WASFF Chair's award

The WASFF Chair's award is given at the discretion of the WASFF chair (often, but not necessarily with the agreement and/or connivance of the board). It is designed for occasions when a person should be honoured, but WASFF/Swancon's other awards are not thought suitable (for whatever reason).

Rohan Wallace, WASFF chair

2009: Ju Landéesse

For making a significant contribution to WASFF and SwanCons over a significant period of time, Jaunita Landéesse Is hereby awarded, The WASFF Chairperson’s Award 2009

Doug recalls that Rohan referred to Ju as "everybody's favourite lap cat" in his speech.

Doug Burbidge, WASFF chair

2013: Rohan Wallace

For contributions in being an organiser over a period of time, Rohan Wallace is hereby awarded The Chair’s Award 2013

2014: Jack Bridges

For making a significant contribution to WASFF and Swancons over a significant period of time, Jack Bridges is hereby awarded The Chair’s Award 2014

Doug says:

The Mumfan would have been appropriate here, except that Jack was a WASFF board member at the time, and the Mumfan is voted by the board. So we waited until Jack left the meeting, and we conspired.

At the awards ceremony, I had arranged with other board members (except Jack) that they would come up and stand next to me as I read my speech. Evidently I undercommunicated this part, and so I would up a few words into my speech (the "and this is why another board member is standing beside me... and another, and another..." bit) before most of the board members came up and stood in a line to my left. Jack, who had no idea why he was coming up and joining the line, came up and joined the line. Thus I know that Jack finds it more important to do the right thing than to know why he is doing it.

2016: Brendan Ragan

For making a significant contribution to WASFF and Swancons behind the scenes, Brendan Ragan is hereby awarded The Chair’s Award 2016

Speech:

I've known this person for some years. They're always worth listening to, because they've always got something interesting to talk about – usually regarding one of the five different things they're doing simultaneously.

You have all benefited from this person's work behind the scenes.

Some of our processes have in the past involve enormous amounts of labour and take a long time to do, so that we only know results long after the fact. Replacing those manual processes with quicker ones saves great effort, and lets us know where we stand right away. For example, this year our 2016 convention treasurer was able to give accurate attendance figures to the AGM a few hours ago, because of our computerised ticketing system. And when, as this year, we find a mismatch between AV gear and the rooms a few program items were scheduled in, LiveCon lets us effectively make program changes on the fly.

You may be aware that we got the ticketing system and LiveCon primarily due to the efforts of one person, who gave us one of those things for free, and the other in return for a tiny fraction of what we would otherwise have paid for bespoke software.

It is my pleasure to present the WASFF Chair's award to Brendan Ragan.