Swancon Progress Reports
PR 0
PR0 comes out at your launch. It should have all the exciting info, plus some hints at more (if you don't have some things nailed down.)
It should contain:
- Venue
- Guests of Honour
- Fan Guest of Honour
- Theme (and be in theme)
- First planned fundraising/marketing event (if you have details of more than one, put them in too)
- Contact details
- Call for Volunteers
It would be really lovely if it contained:
- More than one planned fundraising/marketing event
- a proto-programme or a few words on the programmer's Plan (if they have one)
- a few words from GoHs, (I'm terribly excited, it's going to be a lot of fun, ra ra ra)
- Details on committee members
- new things the committee are really excited about
Please upload a PDF version of this to the Swancon website and then link from the Swancon Livejournal http://community.livejournal.com/swancon/profile. Then please also announce on Twitter, Facebook and any other social medium we can get our hands on see Accounts. This PR may also be printed and left in key areas, such as Libraries and Bookshops.
PR 1 and Others
PR1 should confirm all of the important stuff
- Dates
- Venue
- Guests of Honour
- Calls for Volunteers and details on how to do so
- Next few marketing/fundraising information
- Advertising for Short Story Competition and details
- Advertising for conbag fillers or ads for conbook(s)
- Advertising from Sponsors
- Contact details for the Concom
And contain further information. In any of the PRs following the launch, the above information should be included and the below information can be used at any time.
- Statement of Values
- More calls for specific duties or specific committee members
- Calls for programming items
- Hype for your theme/idea
- Articles from committee members
- Exciting developments in SpecFic in WA if you're feeling enthused
- an update from GoHs about any shiny new things they wish to mention
Please upload a PDF version of this to the Swancon website, and then link from the Swancon Livejournal http://community.livejournal.com/swancon/profile. Then please also announce on Twitter, Facebook and any other social medium we can get our hands on. This PR may also be printed and left in key areas, such as Libraries and Bookshops.
When
Consider matching your progress report dates to your price rises: if you put out a PR a couple of weeks before a price rise, and loudly announce said price rise, it's harder for people to say they weren't warned. Consider matching your PR dates to other conventions: if there's a convention in Melbourne in August, put out a PR in late July, so you can get copies of a nice fresh PR to them.
If you put dates on your progress reports, consider showing a date a little later than your intended release date. For example, if you're planning to release a PR in late February, write "March" on the front cover. Then, if your date slides a little because a certain committee member was a little late with submitting material, you don't look stupid. And if you do actually hit your intendd date, then people say, "Hey, this is the March PR and it's only the 27th of February -- this Swancon committee are really together guys who know exactly where their collective towel is."
How
In years gone by, cons used to paper-mail PRs to every paid-up member. In recent years, this has happened less, as conventions have just slapped a digital copy up on the web site and announced it on the Swancon list. If you follow this path, make sure the digital format is easy to read -- don't require the latest super-duper version of Acrobat, because lots of people haven't got the month or two required to download it. Similarly, make sure the file containing the PR is not enormous -- very few people are going to print it out poster-size and blu-tac it to their wall, so the graphics don't need to be 1000x1000.