And the award for the stupidest committee of 2011 goes too...

Oct 09, 2011 22:10

There has been a big hoohah about the British Fantasy Society Awards at Fantasycon (where apparently your imagination fills in the shortcomings of the hotel for another year), as a whole bunch of them went to people closely connected to the Chairman/awards administrator, David Howe. It's a PR disaster. slovobooksnwhyte and cherylmmorgan have all posted much more eloquently ( Read more... )

conventions, stupid people never learn, octocon, bfs

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Comments 11

omegar October 9 2011, 21:26:18 UTC
Please stop saying things like that! the 2009 incident all happened really close to the event.

It's a pity you can't make it this year.

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slovobooks October 9 2011, 22:01:02 UTC
Yes, I'm going to have to agree with Gar here. It's not so much a 'recent Octocon debacle,' as a two year old incident. Two years back it was a completely different committee, too, and I think it can definitely be said that positive lessons have been learnt all 'round. And, at that, it seems it wasn't the committee as such that barred me, as a single rogue member, acting alone. I suppose I should consider myself lucky they weren't up in a book depository with a sniper rifle...

Although I suppose there's one lesson there for people like the Fantasy Awards folk, in that these things can fade into the past, but are not necessarily completely forgotten.

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omegar October 9 2011, 22:16:38 UTC
Actually what I was tryin to say was don't jinx us, we can still mess
This up! I mean five-ish days is a LONG time on the Internet!!!

Though I think 2009 will stay 'recent' for awhile yet, and this is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as we remember it and don't repeat any of the mistakes that were made, the one involving you been the biggest but not the only one.

Mistakes are made, but most reasonable adults are aware of this, and so accept a timely apology. At least that's what I have found.

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slovobooks October 10 2011, 10:35:34 UTC
Yes, I agree with pretty much everything here! Sort it out, move on, but learn from the experience. I must say, one of the things I do like about UK fandom in general is that they seems to be prepared to have these public discussions about what might be perceived as being wrong, or needing change. I've always felt that Irish fandom could do with something like that, but maybe we're too small a pool of people, and too hot-headed in general for it to work.

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peadarog October 10 2011, 09:19:26 UTC
I went to Fantasycon one year. It was my first ever Con, actually, and like you, I was amazed that there was so little Fantasy to be found anywhere...

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iylliana October 10 2011, 20:40:26 UTC
It's something that was the case even ten years ago, and people clearly haven't stopped having issues with it. I hope that they are as good as their word and actually take that issue seriously now.
If it manages to become less exclusive to people outside of just the in-crowd and more fantasy oriented I would quite happily join.

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iylliana October 10 2011, 20:43:22 UTC
Also, I can't imagine how confusing that was as a first con experience. Were you at least there with people you knew?

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peadarog October 10 2011, 20:44:23 UTC
Nope, I was there alone :)

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jemck October 12 2011, 08:56:38 UTC
I am more hopeful than I have been in the last ten years - wherein I have seen more than one false dawn - of real, substantive change in the BFS.

Not least because the organisation's stalwarts (which does not equal the recent committee) are really starting to understand just how many people have had experiences over the years like Peadar and Angie's.

Previously, the Complacent Tendency have prevailed more by inertia than anything else - when there's been a row, the response has been ah, just a little local difficulty, it'll all blow over and we'll muddle on as before...

Now they are discovering there's no such thing a a little local difficulty in these days of the Net, Twitter, Facebook etc.

And a very good thing too, as far as I am concerned.

If anyone can see real change through, it'll be Graham Joyce.

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iylliana October 13 2011, 16:31:16 UTC
Yes, this.

And Graham does certainly seem to be making strides, and I notice a couple of decent names standing for key positions already, which is great. More power to them. I (and the internet!) will watch with interest what the coming months bring.

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