2009 Natcon BM minutes

This article includes the minutes of the NatCon Business Meeting conducted at Conjecture in Adelaide in 2009.

These minutes should be considered unofficial, having yet to be approved by the 2010 NatCon Business Meeting.

Minutes

Natcon business meeting minutes 2009

Chair: David Cake
Secretary: Julian Warner

Meeting Opened Sunday, 11.36am

Attendance, Damien warman, zara Baxter, alias krasnostein, paul ewins, Emilly mcleay, tim reddan, Robert hoge, Claire Brialey,
Mark Plummer, Sue-Ann Barber, Trevor, Jonathan Strahan, Jocko (late), Russell Farr (late),  Sarah Parker (late), Gene Melzack
(late), Bill Wright (very late), Robin Johnson (v. late)

Minutes of last meeting: Chair noted a few typoes in the minutes.

Moved: Warman seconded Barber that minutes be accepted with allowances for typoes.

Business arising: Standing committee present wording for the achievement category in the Ditmars.

Made one substantial change to the ditmars last years – changed from being run by a sub-committee of the con to being a 
sub-committee of the standing committee.  So it now has some continuity and consistency.  Although it is not intrinsic in
the setup of this committee, it is the intention that it be as large as necessary for the job so that the workload is 
spread over a group of people.  

Paul: bush lawyers in the sub-comm discussed privacy issues regarding hand-on of information from committee to committee.  
Opinion is that there should be no legal privacy breach due to there being a rep from each relevant con on the sub-com.

Dave mentioned arguments with WASFF over personal info.

Dave: this is the first year that the previous year’s convention members have been encouraged to vote in the Ditmars – with
the result that we have had a substantial increase in the number of votes.

One more thing: another discussion which was had was regarding the issue of eligibility. There is a wording in the rules that
says “ ..the members of the sub-committee will not be eligible for an award”.

Zara: we maintained a list of conflicts of interest of members so that it was most likely that there would be none. 

Jonathan: can the sub-comm produce a report on the running of the ditmars each year?

David: yes.  No reason why this should not be done.

David: Continuing on to general business about ditmars: No-one on sc was anyone who had actually run ditmars in the past.  
Timing was very tight and we should have started earlier.

Damien: there are still proponents of at-con voting.  There are issues regariding timing and getting trophies engraved on time.
We were going to get electronic voting but this did not happen.  So we did a manual count.  Software could be passed on to 
future cons.

Damien can provide code for instant runoff report for awards. Noted some ditmar-specific features to the software. Had no 
issues with the actual voting and vote counting process.  We thought that there should be some more guidance for nominators 
for appropriate categories of where to nominate items – e.g. suggestions on where particular items should fit.

Dave: thanks to Damien, Zara and Jeremy for hard graft.

Dave: any questions about the ditmars?

Zara: how many votes.  65.

Tim: under item 8 there are several items on rule changes.  Can we take them as a bunch?

Dave: preferably not.

Site Selection:

Alisa K.: speaking on behalf of committee for Swancon 36.  Detailed committee.  Gave sales pitch.  At least one highprofile 
guest and high-profile YA author.  Also considering non-author guest.  Accent on program – want to have draft published well
before con. Science as a focal part of con.  Invite perth scientists to attend.  We have an astronomer on board.  Want to 
appeal to new fans and want to find previous con attendees and bring them back into the convention.  Puff for concom.  

Paul: this will be natcon number 50. 

Moved Strahan, seconded Baxter that Swancon 36’s bid for natcon be accepted.  Carried.

David: Reports from standing Natcons.

Damien for Conjecture:  Most details will be provided in the post-con souvenir book.  Asked for contributions to souvenir 
book.  Membership was about 170s last time I looked.  We’ve had about 70 walk-ups.  Kids program has been particularly
well-received.  Con will go about 3K under but this is within expectations.

Questions:  (none)

Paul for Dudcon II: Explained rationale for Dudcon.  Dudcon is in the spirit of Spawncon.  It will be a minimalist natcon 
within the worldcon.  Ditmars and the business meeting will be run.  Dudcon is almost halfway towards being funded.  Have 
discussed how memberships will be run – whether all worldcon members will also be natcon members.  To be run away from 
worldcon site so that non-worldcon members are not disenfranchised.  Paul is selling memberships – purely for fund-raising 
purposes. Membership rates… Suggestion about enamel pins for ditmar nominees. GOH by donation.  Fan GOH is Jacob Blake. 
“It’s all on track”.

Jonathan applauded the idea of a cheap voting-only membership.

Questions?

Comment from Alisa: wish to help with fundraising.

Dave: thanks Paul for his report.

Dave: Composition of standing committee: Damien remains on for current con.  Paul is on Dudcon.  Swancon 36 will have 
to nominate someone to be on the committee. 

Current elected members are: Zara Baxter, Jeremy Byrne, Anna Hepworth, Nicole. Ju Landeese.

Dave would like to re-nominate, Zara, Jeremy, Julian. [contact those not present and ask whether they would like 
to nominate]  Will return to that.

Motions on notice: 4 motions – deal with second and third together.

Motion: 

1.	[as per agenda]  Dave explained motion.
Robert: wording is a little imprecise.   Move amendment that “in any other category of these awards”.

Amendment: moved Robert seconded sue.  Carried.
Vote on principal motion; moved Cake, seconded zara.  Carried.

2.	Next two motions: clean up wording to clean up internal references within the rules to previous changes.2
Moved cake. Seconded Baxter. Carried.

3.	moved cake. Seconded Baxter.  Carried.

4.	Motion that ditmar rules be amended to effectively rule out write-in ballots and to not allow any amendments 
to nominations.

Robert: comment – will this preclude corrections by the sub-comm?  No.
Moved cake; seconded ewins. Carried.

Dave: re-open nominations for Standing Committee.

Noms from Dave, Zara, Jeremy, Julian, Ju (nominated by Damien), Anna (nominated by Paul).  Dave declared all nominees elected.

Sue-ann: what happens if Ju and Anna don’t want to commit?  Dave/Julian: we can co-opt.

Dave: General Business

Bill: want to nail down a process whereby people have the ability to engage in the nomination process for the Ditmars.  
Would like the process to be known and to allow sufficient time for people to organise nominations.  Bill wanted to know 
the contacts and the acceptable form of the nominations.  Wanted pre-publicity for the process. 
 
Damien: pointed out the standard availabilities of information for convention and awards information.  

Damien: regretted that discussion did not take place with concom.  Nominations were taken from Bill and some discussion 
did take place.

Robin: the bullsheet is widely available and perhaps some information could be made available to them.

Wide discussion on making ditmar nomination and voting information more widely available.  Paul suggested making 
ditmar.org.au usable for this sort of purpose – even if it is only a pointer to a wiki entry.

Wish of the meeting is that information about nominatable works, the nomination and the voting processes should be more 
available through electronic means.

Dave: any more general business?

Silencio.

Bill wanted to put a motion that recognised the word ‘fanzine’ in the title for the category in which fanzines are eligible.

Motion: Wright, Barber: to insert the word fanzine in the category before ‘e-zine’.

[Carried.]

Zara: general category: why can’t nominations be open all year round?  Discussion of how and when nominations should be open.

Dave: no formal business so meeting is closed.