Category Archives: Email Newsletter

Let’s Save WisCon!

This update is written by me, Kit Stubbs (they/them), both in my role as Treasurer for SF3, WisCon’s parent not-for-profit organization, and in my role as WisCon 2022 co-chair. Thanks to Ira Alexandre (WisCon 2022 co-chair, acting Personnel chair) and Aileen Wall (WisCon 2022 co-chair, Hotel) for their help.

First of all: Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent Town Hall, as panelists and attendees! Special thanks to our Board members Arley, for organizing and moderating, and Annalee and Charlie Jane, for organizing and helping with logistics.

WisCon’s roots are grounded in white feminism, and WisCon continues to struggle with racism and with finding ways to center attendees of color who have been harmed. The Town Hall marks a key point in our antiracist work to bring WisCon, particularly as experienced by our attendees and volunteers of color, into better alignment with our values—even if this means that white attendees will have to sit with discomfort.

Working towards a more antiracist con is just one of the major challenges that we face. Unless we, the WisCon community, also take significant action this year in terms of finances and our volunteer pool, within the next few years we will no longer be able to run WisCon.

Why? What’s going on?

Right now, in addition to pushing harder on antiracism, WisCon is facing big challenges on two other fronts: money and labor.

TLDR:

  • We don’t have enough funds to pay for what happens if we don’t fill our contracted block of hotel rooms, and we can’t afford to cancel the hotel contract. We need about $76k in additional income to our general fund by the end of WisCon 2022 to put the con back on solid financial footing.  Thanks to a generous donor, the first $5k we raise will be matched. Donate now to double the power of your donation!
  • We are in a volunteer shortage crisis. It takes a LOT of people to make WisCon happen, and we lack dozens of volunteers in key positions.
  • The Board of SF3 (WisCon’s parent nonprofit) and WisCon organizers are already starting to work on these challenges. There are many things, both large and small, that you can do to help!

What are the financial challenges?

Ideally, when we finish running one WisCon, we should have enough money to cover our expenses for the con that’s happening in two years. Why? Because shortly after each WisCon, typically, is when we sign a contract with the hotel for the con that’s happening in two years. As a ConCom member, I remember hearing “WisCon is very slowly losing money” for several years now. But it didn’t really seem urgent, somehow.

In an ongoing-pandemic world, this has become urgent because of the way our hotel contract works. Right now, we only have a contract signed with our host hotel for May 2022. We have committed to the hotel that WisCon attendees will reserve a certain number of rooms over a certain number of nights. This contract was signed pre-pandemic and assumed normal pre-pandemic WisCon attendance. We pay the hotel some extra rental fees, but most of the hotel space the con uses we get at steeply discounted rates, assuming that we fill those hotel rooms. We’re allowed to reduce our commitment before the deadline by 20% at no penalty, but if we have more unsold rooms than that, WisCon has to pay the hotel for them.

The budget that was approved by the previous Board assumed that we would have fewer in-person attendees this year, but it assumed we would still book our entire block of hotel rooms—the same size hotel block that we would normally book pre-pandemic.

But if we’re expecting fewer in-person attendees, we should also expect fewer hotel rooms to be booked, and that is a cost that WisCon is really not able to absorb.

Couldn’t we just cancel the hotel contract?

We can’t afford the cancellation fee. If we cancelled now, according to our contract, we would owe the hotel $158,000, which we absolutely do not have the resources to cover.

I’ve run some new, conservative budget projections since becoming Treasurer in October. These projections account for online memberships, which our current budget doesn’t (yay!) but also accounts for attrition in hotel rooms, which our current budget also doesn’t (oh no!). I assume that we will take a big hit on hotel rooms in 2022 and that we’ll gradually recover in 2023 and 2024.

If we take no action to change our current trajectory and only book half of our contracted hotel rooms in 2022, SF3 will go broke: We will have spent about $7,000 that the organization does not have.

If we want to get WisCon to a healthy place—meaning we’re at best fiscal practice and have enough money for the con that’s two years out in the bank—we need about $76,000 more in income for 2022 to our general fund. (This $76k doesn’t include funds for any new initiatives, this is just basically keeping the lights on. And this is separate from any WisCon Member Assistance Fund fundraising we do, since WMAF dollars legally can’t be used to pay for anything except grants to members for travel assistance.)

The good news: I’m not saying that we need to suddenly raise $76k in donations alone. This income that we need could come from selling more memberships (online or in-person), booking lots of hotel rooms (so we don’t have to pay the hotel for unused rooms), selling Dessert Salon tickets, grants, or donations. An additional $76k of income to our general fund would help keep us afloat through 2022 and 2023 and help ensure that we would have the funds to run in 2024 and 2025.

