[interactionfilk-discuss] Filk Liaison

[rafe@xxxxxxxxxx (Rafe Culpin)]

There's been some confusion about just what we need to do at this point. To 
try and clarify matters, this is how I see the situation. I'm posting this 
to FILK_UK and to the interactionfilk-discuss list, and printing it in 
WiGGLe this week:

We need somebody or bodies who will take on the commitment of acting as 
liaison with the WorldCon committee and eventually running the filk 
programme at the con, or finding someone else to run that programme. Is 
there anyone who can take on that role, and form the team that will run the 
filk programme? It doesn't have to be the same person all the time, but it 
does need someone to take on the commitment of getting that team organised, 
and in the meantime handling whatever comes up.

And it looks like we need this very soon.

Yes, I am asking someone to make a commitment. Because we are asking other 
people to make commitments to us.

We are asking the committee to commit some of their limited resources to 
us, on the understanding that we will make good use of them.

And we are asking other filkers to commit their time, money and resources 
to coming to WorldCon on the understanding that there will be an organised 
filk programme there.

The filkers need to know this well before hotel bookings open (planned for 
September 2nd 2004). The committee need to know it in time to commit the 
resources, and judging from the latest email I had from them they are 
beginning to get tired of waiting for us.

So we need somebody to make that commitment. It doesn't mean a huge amount 
of work, and most of it doesn't need to be done until much nearer the con. 
But we do have to decide now.


Alternatively we need to decide that we don't have anybody who can make 
such a commitment, and that we will not be running organised filk at the 
2005 WorldCon.

This doesn't mean 'no filk'. Yes, people will still gather somewhere and 
sing, and we might even persuade the committee to let us have some room 
somewhere. But people don't cross the Atlantic on the vague promise that 
there will be a bit of filking somewhere sometime! And the committee won't 
allocate lots of space to a group that can't even find someone to commit to 
doing something with that space.

Some filkers will still travel, because they do other things at WorldCon 
and it's still worth their while to come. But we have already seen comments 
on FILK_UK from people who will not be coming if there's no promise of an 
organised filk programme. There will also be UK filkers who will make their 
decision whether or not to come partly based on this.

If the only filk is back to a few people squeezed into a corner somewhere, 
then that's simply not worth the investment needed for a WorldCon unless 
you're going for something else and filk is entirely incidental.

We had a superb filk programme in 1995. We had a gathering of many filkers 
from many different countries, most of whom would never meet each other 
anywhere else. We have the chance to have that again.

So which is to be? We can't just keep putting the decision off, and once 
we've made the decision we can't change it. If we decide to run organised 
filk then a lot of people will be buying memberships, making hotel 
bookings, booking vacation, and making holiday plans based on that. If we 
decide not to run organised filk then we also can't change our minds later. 
Function rooms will already have been allocated. Hotel rooms will all be 
booked up. People will have made other plans.

If we want the WorldCon committee to allocate us the resources we need then 
we have to convince them that we are serious. We appear to be running out 
of time to convince them.

We've kept putting the decision off until later. We can't keep saying 
later. Later is now.