Swancon 1
Contents |
Swancon 1 - Duckcon 13
The first West Australian Science Fiction Convention, held on October 9th-11th 1976.
Committee
- Anthony Peacey (Chairman)
- Wally Blackburn
- Grant Stone
- Cliff Wind
Memberships
Membership may have been $5. There seems to have been a supporting membership. In a letter dated 12 September 1976 to Dave Oldman, an SFnal friend in the UK, Anthony Peacey wrote:
- We are using my address for SWANCON (indeed to Gloria's disgust it will be held here) and I keep geeting[sic] odd little items of mail, mostly from fandom over east. I think they all wonder what might be stirring in hickland. "...if you've got a thriving fandom over there we want to know about it." wrote Allan Bray, president of the South Australian SF Society. If we've got a thriving fandom over here we want to know about it too, Allan. However, he also offered to pay a supporting membership, which offer we shall not decline.
Guests
Maureen Smith was probably a guest rather than a full member. She may have been present only on the Saturday afternoon for her talk and the subsequent discussion. She was doing a literature PhD around SF at Murdoch, which she completed in 1978.
Members
| 1. | Anthony Peacey | 21. | Michael Alder | |
| 2. | Wally Blackburn | 22. | Maureen Smith | |
| 3. | Nancy Blackburn | 23. | Roy Ferguson | |
| 4. | Grant Stone | 24. | Damian Brennan | |
| 5. | Cliff Wind | 25. | Robert Goug | |
| 6. | Carl Peacey | 26. | Geraldine Lockyer | |
| 7. | S. W. Szymonek | 27. | L. Martin | |
| 8. | J. Gartland | 28. | Larry Dunning | |
| 9. | Graham Gough | 29. | S. Gunnell | |
| 10. | Peter Parkinson | 30. | K.J. Rieder | |
| 11. | Adam Jenkins | 31. | A. F. J. Bray | |
| 12. | Andrew Harvey | 32. | Lyn Errington | |
| 13. | Jim Dick | 33. | Tony Errington | |
| 14. | Tony de Groot | 34. | Paul Lowthorpe | |
| 15. | Yvonne Coombs | 35. | Una Gajadhar | |
| 16. | Judith Hanna | 36. | Meg Howroyd | |
| 17. | Ken Youngson | 37. | Robin Heckler | |
| 18. | Stuart Burnfield | 38. | Maureen Gell | |
| 19. | W. M. Hand | 39. | David Greely | |
| 20. | Jean Horner | 40. | Lincoln Fowler |
Venue
Anthony and Gloria Peacey's house in Milne Street, Bayswater.
All efforts to have the house listed as a World Heritage Fannish Shrine having failed it was sold to mundanes in 2002.
History
There is history
Academic and Expert Stream
Or something like that to cover the Murdoch-UWA dissonance
Movie Screenings
In keeping with the elevated and intellectual tone of the proceedings (vide Cygnetures passim) there were no actual SF movies; instead several documentary movies procured by Grant Stone through the good offices of Murdoch University Library were shown, about the science fiction genre and SF authors. The program lists the titles as:
- Science Fiction
- Ideas in Science Fiction
- Plot in Science Fiction
- New Directions in Science Fiction
- Story of a writer : Ray Bradbury
- Icarus Montgolfier Wright
- Lunch with John W. Campbell
- Science Fiction Films
- Werner von Braun
- Stranger than Science Fiction
Who and what did we see in these films? Cliff Wind wrote:'Films of SF figures, Campbell, Ellison, Knight, Anderson, Sturgeon, Harrison, Clarke, Dickson, Clarke, Bradbury, and 4E; NASA films, The Eagle, Skylab' (Cygnetures Page 11). Using the following scheme (Cygnetures Page 8) Damian Nite awarded them scores of relative merit(?):
| ****** | - | Deleted expletive | *** | - | Let's do something else |
| ***** | - | Let's have tea | ** | - | Let's do anything else |
| **** | - | Let's have lunch | * | - | R.S. |
The only film to score 6 stars - 'Tarzan' (Simba Productions Ink) - did not appear on the printed program, possibly because it compromised the 'elevated and intellectual tone'. For this little gem Nite obviously found the usual 5 stars insufficient. It would be interesting to know what expletive he deleted. But alas! the mists of time... The characters in 'Tarzan' were played by Anthony Peacey's kids, and the lion by his dog. The tape exists but at the moment is unplayable, requiring as it does an antediluvian reel to reel videotape player. Efforts are being made to have this peerless production converted to DVD; as of now (20 January 2011) it looks as if the tape must go to Sony in Japan, or a lab in the Netherlands. Stay tuned.
Cygnetures
Cygnetures is a strange beast, a cross between a fanzine afire with naiveté and enthusiasm and a con report. It is an omnium gatherum of musings, stories, accounts of the con, personal journeys to the con or to SF - even a poem; typed with a variety of type faces, Gestetnered onto white and yellow paper of varying sizes. In form and content it reflects the nature and mood of the auspicious gathering that gave it birth.
Most of the texts were written or started at the Fanzine Factory event of the con itself. Some of these were possibly finished later, some apparently never finished. Dave Underwood co-ordinated the editorial effort. This took maybe a year. (Dave was not at the con, but picked up the job afterwards.)
Notes