If someone were to magically appear and donate $76k to us right now, though, we’d still be in trouble because of our other current challenge: a lack of volunteers.

What’s going on with volunteers?

We’re in a volunteering crisis right now. It takes about 70 pre-con volunteers to make WisCon happen, and we have barely half that.

SF3 is WisCon’s parent not-for-profit organization. WisCon happens because there are a bunch of committees of people within SF3 who do the work, and right now, we have a record number of vacancies.

SF3 has a Board of Directors. Under the Board there are four committees: Personnel (helping to recruit, onboard, and offboard volunteers); Communications (taking care of the newsletter, website, and social media); Strategic Planning (looking at our vision and mission); and the ConCom (the Convention Committee, which handles the logistics of running WisCon). Of those committees, only the ConCom has chairs right now—Personnel, Communications, and Strategic Planning have a few volunteers, but none of these three committees has a leader.

The ConCom itself is made up of the three co-chairs and 28 departments of varying sizes. Currently we have 8 departments that are completely empty and at least 8 that are critically understaffed.

In general, the ConCom has been dwindling for the past several years. We had 71 members in 2017, but only 56 members in 2019. (Here is a graph showing Concom participation by the numbers over the past several years.)

If you’re reading this now, and you’re already a WisCon volunteer: Thank you. I’m not writing this expecting you to suddenly start putting more work on your plate. (If you have the extra capacity, great! But I’m not expecting that of anyone.)

The State of WisCon

We are definitely having a WisCon in 2022. Without more volunteers, we won’t be able to offer nearly as good an experience as we have in the past. Without more financial resources, WisCon 2022 may be the last one.

I believe these challenges are surmountable, but as members of the WisCon community, we have to act quickly to make change.

What are WisCon organizers already working on?

  • The SF3 Board is applying for grants on behalf of WisCon.
  • I (Kit, as Treasurer) am starting to recruit large donors for a matching funds campaign that will help double the power of small donations to WisCon. We already have a match pledged for our first $5k raised!
  • Our Personnel Committee continues to onboard new volunteers as quickly as they can.
  • While the Dessert Salon may work a little differently this year due to health concerns, the ConCom is still organizing a Dessert Salon for 2022! The Dessert Salon is a fundraiser for WisCon in general, and any funds raised through Dessert Salon ticket sales will absolutely help.

What can I do to help?

  • Please sign up for our email newsletter! One of the biggest challenges we have is reaching out to our own community. Sign up and encourage your WisCon-going or potentially-WisCon-going friends to sign up, too.
  • Register as soon as you possibly can when Registration opens this week. The more people who register in advance, the better idea we’ll have of how much additional income we need to bring in. For in-person attendees, consider supporting the con by buying a ticket to our Dessert Salon fundraiser when you register!
  • Book your hotel room as soon as you possibly can. The more hotel rooms we have booked, the less additional funding we’ll need to raise, and the sooner we know how many people will be staying at the hotel, the better.
  • Help spread the word about WisCon. We’re struggling to reach new people, especially younger speculative fiction fans, who might be interested in joining us and who may not know that you don’t need to be an academic or big name to attend WisCon and be on panels!
  • Tell us you’re interested in possibly volunteering, and/or register to attend our Volunteer Info Session on 12/12 at 3pm Central. We’ve previously posted some of our needs from Communications and Personnel and the ConCom. You don’t need to be in Madison to volunteer, and we have many positions open that don’t require you to attend WisCon in person.  If you’ve volunteered for the ConCom in the past and have the time and energy, please consider joining us again. We could really use your expertise!
  • Can you give $5k or more to help save WisCon? Write me (Kit) at treasurer@sf3.org to join our matching funds drive.
  • Have a smaller amount you might be able to contribute? Thanks to a generous donor, the first $5k we raise will be matched. Donate now to double the power of your donation!

Yes, we recognize the pandemic is still going on—if you’re able to book your hotel room and/or register early, great! If you’re able to chip in financially, great! But if not, no worries.

We need to address our issues with money and labor within a larger antiracist framework.  And I think we need to be honest that we’re in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: We’re short on money and volunteers to implement new antiracist policies and practices, which we need in order to attract and retain volunteers, especially volunteers of color.

If you’ve made it this far: Thank you. Posting this feels like the scariest thing I have ever done as a WisCon/SF3 organizer, and I really appreciate your time and energy in reading it.

