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Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 1994 Philip J De Parto:
1993: The Year of the Club in Review
A year which began with an unprecedented amount of hope and promise began to unravel during the summer and left a messy package of disappointments and uncertainties by the end of the year.
The single greatest blow has been the loss of the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River as our base of operations. The Church has decided that they no longer wish to host non-Church events in their facility on Saturdays.
This has not yet had a serious impact on the evening portion of our gatherings. Our December meeting was held across the street at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center without any problems and we have booked the site for January and February as well. The difficulty is that the Center does not view us as especially desirable tenants. They can get a lot more money by renting out the building for birthday parties and other events, and therefore wish to keep their options open instead of committing the facility to us for the year.
We are still feeling our way around in this new scenario. The Center is aware of the dates we have requested from now until the summertime. It appears that they will commit only on a month-to-month basis with a two-month lead time. Thus, in December we know that we can meet there in January and February. By the time the January meeting rolls around, we will receive an answer regarding our request for March.
This uncertainty creates a number of logistical problems for the Association. The facilities available to us affect the types of programs we schedule. We never select an artist to give a slide show at the annual meeting held at the home of Robert Yeager because the facilities there are simply inappropriate. Without advance knowledge of where the meeting will be held, it becomes trickier to arrange things, especially since the further in advance you program, the more likely you are to succeed.
This also impacts publicity efforts. One of our major tools in finding potential new members of the Association is a mass produced general flier which includes directions to our meeting site and which can be left for distribution for months at a time. Asking people to call for directions and site information makes it less likely an individual will simply show up out of the blue.
PRE/POST MEETING ACTIVITIES:
Another consequence of the loss of the Church is that we acquire the use of the Center at 6:00 instead of 2:00 PM. This prevents us from conducting on site activities before the meeting officially begins. This means that we have to either shift them to a different day, a different venue on the day of the meeting, or drop them. We are doing all three.
The official club Dungeons and Drgaons Game was held in the basement of the Gamemaster in Fair Lawn before the December meeting. Everyone was able to find the store, turnout was decent, and no one had problems with the arrangement. We will therefore hold that function at the store until further notice. Who knows, we may even pick up a few new members from the store.
It has been a very strange year for the Writers' Critique Group. On the plus side of the ledger, several members of the Association have made progress in getting published, although not all are in the Writers' Group. On the minus side, a number of people have dropped out of the group while others are attending less frequently. The core members of the group -- the Nashes, Charles Garofalo, and Philip De Parto -- have decided to schedule the Group on non-meeting days and hold it at members' homes.
Despite the herculean efforts of Roy Greenberg, chess tournaments and demonstrations were not working out as a sustainable pre-meeting activity even before we lost the use of the Church. He hopes to encourage chess and scrabble players to join us at the Game Master for informal games down the road, but he currently has more pressing problems with the Elmwood Park Chess Club to take care of. We are, of course, delighted that he has encouraged several members of that group to become members of the Association and hope that they will continue to attend our get togethers.
Work schedules, car difficulties, and other commitments resulted in most members of Starfleet's U.S.S. Asimov ceasing to attend our meetings and hold functions as a pre-meeting activity. Theoretically, they could have a gathering in the basement of the Game Master, but for the time being, this is being mothballed.
Lack of a suitable function area prevents the Markland Swordsmen from holding practice sessions with us any longer. However, they rarely were able to make it down even when space was available, so the impact of this loss figures to be negligible.
The change in meeting site will not effect our irregular post-meeting star watches. Sooner or later we figure to have clear skies again.
