San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc.

On February 23, 2013 in Albany, New York, one of ConFrancisco’s Guests of Honor, jan howard finder (known as “Wombat”), died after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 73 years old. His obituary in the Albany Times-Union includes the 1993 Worldcon as one that “[solidified] his place in the ranks of fan culture” and details his interests and activities in Fandom. SFSFC sends our condolences to his girlfriend, Lin Daniel, and shares our regret in the passing of one of Fandom’s colorful figures.

Memorial donations are being asked to go towards The Wombat Foundation.

Minutes of the regular meeting of July 30, 2011 are now available on our meeting minutes page.

Westercon 66, the 2013 West Coast Science Fantasy Conference, has been adopted as part of the SFSFC corporate family and will be run as a committee of SFSFC, like the two past Westercon run by SFSFC. Convention co-chairs Kevin Roche and Andy Trembley will continue to run Westercon 66, which will be held at a yet-to-be-determined site in the Sacramento, California area.

The Westercon 66 bid was awarded to a committee headed by Roche and Trembley by a vote of the Westercon 64 Business Meeting after no eligible bid won the regular site-selection election. Kevin and Andy came to the SFSFC Board of Directors asking if SFSFC would be willing to the sponsoring non-profit, tax-exempt corporation behind Westercon 66, and the Board voted at their July 30 meeting to bring Westercon into the corporate fold and to confirm Kevin and Andy as committee co-chairs.

The Westercon 66 committee is currently evaluating sites in the Sacramento area. Further announcements from Westercon 66 are expected during Renovation, this year’s Worldcon in Reno, Nevada.

The regular meeting of the SFSFC Board of Directors on July 30 has been rescheduled to 2 PM Pacific Daylight Time. The meeting was originally scheduled for 11 AM that morning.

The July 30 meeting is being held at a location with limited parking. If you are planning to attend, please check the Meeting Information Page regarding contacting us to tell us you’re going to be attending.

We have posted our fiscal year 2009-2010 information returns — Forms 990 and 199 (US IRS and California Franchise Tax Board, respectively) — on our Financial Statements page.

The Science Fiction Outreach Initiative will be staffing a table at Wondercon 2011, starting Friday, April 1, giving away free books and working to let more people know about the wide array of fannish activities in our region. Stop by and say hello or even volunteer to help staff the table if you have time.

Minutes of the regular meeting of March 19, 2011 are now available on our meeting minutes page.

Minutes of the regular and office-election meetings of November 20, 2010 are now available on our meeting minutes page.

A brand-new convention has arrived in San Francisco. FOGcon (“Friends of Genre” Con) is scheduled for March 11-13, 2011, so now’s the time to buy your membership. It’s a literary-themed San Francisco SF/F con in the tradition of Wiscon and Readercon, with Honored Guests ranging from writers to scientists to artists. We will build community, exchange ideas, and share our love for the literature of imagination.

For 2011, the inaugural guests are Pat Murphy and Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, with Fritz Leiber as the Ghost of Honor.

The SFSFC Board of Directors adopted two bylaw amendments at their meeting on November 20, 2010.

• The corporation’s fiscal year now ends on the last day of March instead of June, effective immediately. (This creates a short fiscal year July 1, 2010-March 31, 2011.)
• The Board now has increased flexibility in setting the size of the Board of Directors to any number between and including 7 and 13 members. (The SFSFC Board currently consists of 11 members.)

Details of the newly-adopted changes are in Articles 9 and 3, respectively, of the updated SFSFC Bylaws.