Kevin Standlee (kevin_standlee) wrote,
Kevin Standlee
kevin_standlee

  • Location:
  • Mood:

Friday, Sunday Business Meeting Schedule Changes

According to an announcement on the Chicon 7 Business Meeting page, the WSFS Business Meetings on Friday and Sunday will start at 10 AM, not 10:30 AM as originally scheduled and as the printed program schedule has it. The Saturday meeting will start at 10:30 AM as originally scheduled. To stress this: The Friday and Sunday WSFS Business Meetings will start 30 minutes earlier than the printed program schedule says. The WSFS Business Meetings will be in Columbus CD.

I'm not personally responsible for the Business Meetings, as I'm not part of the head table staff, but I'd noticed the potential for scheduling trouble as soon as the early draft came out and sent messages of concern to what I thought were the responsible people, but I guess it didn't come to the right people's attention until after the program had went to the printer. Chicon has scheduled only a single 90 minute slot for the Friday and Sunday meetings, and the "base" of their program starts at 9 AM, not the more conventional 10 AM. Consequently, the traditional starting time of the Business Meeting at 10 AM actually went to 10:30. When I'm presiding, I ask for 3-hour slots for Friday and Saturday, although you can usually get away with 90 minutes or two hours for Sunday, and the Monday meeting is an "overflow" that hasn't been used since 1992.

By rule, the Business Meeting must start sometime not before 10:00 nor after 13:00. This rule was passed two Chicons ago when Programming put the Business Meeting at 8:30 AM, causing a revolt among the SMOFS.

Friday's Preliminary Business Meeting (10 AM, Columbus CD) will work through setting up the agenda for the Main Meeting, including receiving reports for various WSFS Committees and also receiving nominations for the WSFS Mark Protection Committee. This may sound like something you can skip, but bear in mind that this is where new constitutional amendments first come up, whereupon they can be killed without debate or amended. (I'm personally expecting to move an amendment on one of the proposed constitutional amendments affecting its "sunset clause," for instance.) There are people who have skipped Friday's meeting because "nothing important happens there," turned up on Saturday, and discovered that the thing they expected to debate wasn't even on the agenda, or was there in a form they didn't recognize, because the Friday meeting had killed/amended it out of shape. This is the WSFS equivalent of bills dying in committee, since the Friday meeting is (in effect) a Quasi-Committee of the Whole on Rules and Resolutions.

Saturday's Main Business Meeting (10:30 AM, Columbus CD) is where debate on constitutional amendments mostly happens. This particularly includes the pending constitutional amendments awaiting ratification: the Best Fancast Hugo and the substantial reworking of the Best Semiprozine Hugo. Should the proposed Young Adult Fiction Hugo survive the Preliminary Business Meeting, it will be debated and get its first vote here too. The Mark Protection Committee members will be elected here as well.

Sunday's Site Selection Business Meeting (10 AM, Columbus CD) will formally receive the results of the 2014 Worldcon Site Selection and also deal with any business for which there was insufficient time on Saturday. The Mark Protection Committee may meet after this meeting, although since there's only a single slot (albeit an elongated 2-hour slot thanks to the 30-minute advance), there may not be time for it here, in which case the MPC may not meet until Monday morning in the "overflow" business meeting slot.
Tags: business meeting, chicon, mpc, worldcon, wsfs
Subscribe

  • 100

    The number 100 showed up in my life in two different but related contexts in the past day or so. Yesterday afternoon, I took a blood sugar…

  • Splat

    I had a close call yesterday. After collecting the mail, I was walking back to the van when I tripped while stepping off the curb. I fell flat…

  • Propane

    Today, Lisa and I went to Hanneman Service to refill the large (27 gal) propane bottle. However, I'm not healed sufficiently to push the hand cart,…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
  • 2 comments