Announcing Visioning WisCon: a very low-key virtual event

HOW DID IT GET TO BE MAY ALREADY.

This spring (unlike last spring) has gone fast, but we’ve found the time to be sad about the lack of a WisCon this year as much as we have been hearing you are missing it. But we looked at our energy levels (sadly low) and our virtual-event-expertise levels (also pretty low), and we had to conclude that we weren’t going to be able to do a second WisCONline.

BUT! We heard from lots of you, and you said you miss lobby-con, where folks usually get to relax and chat with other con-goers, and bar-con, where folks get to relax and chat with other con-goers, except more dimly lit and with a drink.

Well. We DO have the energy and expertise for that! We’re setting up a group video chat space, complete with a bar (virtual) and a pool (also virtual) and sofas (you guessed it: virtual), and we would love it if you can join us there on Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend!

BUT WAIT. There’s more! We’ll have spontaneous programming, and, less spontaneously, discussions of what the future of WisCon should look like. And even less spontaneously, we will be hosting a few of WisCon’s familiar special events — including the Otherwise Auction!

Come meet up with the folks you miss seeing at the con in person, hold a spontaneous panel, attend an event or two, and help us to use some of this time to talk about where WisCon has been and where we should be headed. Our platform does support real-time captioning when accessed using a Chrome browser and is keyboard-navigable.

We’ll have blog posts (nearly) every day between now and Memorial Day weekend, to share more details about how to attend, how to spin up a spontaneous program, the event schedules, and to lay some groundwork for discussing the future of WisCon.

We wanted to get this announcement out before more time slipped away, so you can make plans! (Apologies that this is so late; in my defense, time is fake and jobs are the worst.)

We will be asking folks to register, so we can send you the information you need to attend. Our base membership price is FREE! Memberships priced at $10 help us make the next in-person convention happen; $60 memberships go to our Member Assistance Fund, helping folks attend in 2022; the $200 memberships help assure that WisCon can keep happening past 2022. The program space will be open 4pm to 11pm Central time, Saturday May 29 & Sunday May 30.

Stay tuned for more details, and in the meantime, register here!

SF3 Annual Meeting October 18, 2020

As many of you know, SF3—the Society for the Furtherance and Study of Fantasy and Science Fiction—is the parent organization for the WisCon convention. The SF3 board engages in long-term planning and recruitment for WisCon, as well as pursuing activities unrelated to the convention.

The 2020 SF3 Annual Meeting is coming up on Sunday, October 18, at 1PM Central Time. This meeting is entirely virtual! Information on joining will be sent to all current SF3 members a few days before the meeting.

If you’re interested in the future of WisCon and SF3, or in our evolving plans for 2021 in light of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, we encourage you to become an SF3 member and attend the Annual Meeting. Annual membership is $24, or $12 at our student/financial hardship rate, which we encourage anyone to use as needed. We take payment by PayPal or check, though if you plan to pay by check we ask that you email treasurer@sf3.org to let us know it’s on the way.  The deadline for joining SF3 in advance of the Annual Meeting is Wednesday, October 14.

We know this is a busy and difficult time for many of you. We hope the WisCon and SF3 community can be a source of support in these times, and it is with that in mind that we hope some of you will join us on October 18. If you have questions or concerns that you’d like to bring to the SF3 board, but you aren’t able to attend the Annual Meeting, please feel free to contact the board by email at board@sf3.org.

