2007 Natcon BM minutes

From Australian sf information

This article includes the minutes of the NatCon Business Meeting conducted at Convergence 2 in Melbourne in 2007.

These minutes should be considered unofficial, having yet to be approved by the 2008 NatCon Business Meeting.

Minutes

Natcon business meeting minutes 2007

Chair: Julian Warner
Secretary: David Cake

Meeting Opened 11:09 am

David Cake spoke briefly to explain some some aspects of the minutes concerning the minutes of the 2005 Natcon. 
The exact text of a motion governing Ditmar timing for conventions held early in the year had been lost at the 
time of the 2006 Natcon, but has since been recovered (and the effect of the motion incorporated into the Ditmar rules).
David gave a brief Swancon 2008 report.
Motion - the minutes of the 2006 natcon be taken as a true and accurate record of the meeting.
Moved Rose Mitchell/ Sue Ann Barber

Ditmar report
Rose reported that she had lost the Ditmar administrators report in the bar last night.
Recommendation from the report is that the 2007 convention strongly recommends that the Ditmars get managed by a 
continuing body, such as the standing committee of the Natcon. Report to follow by the end of week.

Terry Frost asked if the problems with Ditmar categories resulted from having too many Ditmars, Sue Ann Barber 
replied that the problems were due to a poor match between Ditmar categories and current activity, brief discussion 
followed. It was foreshadowed that a motion concerning a continuing body to run the Ditmars would be presented 
later in the meeting.

Natcon bids for 2009  
Jaunita Landéesse presented a Swancon 2009 bid for Easter 2009, and indicated that Swancon would prefer an 
Adelaide convention, but that Swancon 2009 would be prepared to accept the Natcon if preferred by the meeting.

Damian Warman  presented a bid for an Adelaide Natcon for 2009, to be held over the South Australian Queens 
Birthday weekend.
Convention to be known as Conjecture
To be run by international fandom and the floating friends of former fan funds.
Damian Warman to be chair. Sean Williams to be convention DJ. Ang Rosin to be in charge of interpretative dance, 
possibly via video link. Roman Orzanski to deal with electronic communication. Others, including Allison Barton 
and David Cake, to assist in other capacities.

Moved that Adelaide bid be accepted as the 2009 Natcon
Terry Frost/Paul Ewins
Carried.

Natcon standing committee nominations and selection
Appointed members from sitting conventions       :
Damian Warman for Conjecture
David Cake for Swancon
Perry Middlemiss for Convergence 2

Nominated members:
Julian Warner
Zara Baxter (to be confirmed)
Jeremy Byrne (to be confirmed)
Nicole Murphy
Terry Frost
Jaunita Landéesse
Motion: that all nominated be elected to the Natcon Standing Committee
Paul Poulton/Roman Orzanski

There was a report from the Australia in 2010 Worldcon bid by Perrry Middlemiss
No chair currently, to be decided in the next couple of months. There is a planned push for Australian fans to 
take up supporting memberships (for the Denver 2008 Worldcon) at Perth Natcon next year. Financial reports from 
the 1999 Worldcon have been finalized and no further reports to WSFS are necessary.
Interested parties can ask to join the committee, or buy pre-supporting memberships, etc via the Australia 
in 2010 web site.

Dave Cake, took the mic  to report on the natcon standing committees activity over the year.
The committee was tasked with considering some future adjustments to Ditmar rules
Some suggested changes in the appendix to the Ditmar rules are no longer relevant and committee wanted to 
dump them. These items to be considered in general business.
The committee was also tasked with applying some guidance to running the ditmars.
Dave is currently producing a rough guide to running the ditmars and an annotated version of the ditmar rules 
for those running in future.  Will be done in Wiki format.
Will probably include some suggestions about running ditmars which may not be agreed by all future committees, 
so is currently in the form of suggestions and interpretations.

Meeting suspended at 11.56 am to reconvene at 1pm

Meeting reconvened 1.12 pm

General Business
Motion
That the Natcon business meeting binds and directs the national convention standing committee to present rules, 
regulations and procedures for the organisation of an ongoing Ditmar committee, which will organize, control 
and administer the Ditmar awards for each and every national science fiction convention. These rules, 
regulations and procedure are to be finalised by December 31, 2007, to be distributed to all eligible 
Ditmar voters (ie members of the 2007 and 2008 national conventions) for discussion prior to the 
2008 National SF convention business meeting.
At the 2008 Natcon business meeting, a vote is to be taken to implement those rules, regulations, and 
procedures, which are to take effect from the close of the 2008 Natcon.
Moved Middlemiss/Mitchell

Discussion followed. In discussion it was suggested that there may be voting and advisory members of the 
committee, that a tenure of 3 years would be appropriate, and that members of the committee would be 
elected at the 2008 business meeting following the vote on the rules, however all these were suggestions 
to the Natcon standing committee rather than part of the motion.

The motion was then put and carried.

Business from the standing committee.
Discussion about the number and relevance of existing Ditmar categories followed. Some items may need 
to be discussed on an individual basis to ensure some consistency from year to year. 

There were some items referred from the Natcon standing committee referring to section 8 of the Ditmar 
rules concerning foreshadowed changes to the rules that have been pending for a number of years. 
The standing committee considered these items and concluded that some items were still open issues 
for discussion, but some others had little current support and could be dropped.

Discussion of Ditmar rules 8.1 and 8.2 concluded that there were open and controversial issues and that 
no consensus existed and they will be passed on to the next Natcon standing committee. A number of 
different opinions were expressed on the procedure for handling withdrawal from nomination.

There appeared to be no current support for section 8.3 within the mail Ditmar rules Motion - that 
section 8.3 of the Ditmar rules be deleted.
Moved David Cake/ Sue Ann Barber
Carried

8.3, dealing with the provision of a list of eligible items, to be shifted to the Natcon standing 
committee for consideration along with other Ditmar procedural issues, rather than  being part 
of the Ditmar rules.
    
The Natcon standing committee recommended that Section 8.5, suggesting the addition of a number of 
additional art categories, be deleted as it had little support. It was discussed and met with no 
support from the meeting.
Motion - that section 8.5 be deleted from the Ditmar rules.
Whitehead/Barber
Carried

Meeting Closed 1.58 pm