Te Shutle December 2017 The Next NASFA Meeting is the Christmas Party, 3P Saturday 16 December 2017 at the New Church Location Gift Exchange 3:30P; Please Be On Time if You Are Participating NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY d Oyez, Oyez d All NASFAns are invited to a New Year’s Eve party at Nan- cy Cucci and Ray Pietruszka’s house—211 Evalyn Street in The next NASFA Meeting will be 16 December 2017, at Madison AL. The party starts at 9P and folks are asked to fol- the NEW regular meeting location but NOT at the regular low the usual NASFA rules—bring what you want to drink time. The meeting will be the NASFA Christmas Party— plus food to share. hosted by Sue Thorn and Judy Smith—which will subsume FUTURE PROGRAMS the meeting, program, and After-the-Meeting Meeting. The At this writing, no programs for 2018 have yet been set. Judy party will start at 3P at the Willowbrook Baptist Church, New Church ~0.8 miles Madison branch. Location north of US 72 There will be a “white elephant” gift exchange at the party— Map To your chance to regift something you’ve received that’s nice but Willowbrook Madison perhaps not to your taste. Non-regifts are also fine. The gift 446 Jeff Road NW New exchange will start at 3:30P (or slightly after), so please be on Huntsville AL 35806 time if you are participating. To participate, bring a singe gift Meeting for each person in your group. Gifts should be wrapped. Location For the party proper, please bring “the usual”—food and drink Road Jeff to share. In selecting food, you may wish to note that the party US 72W Kroger Fuel will overlap the dinner hour. (aka University Drive) Center The Madison campus of Willowbrook Baptist Church is at Kroger Shopping 446 Jeff Road—about a mile from the previous location. See Center the map at right for directions to the church. See the map on Slaughter page 2 for a closeup of parking at the church as well as how to Road find the meeting room (“The Huddle”), which is close to one of the back doors toward the north side of the church. Please do Old Church Location not try to come in the (locked) front door. Concluding Our 37th Year of Publication Inside this issue… NASFA Calendar........................................................................5 News & Info ...............................................................................2 Awards Roundup........................................................................ 6 Minutes of the November Meeting............................................ 4 “Some Assembly Required” NASA Poster...............................9 Deadline for the January 2018 issue of The NASFA Shuttle is Friday 29 December 2017 and Sue are always looking for new program ideas, especially The list is usually low traffic, though the rate is rather variable. if you can run one yourself. Generally the list is limited to announcements about club activ- FUTURE ATMMs ities plus the occasional message of general interest to north- We need hosts for all months in 2018. Email <nasfa.shuttle@ Alabama sf/f/h/etc. fans. Non NASFAns are both encouraged con-stellation.org> to volunteer or inquire. and welcomed to join the list, but please only do so if you’re FUTURE CLUB MEETING DATES/LOCATIONS interested in the above restricted topics. At present, all 2018 NASFA Meetings are expected to be at NASFA CALENDAR ONLINE the normal meeting location (Though, stay tuned as plans de- NASFA has an online calendar on Google Calendar. Interest- velop for Not-A-Con.) The church needed a list of dates for ed parties can check the calendar online, but you can also sub- that year in order to reserve space for us. Since the request was scribe to it and have your Outlook, iCal, or other calendar au- urgent, Sam looked at a list of upcoming conventions and tomatically updated as events (Club Meetings, local sf/f/h found a couple that would conflict with our normal 3rd Satur- events, etc.) are added or changed. You can view the calendar day. So, meeting dates reserved for 2018 are: online at <tinyurl.com/NASFACal>. •13 January—moved a week earlier (to the 2nd Saturday) to avoid Chattacon •17 February—normal 3rd Saturday •17 March—normal 3rd Saturday News & Info •21 April—normal 3rd Saturday •19 May—normal 3rd Saturday TAFF RACE OPENS •16 June—normal 3rd Saturday Voting for the 2018 (east-to-west) Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund •21 July—normal 3rd Saturday race has opened. The three candidates are Johan Anglemark, •11 August—moved a week earlier (to the 2nd Saturday) to Fia Karlsson, and Helena McCallum (Adela avoid Worldcon Terrell). The winner will travel from Europe •15 September—normal 3rd Saturday to North America and will be