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SF3 announces Annual Member Meeting for 2015

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Chris Wallish
SF3 Communications Committee

SF3 logoSF3, the parent organization of the WisCon convention, has announced its Annual Member Meeting. The SF3 Board and current SF3 members will meet Sunday, Oct. 18, at 11:30am (Central Time). Details on how to attend the meeting (in-person location, phone/virtual access information) will be provided to members in the meeting packet to be sent the week before the meeting.

The current agenda for the meeting is available in SF3’s announcement on their blog.

SF3 membership

Membership in SF3 runs for one year only, beginning at the Annual Meeting and ending just prior to the next year’s meeting. Were you a member for last year’s Annual Meeting? You will have to purchase a membership for this year if you wish to attend and vote at this year’s meeting.

Options:

SF3 has three membership options:

    • $24 – Annual membership
    • $12 – Student/financial hardship membership rate
    • $9 – Youth (under 18) membership

There are two ways to pay (information on both is available at SF3’s website):

  • Online via PayPal
  • Via check and a printed membership form

If you will be purchasing your membership online via PayPal, you must do so by 11:59pm (Central Time) on Friday, Oct. 16.

If you will be purchasing your membership by mailing a check and printed form via postal mail, it must be received in Madison as of Thursday, Oct. 15.

If you will be bringing your printed membership form to the meeting so that you can pay in person, your payment must be received at the beginning of the meeting, otherwise your membership will not be processed and you will not be able to vote. Members who do wish to pay in person at the meeting must contact the SF3 Treasurer via email [treasurer@sf3.org] by 11:59pm (Central Time) on Friday, Oct. 16, to inform them of your intent.

Voting

All members in good standing are eligible to vote on all voting matters during the Annual Member Meeting. If you cannot attend the meeting (either in person or by phone/virtually) and you wish to appoint a proxy to cast votes on your behalf, review the information on the SF3 website — your proxy form must be received via postal mail on or before Thursday, Oct. 15, or delivered to an SF3 Board member at the beginning of the Annual Member Meeting.

SF3 grants

SF3 has funds available to distribute as grants to projects aligned with SF3’s interests. Grants are awarded based upon vote of the membership during the Annual Member Meeting. Details of how to apply, as well as examples of past recipients, are available on the SF3 website.

Grant applications are due at 11:59pm (Central Time) on Sunday, Oct. 11.

Appendix: A handy time converter to find out what time U.S. Central Time is for you.

Official Announcements, SF3

An apology from SF3

The board of SF3, WisCon’s parent organization, has posted the following apology on their blog:

An Apology

The SF3 Board extends heartfelt apologies to those who have been harassed at WisCon, to those who feel unsafe at WisCon, to the ConCom, and to our wider community, for letting you down. We regret allowing Rose Lemberg’s report to languish. We are writing this statement as prompted by Rose Lemberg’s liaisons, Saira Ali and Alex Dally MacFarlane (link: . While this statement is being written per their request, the SF3 board would like to emphasize that it is genuinely sorry for Rose Lemberg’s pain being perpetuated by a seemingly unending tangle of bureaucratic lapses. WisCon co-chairs change from year to year, as do department heads such as Safety, but the makeup of the SF3 Executive Board is more static, as the turnover is staggered. Our board is organized so as to provide continuity and stability, and we recognize that our positions make us uniquely culpable for having failed to monitor and intervene in the communications with individuals who reported harassment at WisCon.

We failed to see that our process was a flawed and porous system that allowed reports to get misplaced. Since the SF3 Board officially appoints the chair(s) of WisCon, which in turn is technically a committee within the larger organization of SF3, the board acknowledges that it is ultimately our responsibility to oversee issues of safety that affect all WisCon attendees.

We will focus on our accountability and responsibilities as an institution and be vigilant in the future to try and prevent such events from happening again.

A number of valued concom members have chosen to resign over the summer, including several past WisCon chairs. In addition, several other former chairs have decided to significantly reduce their work on WisCon. We recognize that chairing Wiscon is a difficult task, even with co-chairs, and that the responsibilities of chair and other high-responsibility positions need to be rethought. The concom is currently examining itself, and has begun work to replenish committee positions and to provide training or apprenticeships for prospective chairs.

You may leave comments on SF3’s blog post or send them via email to the SF3 Corresponding Secretary.