BOOKSTORE PROMOTIONS:
Barnes & Noble opened a second Superstore in Paramus early in the year and our monthly Science Fiction Night moved to the new store at 504 Route 17 North. The following authors, (agents), and [editors] appeared in this series:
02/23/93 Nancy Collins, Robert Thurston
03/22/93 Janet Kagan, Doris Vallejo
04/06/93 Elisa De Carlo, Ric Meyers, Alan Rodgers
05/27/93 Greg Costikyan, Rosemary Kirstein
07/27/93 Gayle Greeno, Roberta Rogow
08/24/93 (Joshua Bilmes), (Donald Maass), (Susan Protter)
09/11/93 John Betancourt, Margaret Bonnano, William Mc Cay
09/21/93 John Betancourt, Harvey Jacobs, Jack Womack
10/26/93 Greg Cox, [John Ordover]
It should be noted that the store also scheduled writers independently of our efforts. The older B&N store at 160 Route 17 North recently hired a promotions director. A number of S.F.A.B.C.ers joined together to read excerpts from books they liked on November 10, 1993 at the older store.
The Association continued to conduct the monthly "Rocket & Dagger" reading series begun in 1992 at Science Fiction, Mysteries & More!, 140 Chambers Street, New York City. The readings paired two science fiction and two (mystery) writers doing readings of about 15 minutes each. The following authors, etc., participated in this series:
01/06/93 (P M Carlson), Carol Emshwiller, (Stephanie Matteson), Doris Vallejo
02/10/93 (Nancy Atherton), (Jane Dentinger), Charles Pellegrino, Susan Stone
03/31/93 David Harris, Gordon Sanders, (David Stout)
04/28/93 Michael Jan Friedman, (J P Hailey), (Parnell Hall), Michael Kandel
05/26/93 (David Charnee), Elisa De Carlo, Michael Flynn, (Barbara Shapiro)
06/30/93 (Carole Berry), Greg Costikyan, (Claire Rainwater Jacobs), David Skal
07/21/93 Michael Cadman, Ellen Datlow, (Ronnie Klaskin), Jonathan Lethem, (L Stephens)
08/25/93 Gayle Greeno, Harvey Jacobs, (Linda Stewart), (Sharon Zukowski)
09/29/93 (P M Carlson), (Harlan Coben), Hellen Collins, Patrick Neilsen Hayden
10/20/93 (Lawrence Block), P M Griffin, Josepha Sherman
11/17/93 Terry Bisson, Nancy Collins, Paul Park
12/01/93 Beverly Jafek, (Lee Harris), Lawrence Schimel, (Valerie Wolzien)
12/29/93 (Joyce Christmas), David Hill, Ed Myers, (Triss Stein)
The Association also arranged for most of the signings for the store at the annual New York Is Book Country street fair held on September 19, 1993. Those present included the following science fiction and (mystery) personalities: (Lawrence Block), Nancy Collins, Ellen Datlow, Jim Freund, Ron Goulart, (J P Hailey), (Parnell Hall), Harvey Jacobs, (Annette Meyers), (Maan Myers), (Gloria Murphy), Charles Pellegrino, Andrew Porter, (Linda Stewart), and Doris Vallejo.
MEMBERSHIP & ATTENDANCE:
Membership and attendance are two related sets of numbers which give an indication of the overall health of the Association. A member is someone who has paid the Annual Membership of $ 8.00 within the past 12 months. This fee enables them to attend the Association meetings, receive THE STARSHIP EXPRESS, entitles them to discounts at selected stores, and allows them to partake in other official S. F. A. B. C. functions.
Attendance is actually short for "total number of officially present bodies in the room" at one of our meetings. Young children (those under 10 years of age) are not usually counted in the attendance. Certain other people may be physically on site but considered "officially not present" under select circumstances. An example of this occurred at the meetings held at Science Fiction, Mysteries & More! over the summertime when some employees of Alan Zimmerman were classified in this manner. Attendance thus consists of the members of the Association, the guest speaker, people (friends or family) accompanying the guest, and first or second time attendees who have not joined the S. F. A. B. C.
Membership in the group declined by around 20% during 1993. Total membership dropped from 85 to 68. The decline was straight across the board: from 62 to 45 in New Jersey, 28 to 22 in New York, and 5 to 1 in other states. All figures are counted from the 31st of December in 1992 and 1993 respectively.
