eylul talked about how pre-existing fannish skills were employed in the Gezi protests, particularly by two sets of fans: football fans, who used their skills both in mobilizing and coordinating large groups of people and in, uh, being hooligans and resisting the police; and media fans, who raised Western awareness and sympathy by reshaping the narrative on Twitter with gifs and jokes and so forth. (Yes, Eylul acknowledged the uncomfortableness of having to use Western media properties like _LotR_ in this endeavor.) The media fannish stuff also extended to cosplayers at the protests and graffiti and so forth, which also helped keep people's morale up in scary times. The mass protests also improved people's awareness of and respect for each other: football fans stopped shouting slurs that involving denigrating prostitutes, the next year's Pride was the biggest ever, things like that.

Crystal talked about doing activism with cons: how it was important for crafting the Readercon statement linked above to give people time to express their feelings and clear the air so that they could turn to the details of the statement; how cons need to take visible action to support their principles, like the Helsinki bid sending a group to march in Pride there and heavily promoting it on Twitter; how cons need transparency about their workings and decisions and to stay on top of public relations and announcements in social media.

I talked about how you have to know your strengths and weaknesses and how you can be an activist without mass protests or running conventions (not that I think the other panelists disagree!). I would be terrible at conrunning because meetings, but I knew I could do Con or Bust because I'd done a very much smaller-scale thing before and I had models of online auctions from other people in my online fannish community. I also talked about transparency, especially since I was receiving and distributing money, and how people are often very glad to help out . . . if you just ask. ("Just," I know.) I mentioned knowing the landscape so you don't unknowingly overlap existing efforts.

We all said to ask other people who are doing stuff you admire! Odds are extremely good that they'd be delighted to offer suggestions and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. And, as always, it's important to accept criticism thoughtfully, to be prepared to adjust how you do things in response to actual reality, be aware of intersectionality, and be aware of your own resources and whether existing organizations are fixable or need to be abandoned.

And now my self-imposed time is up. I always love comments and questions, but I particularly welcome them here--at any time!--or in email, knepveu@steelypips.org .

Bidding is open! I cheat and quote myself:

Bidding is now live on Con or Bust's annual online auction, which raises funds to help fans of color/non-white fans attend SFF cons. All you have to do is leave a comment on the auction offer you're interested in before bidding closes, on Sunday, February 24 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. (You may also want to subscribe to comments so you'll know if you are outbid.)

There are already lots of great offers; you can search the site over in the sidebar, or browse the auction tags or the filterable Google Docs index. And there will be more offers posted, so keep checking back. Right now I have about 20 offers to post on behalf of others, and people have promised many more.

Which is to say: it's not too late to offer things for auction, so please do! Last year we raised about $11,500 from the auction, which funded 28 different trips to cons over twelve months. To keep that going, we need all the auction offers we can get! You can submit an auction offer through a simple web form—no login required—and I'll even host your pictures for you if necessary.

Learn more about Con or Bust, or leave a comment with questions. Thanks, and please spread the word!

. . . I was going to say something else, but I forgot what, in all the bustle of administrative stuff. Anyway. Stay warm, those of you in winter climes (we got about 8", less than forecasted, but enough SteelyKid and Chad to go on an epic sledding adventure today), and come check it out!

I am sadly late on this one, but help_for_ephemere is a a fundraiser to benefit ephemere, with the aim of supporting her in the wake of her losing her job, home, and good relations with her family due to homophobia; it's being run by her friends and with her permission. Bidding on auction items ends Saturday; here are some auctions with no bids or one bid, and the FAQ. *peruses*

Also, Con or Bust will be taking requests for assistance to attend SFF cons in October, November, or December from non-white fans/fans of color during August 15-25; please plan accordingly! More information.

I made a post last night about Con or Bust's status and its goal for this year and then was too tired to mention it here or, indeed, anywhere else.

Also, there have been a ton of amazing things listed recently—these three posts from deepad alone make my jaw drop—so check out the spiffy new index and see what catches your eye!