2002 Natcon BM minutes

Minutes of the Business Meeting of the 50th Anniversary Australian [National] Science Fiction Convention

Convergence 2002 – Cato Convention Centre, Melbourne - 10 June 2002 – 10 am (eastern standard fannish time)

Present: Jack R Herman (BM Chair), Rose Mitchell (Con Chair) and about 60 members of the convention.

Minutes: On the motion of Ian Nicholls, seconded by Jeremy Byrne, the Minutes of the 2001 Business Meeting were accepted as a true and correct record. Janice Gelb undertook to
poorfread the official record for typoes.

Business Arising: The BM Chair ruled that Marc Ortlieb had been spanked at the Auction, thus meeting the 2001 BM requirements.

Constitution: The motion of Rose Mitchell, seconded by LynC, which detailed several amendments to the constitution had been circulated and was debated. The meeting agreed to the
change of nomenclature to the “Australian national Science Fiction Convention” and the other punctuation amendments to the document. It rejected the change to the name of the
award. The amended Constitution is appended as Addendum A.

Motion: Ian Nicholls moved, and Bill Wright seconded, that the Business Meeting recommends that all future Australian National Science Fiction Conventions be held over the Easter
weekend. After a proposal from Robin Johnson, accepted by the movers, the motion was amended to read:
“That this Business Meeting recommends that all future bids for the Australian National Science Fiction Conventions be for the Easter weekend of the year bid for.”
After a debate the motion was defeated.

Rules for the Awards: Chris Lawson suggested a change to 5.3, to delete the first sentence and rename the rule “Merging of categories”. The Meeting agreed to the change, after it
had been amended to include a new introductory phrase, “In the event of there being three of fewer finalists in any of the following categories”.
Chris Lawson and Marc Ortlieb suggested the deletion of 6.3 on “Anonymous voting”, which the meeting endorsed.
Robbie Matthews pointed out the misnumbering of section 3 and proposed changes to rule 3.7, “Collected works”.  After discussion is was agreed to alter the section related to
self-declaration to read, “the editor/s of which declare the work to be professional”.
Marc Ortlieb took up the foreshadowed change in 8.2 on “withdrawal from consideration”. His proposal was that, after nominations, the Ditmar committee should advise nominees of
their nomination and give them the opportunity to withdraw before the ballot was printed. Further suggestions from the floor included that the membership be advised of any such
withdrawal. It was agreed to leave the matter on the table as a foreshadowed change, in the expanded form, for possible debate in 2003.
The Meeting agreed to strike 8.4 from the list of foreshadowed items.
On the suggestion of Dave Cake, the Meeting agreed to revise the form of 8.1 and recommend it to the 2003 Business Meeting.
After a debate about 3.8 “Best Artwork”, it was agreed that a proposal to divide the art award into a number of separate awards, ‘2D’, ‘3D’ and ‘digital’ were suggested categories,
to be governed by the same merging rules as short fiction, be included as a further possible future change. It was also agreed to change the existing clause to refer to “visual
art”.
The revised rules are appended as Addendum B.

Standing Committee: It was noted that the 2001-2002 Standing Committee had no report, even though nit had exchanged emails. It had not developed any rules.
The Chair ruled that the Chairs of 2002, 2003 and 2004 [Rose Mitchell, Brett Griggs and Vanessa Jacobsen] be ex officio members of the committee.
The Meeting then appointed Dave Cake, Jack R Herman, Robbie Matthews, Rohan Wallace and Julian Warner to the committee.
The committee was instructed to elect a Chair and to develop a set of proposed rules for tabling at the 2003 Business Meeting.

Site Selection Meeting: 
Bids were presented by Perth and Canberra. The Canberra bid was acceptred by an overwhelming majority. ConFlux is to be held on 23-26 April 2002 at the Chifley Hotel, Canberra, and
to be run by a committee convened by Vanessa Jacobsen. Sean McMullen was announced as a Guest of Honour and further guests would be announced in the future.

The meeting closed at 12.05 pm.

Jack R Herman
Business Meeting Chairman

See also

• Addendum A - 2002 Natcon Constitution
• Addendum B - 2002 Ditmar Rules