[interactionfilk-discuss] Re: Filk Liaison

[Bill Sutton <bill@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I will do it if there is someone in the UK who is willing to act as 
dogsbody.

Please note that if I run it, it will be only a partially organised filk 
programme, with about 3 hours of concerts per day and a few panels - I 
will be trying to get filkers into the main programming panels more than 
anything else.

I would encourage anyone who would be planning to go to WorldCon only 
for the filk to save their money and go to the UK filk con instead. Much 
better value for money and a gathering of many (if not most) of the same 
international filkers who would be coming to WorldCon.

I would be happy for someone else to run a more complete programme, but 
if I'm stepping up then I'm doing it ...

    Myyyyyyyyy    Waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy

Bill

Rafe Culpin wrote:

>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.
>
>