Conventions, Community and Such (was re: Clique-ish)

[Ebony AKA AngieJ]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Rita Winston <catlady at w...> wrote:
> > Ebony wrote:
> 
> > What I envision is an annual conference, sponsored 
> > each year by a different HP4GU regional club.  The 
> > Londoners can go first (since that'll give me an excuse
> > to go back!), then the next year the New Yorkers, etc.
> > We could have a full list of conference activities... 
> > half scholarly for the academics, half fan-based for
> > the rest of us... imagine the fun we'd have.  
> 
> I thought the regional clubs were like a dozen people each, some
> smaller. A convention like that is a hell of a lot of work to 
organize. Probably too much for a mere dozen people. Negotiating 
hotel contracts requires specialized skills and knowledge. Organizing 
academic activities requires entirely different skills and knowledge.


The regional clubs are a dozen people each only because they are not 
publicized enough.  We haven't sold them well... there are a lot of 
people who are nervous about meeting online people, and even more who 
are just apathetic to the whole idea.  Is a directory for the 
regional clubs and other relevant HP4GU satellites in the VFAQ?  Do 
the list-elves for newbies direct them to the appropriate regional 
club?

Also--you never know who is on the list!  There was a lady a while 
back who was trying to organize a convention... since we never heard 
back I suppose it fell through.  Any academic who can convince 
his/her department of the value of a conference can get their 
support... I know that my university, which sponsors the *weirdest* 
conferences, would be VERY interested in studying HP and "other books 
like it".  And judging from the # of listees who say they were 
introduced to HP by a professor, the academic interest is there.

And *laughing* boy do I *ever* know what's involved with organizing 
conventions.  I have worked my you-know-what off on convention 
committees for church and religious groups before... during finals 
week in college.  I even did it myself when I was a kid twice... from 
age 16 to age 19 I ran a local youth non-profit which entailed 
writing grants (some of which I was awarded), signing contracts, 
etc.  I handled a budget that was a bit bigger than any kid ought to 
have handled (the trick was having adults on your board of directors 
who trusted you to co-sign) and stumbled my way through the SE 
Michigan nonprofit community.  So when the teens on staff wanted to 
have a "really big event", we arranged two fabulous weekends that 
were attended by over 500 people.  (Sidenote--my organization fell 
apart the year after we all began college, but my best friend, my ex-
boyfriend, and I definitely plan to start it up the second she's done 
with law school, he's done with playing around, and I'm finished with 
my Ph.D.)

I believe that people can do whatever they set their minds to.  I 
also believe that there's power in what you say.  If you speak 
positively, then you'll get positive results.  If you don't, you'll 
receive nothing.  Therefore--if the fandom wants a convention, we 
will eventually have one.  If people shoot holes in the idea, then we 
will not.

If people are too shy to meet in person, that's fine... but as 
someone who's met people from books and literature clubs several 
times now, I cannot begin to stress how much fun you are missing.  :-D

No one's saying any of this will happen overnight, or even within the 
next year or two.  But... it can happen.

> I know a married couple who used to throw DoItYourselfCon (Con is 
short  for convention, like BARB mentioned Worldcon which is World 
Science Fiction Convention) by renting an entire motel for a weekend, 
mailing invitations to most of their friends, and taking it on faith 
that the musicians would bring their guitars and play for anyone 
who'd stand still for it, the authors would bring their works-in-
progress and talk about them endlessly, the SCAers would bring their 
swords and put on a fighting demo without even being asked....  but 
the world wasn't so paranoid about liability insurance in those days.
> 

LOL!  That's funny... but actually, why couldn't we... nah...

It's a shame in a way that HP4GU is a virtual organization only... my 
collegiate church was well insured and the Baptist Student Union were 
covered by the Southern Baptist Convention (yes, that's my background 
and still is--the People Who Hate Disney).  And once my Children's 
Cultural Connection incorporated and got our 501-C3 status, somehow 
one of our grown-up board members got us millions of dollars' worth 
of insurance.  

If we could obtain some sponsorship from a concrete entity, we'd be 
covered by them.


> > I'd love to do Yule Owls this year...
> 
> Suggestion: in order to have mercy on the poor souls who work for
> Yog-Xipcode (the Post Awful), let's not do it at Midwinter Holiday 
when they are already overburdened. Could we do it for a Potterish 
holiday, perhaps Halloween or Harry's Birthday? What else is a 
Potterish holiday? If a thousand people sign up for Holiday Owls 
($340.00 in within-USA postage alone), does the co-ordinator divide 
up the list to send only 50 addresses to each participant?
> 


A thousand people won't sign up... LOL!  Again, here are the steps:

1)  Coordinator solicits e-mail and snail mail addresses on list.
2)  Coordinator compiles a Master List of all snail mail addresses.
3)  Coordinator sends this list via plain text and attachment to all 
on the Master List.
4)  Participants send out greetings at their leisure.

No more than 50-75 people usually participate.

This may not work as well in this fandom because I'm not sure that 
most of us are like your average Kindred personality-wise.  We're 
mostly women, we send out a zillion Christmas cards anyway so a 
zillion more don't matter, and we like things like scrapbooking and 
baking and shopping at stores like "Past Times".  

It's not just for people who celebrate Christmas, either.  
Personally, I like to send Kwanzaa cards to people, since there are 
not very many African-Americans on the list (only two active members 
that I know of on a list that's somewhere between 500-1000).  If 
there are those who celebrate Hanukkah or Winter Solstice, they could 
send out greetings and in doing so educate others about *their* 
beliefs and culture.

Since no one has responded to my message I am assuming that there's 
not much interest in this idea.  If you don't send out holiday cards 
normally, no one is expecting you to do it just for fandom's sake.

Angela--glad to see you made it back!

--Ebony AKA AngieJ