Minutes, 1997-11-23 Recorded by Eli Bohmer Lebow Sent to hrsfa-announce Sun, 23 Nov 1997 20:50 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Minutes, HRSFA general meeting 1997-11-23 18:15; Julian day 2 450 776.467 Sever 110 Recorded by Claudia Mastroianni [As the only officer present at the beginning of the meeting, I presided over the meeting, at least until Kyle showed up. Claudia took minutes, which are here presented, very slightly edited by me. By the way, I misstated the date of the HRSFA 10th anniversary party in the previous minutes. It will be 1998-02-07, Saturday the 7th of February, early second semester of _this_ academic year. I missated the year in last time. --Eli] At 18:15, the meeting was noted to already be orderly. We have no table to auction off; it turns out the table we thought we had belongs to Pforzheimer. We may well move it elsewhere... there is apparently a fine tradition of migratory furniture in and near the reading room. Matt Ender asked whether Piracy SIG attempted to make off with the table hidden in their poofy pants. Such rumors remain completely unsubstantiated. Susan was not present to talk about the library. We have lots of stuff in it and more stuff arriving soon and if a bigger space to turn into our library presented itself, we'd probably jump upon it instantly. We think the library is not quite yet settled. Susannah arrived and asked what Eli had done with the co-chairs. She was temporarily placated. Alan Sundell has not actually given us the computer he had donated to HRSFA. The reason: we had valued it at approximately $100 and accepted it in return for a permanent membership. We soon thereafter made the price for *any* such memberships $50, rather than the two-tiered price system that had existed before. Alan wants two such permanent memberships for himself. Philosophical diatribes on the meaning of a second permanent membership for one person ensued. Would this mean that if the universe, Alan, and HRSFA (in no particular order) ceased to exist, and then came into being again, Alan would have a membership in *that* HRSFA? Isn't it a bit cavalier of us to presume to speak for another HRSFA in another universe? Shouldn't we just avoid all this fuss and give Alan his silly membership? Etc. It was suggested that Alan be given a second membership which may be bestowed on someone *else* of his choice. (At 18:23, a co-chair finally arrived.) Alan's original request was voted down. Instead, the meeting voted to counter-offer him a second $50 membership he may bestow upon someone who doesn't already have a permanent membership. Mao Tse-tung and Alan Greenspan were cited as examples. Kelly got what she needed from Turley (an invoice?) to keep grant things on track. What with all the grants we're getting, Fusion will be published practically free to us. Non-SIG reports: Orson Scott Card bought various people books when they came without books they wanted to get autographed. He rocks. Allen Steele and Orson Scott Card read and chatted at the MIT author series. OSC rocks some more. Allen Steele liked the name "Niedzwiecki" and made note of it as a possible name for a character. Ellen Kushner and someone else will be the next authors in the series, which will be December 4, again, a Thursday, at 19:00 (7 pm). An outing will be announced that week. "Someone else" is a new female science fiction author who does not yet appear on the web page and whose name no-one recognized. SIG reports: Writer's SIG has been resurrected. There will be a meeting tomorrow (Monday) probably in the Science Center Greenhouse at 20:00, but watch for a separate posting. Comics SIG will be on the first Saturday of each month in Susannah's room. Star Trek gatherings happened. This week's DS9 was bad. Mirror universe dude came to the DS9 universe. X-Files is now an official, at-least-8-member, SIG. We think X-Files is tonight (Sunday). Gaming: Talisman: went well -- the PCs are romping through time to find talismans before the bad guy can do ultimate bad things with them. Ravenloft: they're hosed -- Aaron's character died, the party is about to be crushed by a mob of cabbage-headed pod people. Lords of Chaos: met thrice -- they fucked things up in the only possible way open to them, but they got the right person eaten by a black hole. The Lords of Chaos rule the cavern, except that really they don't. Mini-Gameathon: Settlers of Catan, Roborally, Snit's Revenge, and Diplomacy were played. Diplomacy ran until 6:00 (am), and stragglers remained doing RPG preparation until 8:00. Computer gaming and anime viewing were scattered in as well. Non-mini Gameathon: We don't know, Aaron didn't come to the meeting. But it's all Igor's fault. If GAT happens, play in Igor's LARP. (At 18:43, Chris Hall arrived, 17 minutes early for 7 pm PSIG.] Jessica's Vampire game: Steve's character is captured. Shane's char can't cope with bad stuff happening. Matt Ender's char has to screw people over. Chris's character is being screwed over. Magic the Gathering: Two people showed up at the last meeting. Significantly more people go to tournaments than do other MtG. Rob's game has completed character creation and is on to 1-on-1 sessions. Cool Movie SIG: The Killer and Highlander have been watched. This week, The Black Cauldron. Everyone should show up and keep the Quincy House Film Appreciation Society from doing its appreciating in the JCR. Chris was asked Cool Movie SIG's position on Babylon 5, which come the new season will be airing new episodes on Wednesday nights. Cool Movie SIG effectively declared war on Babylon 5 SIG. 7 pm PSIG was declared at 18:50 to be meeting "in ten minutes". Kyle sought Nils for return of kneepads. Igor coped. Chaos reigned.