Chris Wallish
SF3 Communications Committee
If it’s December, it must be… recruitment time for the WisCon Convention-Planning Committee.
The planning committee — most of the time shortened to “concom” — is the stage crew who push buttons, flip levers, and pull the ropes to make WisCon happen every Memorial Day weekend.
“What’s it take to join?”
Willingness to commit to doing a task. You can sign up for something that takes just a couple hours a month, something that largely happens only at the convention, or something that completely wraps up before the convention even starts. You don’t need to be local to Madison for most tasks. And even if you can’t make it to WisCon this year, you can still help out!
“Do I need experience?”
Not necessarily! It can be helpful to have been on a concom before, or to have skills that are relevant to what you’re interested in doing. But WisCon also has decades of experience in training new concom members to pick up a task and carry on.
“Are there meetings? I hate meetings.”
Our monthly meetings are definitely useful (especially closer to the convention), but they’re completely optional. If you’re local to Madison you can join the in-person contingent; if you’re elsewhere in the world you can join the meeting via phone. In between meetings we discuss things via a private Google Group, so regular access to a computer is helpful, as is the ability to respond to emails in a timely fashion.
“Why in the world would I want to join WisCon‘s concom??”
Ahhh. And that is a perfectly fair question. It’s one that I’ve been asked a few times, especially because I stepped into my communications role in the middle of the summer of 2014. So I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve been telling people these past 18 months — I joined because WisCon has been transformative for me, because I knew I had skills that would be useful to the concom and the convention, and because I found I was passionate to help. Which passion comes from one very simple idea: That by helping to build WisCon, I am, in a small but noticeable way, helping to build the sort of world that I want to live in.
This is why the concom needs you. Because we need your skills, your passion, and, yes, sometimes we need your anger to help us build WisCon — to help us build a better WisCon.
As Alexandra Erin wrote last year: “Who runs WisCon? You do. WisCon is your con. It’s run by you, for you.”
WisCon is your con — backstage and out front. Consider joining us on the stage crew.
If you have questions or if you’re interested in any positions, contact us at recruitment@wiscon.net.
(PS: Oh, and the deep dark secret of the concom is… It’s fun to be part of the planning. You meet a group of tremendous, dedicated people who, the next thing you know it, are some of your closest friends.)