Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Westercon 66 Site Selection will happen at the Business Meeting because the write-in bid (didn't file papers and thus wasn't eligible) for Granzella's Inn in Winters CA got 42 votes to Portland's 41. (Portland was the only bid on the ballot and the only bid that actually filed.) Under the provisions of the Westercon Bylaws, as no eligible bid won, the Business Meeting gets to decide. I'm chairing that meeting.

The meeting is at 11:30 AM later today (Sunday). The originally scheduled room (California) is obviously too small, and I think we'll probably end up in Club Regent, which I think is the correctly-sized room for the number of people likely to attend the meeting.

After spending close to an hour ensconced with Ben Yalow and other interested persons, and also spending quite a while talking with individuals about this here and there around the convention, I've worked up a prepared statement for the beginning of Sunday's meeting that I hope will keep things as smooth as they can be under the circumstances.

I wish I could write some more, but it's nearly 2 AM and I'm going to have to be up earlier than I originally planned in order to be in place for what is likely to be the most formal Business Meeting over which I've ever presided.

The Saturday Afternoon Match Game SF went wonderfully. I'd write more and upload photos, but the matters of the Site Selection have soaked up all of my available time.

The Westercon Business Meeting has indeed been moved to the Club Regent Room on the ground floor of the Fairmont Hotel. (Thank you, dsmoen!) The only challenge there that I can see is the number of people with whom I spoke last night who said that they couldn't figure out where the Club Regent Room is! If by chance you're reading this on Sunday morning and are at Westercon and know where that room is (ground floor, between Lobby Bar and the hotel's front doors on Market Street), please help your fellow members find the room!

The Business Meeting lasted a bit over three hours. In the end, by a vote of 93-27 (which is closer than you think because you need a 3/4 vote to win), the Business Meeting voted to award Westercon 66 to the "Olive Country" bid from bovil and kproche. Because bids selected under these fallback procedures are really just picking a committee and trusting them to pick a site, there is no specific site picked out, although it's likely to be in the Sacramento area. Kevin & Andy are doing the Renovation Masquerade, and therefore we can't expect a whole bunch of activity from them until after Worldcon on this.

It was a really stressful experience for many people including me, and I'm actually quite glad that we went into Committee of the Whole for 30 minutes because that's half an hour that I could go sit down in the wings and not be "on" since I don't preside over CotW.

The Olive Country bid initially failed to get enough votes (83 yes, 29 no), but none of the other bids even had enough support to justify counting. The Portland bid (the one that was actually on the ballot) was closer than the other two, which were the Utah in 2014 Westercon bid saying that they were willing to move up a year, and a bid for Maui. After all four proposals were rejected by the Business Meeting (that 3/4 vote requirement) and after motions to declare a deadlock (majority required) were also rejected, the meeting voted to reconsider the original vote on Olive Country. That passed, so the Olive Country bid was back up on the radar, and on the second vote, it just barely managed to get the necessary majority.

That's the longest Business Meeting over which I've ever presided as a single (sort of) continuous session. I feel pretty good about it, and my ego has been stroked mightily by the large number of people coming up to thank me. If I were a drinking fan, I'd be sloshed right now. But I can't afford that anyway, because we have Girl Genius Radio Theatre at 8 PM tonight and Match Game SF at 10 PM, both in Club Regent, the same room where I spent the day presiding.