expected to •20 October—normal 3rd Saturday attend the 2018 Worldcon in San José. •17 November—normal 3rd Saturday You can download a ballot (PDF or •15 December—normal 3rd Saturday HTML) from links at <taff.org.uk> or vote CHANGING SHUTTLE DEADLINES online at <taff.org.uk/vote.php>. The voting In general, the monthly Shuttle production schedule has been deadline is midnight (EDT) Tuesday 3 April moved to the left a bit (versus prior practice). Though things 2018. Voting is by preferential ballot and is are a bit squishy, the current intent is to put each issue to bed open to anyone active in fandom before April 2016. A mini- about 6–8 days before each month’s meeting. mum donation of £3 or $4 is required. (Yes, they will gladly Please check the deadline below the Table of Contents each take larger donations.) month to submit news, reviews, LoCs, or other material. DUFF RACE SEEKS CANDIDATE(S) JOINING THE NASFA EMAIL LIST The Down Under Fan Fund <downunderfanfund.wordpress. All NASFAns who have email are urged to join our email com> is looking for one or more delegates from Australia or list, which you can do online at <tinyurl.com/NASFAEmail>. New Zealand for the 2018 (south-to-north) race. The winner Park Here(ish) Map to New Walkway Meeting “The Huddle” meeting room Location— Back Door Parking Final Approach & Pond Parking Road Jeff Willowbrook at Madison (New Location) 446 Jeff Rd NW Huntsville AL 35806 !2 will travel from ANZ to North America AggieCon 49 is now sched- and will be expected to attend the 2018 uled for 22–24 March 2019 at Worldcon in San José. Nominations the Hilton College Station will close midnight 31 January 2018 (West- & Conference Center. ern Australian time; UTC+8). Further details The prior two conven- can be found at the URL above. tions had been held at the CHINESE CONRUNNERS HEADED TO WORLDCON 76 Brazos County Expo Com- It’s not quite a traditional fan fund, but Storycom and the plex, described as being in Shimmer Program <www.facebook.com/shimmerprogram> the middle of nowhere with no nearby hotels or restaurants. are planning grants for two active mainland Chinese fans (for The Hilton should be a significant step up in those regards. CNY10,000 each) to attend and work at the 2018 Worldcon in FOR-PROFIT WIZARD WORLD MAY FOLD CONS San José. English proficiency will be required to facilitate Wizard World, Inc. warned in their latest quarterly report that working the con. there is “substantial doubt” that they can remain in business WORLDCON 75 PASS ALONG FUNDS AND MORE “through November 2018.” The report gave financial specifics, The 2017 Worldcon (Helsinki) has announced planned dis- including a loss of almost $1.2 million in 2016 and over $4.4 tributions of some of their surplus funds as well as a few things million in the first nine months of 2017. At present they have not directly related to those funds. 17 conventions planned for 2018. This would apparently ex- Helsinki is a participant in the Pass Along Funds scheme, ceed the number actually run in 2017, though it’s hard to add meaning they received some of the surplus funds from three up what they did this year. They’d originally announced 17 previous Worldcons and committed to pass along a like propor- shows but kept adding (to as high as 30) and dropping cons. tion of their surplus to three subsequent Worldcons. The initial One source claims they eventually put on 14 shows in 2017. tranche of Helsinki’s PAF will be "12,000 to each of the 2018– LOCUS LOOKING FOR MR. & MS GOODBUCKS 20 Worldcons (San José, Dublin, and a site The Locus Science Fiction Foundation—a 501(c)3 nonprofit to be selected for 2020). By calling it an organization and publisher of Locus Magazine—has begun a initial distro, there would seem to be fundraising effort to try to keep the magazine in business. They the possibility of further payments are seeking direct one-time and recurring donations or support depending on how the final balance via Patreon.com with links at <locusmag.com/donate>. sheet shakes out for Helsinki. AND SPEAKING OF PATREON.COM Also, Helsinki will be reimburs- Patronage website Patreon.com is used to, well, give patron- ing staff members "95 each. age to various creators, including a number of genre authors, (Worldcons traditionally make post artists, etc. Donors typically give either a monthly or per-post con membership reimbursements, donation to their favored creators and also typically receive when fund are available, to workers some patron-only content. who put in enough hours to qualify. This is The site has been swept in a contretemps of their own mak- much more rare for Worldcons outside of North America.) ing with a change in the way fees are collected.