News for WisCon Tiptree Bakers

Greetings from Kit and Renay, your Bake Sale co-leads this year! You’re receiving this email because at some point you told WisCon you were interested in participating in our Bake Sale to benefit the Tiptree Award. (Yay! Thanks!)
Once again this year, the Bake Sale will be on FRIDAY from 1-5 pm in room 627 (during and after the Gathering).
We’re continuing to push for better food safety practices at the Bake Sale, so please review these guidelines before you start baking a treat:
  • DO bring a single batch or pan of whatever treat you’re making. If you want to make more than one type of treat, that’s fine, but we don’t want large batches of any one item.
  • DON’T bring a treat that requires refrigeration. This is a food safety issue: Non-perishable treats only, please!
  • DO bring pies if you have a sturdy recipe that will hold up to travel well. However, make sure they’re not dairy-based, because we CANNOT accept treats that require refrigeration. Fruit pies = yes. Pumpkin pie/cheesecakes = no.
  • DO cut up brownies or bar cookies ahead of time.
  • DON’T bring a store-bought treat. We really want the Bake Sale to be mainly items that we’ve made in our own kitchens to raise money for the Tiptree Award. (If you’re traveling from out-of-town or your before-Con baking time is running short, consider volunteering during the Bake Sale instead!)
  • DO bring your treats in a disposable plate or container, covered with aluminum foil or plastic wrap if the container doesn’t have a lid. (If you absolutely can’t bring a disposable container, label your container with your name AND Con phone number.)
  • DO bring a list of ingredients for each treat you bring. WisCon has many members with food constraints, and we want as many people as possible to enjoy tasty baked goods! When making your list of ingredients, be particularly aware of the following allergens: wheat/gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, tree nuts, peanuts. The more information you can provide, the better!
  • DO follow basic food safety guidelines when preparing and handling food items: baking in a clean kitchen; hand-washing before touching baked goods or containers; storing in a cool, dry place; etc.
  • DO NOT BAKE if you or anyone in your household (including kids) is sick (especially with stomach- or digestive-related ailments, or with a viral infection). We will still love you, and will happily eat, er…, sell whatever you bring next year.
Dropping off your treats: Please bring your treats to University A (AKA “The Green Room”, on the second floor, through the double doors near the elevator lobby) during the following times:
Thursday: 3pm-10 pm
Friday: 8 am-12 noon
Please make every effort to drop off your treat during those hours; it’s more difficult for us to accept items once the Bake Sale is underway.
What should I make? Make whatever YOU like! Every year we see cakes, pies, cookies, brownies, fudge, and so much more. We love to see a huge variety of goodies come across the table, especially colorful or unusual items. (Chocolate treats are always popular!)
THANK YOU to everyone who’s willing to contribute treats for our Bake Sale! If you have other questions about baking, don’t hesitate to contact us at bakesale@wiscon.net .
Traveling from out of town or not sure you’ve got time to bake this year? In addition to bakers, we’re looking for volunteers to staff the Bake Sale for 1-hour shifts from 12:30pm to 5:30pm on FRIDAY (during & after the Gathering). Any time volunteering entitles you to our volunteer gift — ask about it at the Registration Desk. Six hours or more of volunteering entitles you to a 40% rebate on your WisCon membership; to claim this, ask for a volunteer rebate form at the Registration Desk.
Be a Tiptree Hero: Everyone who bakes OR volunteers at the Bake Sale can stop by the Bake Sale to receive a Tiptree Hero button!
Thank you again for your support of the Bake Sale and the Tiptree Award! We look forward to meeting you in Madison. If you have any questions about baking or volunteering, contact us at bakesale@wiscon.net.

eCube evolutions

Chris Wallish
SF3 Communications Committee

An early 1990s mimeograph machine, and a sheet of white paper reading "eCube".
This is a legit mimeograph, kids (although used here solely as a prop).

Our monthly (mostly) email newsletter, eCube, is undergoing some transformation.  Much as we’ve loved our typewriters and mimeograph, our photocopiers, our plain text over the years, it’s time to move to something that makes our newsletters a little easier for you to navigate and a bit easier for us to prepare — and that also connects with our website and social media.

As of today, eCube will now be delivered via MailChimp.  If you were already a subscriber, you should have received an email welcoming you to the new service.  If you didn’t receive that email, you can verify your subscription (or subscribe for the first time!) below.

If you’re worried that your eCube may go into your spam folder, add the email sf3communications@sf3.org to your safe sender list.

If you’re a Gmail user, we do want to warn you in advance that Google often routes MailChimp emails to your Promotions tab.  Don’t forget to check for it there if you don’t see it in your inbox!

eCube is still going to come out monthly — and we expect we’ll do twice-a-month newsletters in April and May as we get closer to the convention.  Our email newsletter is a great way to get a handy monthly reminder of all our upcoming deadlines, articles about what’s going on in WisCon planning, and tips on how to make the most of your Memorial Day weekend.

If you have any questions about our transition to MailChimp, you can email me to chat about it: comms_chair@sf3.org

Up the zines!  o/


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External Communications

View previous campaigns.

eCube: Volume 38, No. 5

A new eCube came out on April 11th. Check it out for information about hotels reservations, confirming preliminary programming assignments, the dessert salon, role-playing gaming, things needed for children to take apart, SFRA, and more. We also need volunteers to run activities at the Gathering and someone to run the Tiptree Bake Sale. You can read the eCube online here.

eCube #4 is out!

Check out our latest eCube! Information about hotel reservations, the Concourse Hotel’s partial remodel, how to request ASL interpretation (deadline is April 1st!), and two volunteers needed: one at the Registration Table & one to be At-Con Tiptree Bake Sale Coordinator.