Actual per meeting attendance rose slightly, from 26+ to 27+. The usual recent years pattern of a strong January - May, a quiet summer, and a slow rebuilding during the fall continued.
Among the highlights were the 49 present at the October meeting, our highest turnout in six years and tied for the second highest turnout ever, and the not-half-bad summertime attendance in general. The year ended on a down beat with light turnouts in November (Philcon hurt us) and December (snow).
The most disturbing trend has been the non-attendance of most of the members of Starfleet's U. S. S. Asimov during the latter part of the year. Key members of the group are now either working weekends or without functioning transportation.
A month by month breakdown of attendance for the past three years appear in the next section.
PROGRAMMING:
There were 11 meetings of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County held in 1993. Guest speakers included six authors (Betancourt, Bonanno, Collins, Friedman, Mac Donald, Mc Cay, Meyers), two editors (Ordover, Porter), two artists (Hickman, Scanlon), one filmmaker with film (Kanefsky/THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE), one video spoof (STAR WRECK, COMMOTION PICTURE), and one inventor (Anderson). The June and August meetings were held at Science Fiction, Mysteries & More! in Manhattan. The July meeting was held at the Peking Duck House restaurant, the February meeting at the home of Robert Yeager, and the March meeting was canceled because of snow. A month by month listing of speakers and attendance figures for the past three years appears below:
Date Speaker
01/09/93 Celia S Friedman 29 22 29
02/13/93 John Ordover 30 25 20
03/13/93 Canceled 0 30 31
04/10/93 Nancy Collins 33 33 22
05/08/93 Rolfe Kanefsky / Movie 35 27 20
06/12/93 James Mac Donald 18 11 0
07/10/93 Peter Scanlon 31 27 32
08/14/93 Andrew Porter 19 24 28
09/11/93 Ric Meyers 28 28 22
10/09/93 STAR WRECK, COMMOTION PICTURE
Panel: Betancourt, Bonanno, Mc Cay 49 30 25
11/13/93 Steve Hickman 24 28 25
12/11/93 Philip Anderson 17 0 20
PUBLICITY:
If this were a fair and rational world, membership would have dramatically increased instead of decreased in 1993, for more people are doing more work in this area than in any of the fan groups with which I have been involved since 1976.
Robert Savoye has been getting press releases into the NEWARK STAR-LEDGER and the BERGEN RECORD since agreeing to take care of this in August. Jacqueline Hecht and Barry Weinberger have been hitting other newspapers.
Philip De Parto, Roy Greenberg, Jacqueline Hecht, Barry Weinberger, and Robert Yeager have been leafleting a number of stores with club fliers. Our bookstore readings have unearthed enough new people interested in science fiction to expand our mailing list by 50%.
Earlier this year we borrowed an idea from the Prydonians of Prynceton and instituted a membership bounty. Anyone who recruits a new member to the group receives a waiver of one Attendance Fee for each new person recruited. This offer has not yet been taken advantage of by any club member.
The search for new members has prompted the S. F. A. B. C. to schedule a "Science Fiction in the Library" series with four Bergen County libraries, to do a "STAR TREK Day" with Barnes & Noble in Paramus, and to explore a variety of options with different colleges in the area.
All this work has thus far resulted in only minor success. A few people show up at meetings. Far fewer come back.
We keep slugging away. We have had talks with Starlog and with Borders in the Garden State Plaza. You never know when you may strike gold.
DISCOUNTS:
The S. F. A. B. C. was able to negotiate a discount for its members at two more stores this past year. The two stores are "Beam Me Up, Watson!" Books in Montclair and Pleasant Paperback in Maywood (discount on used books only). These join the discounts arranged previously at Books & Stamps & Things in Lyndhurst, The Game Master in Fair Lawn, Collectable Comics in Paramus, and Science Fiction, Mysteries & More! in Manhattan. Details vary from store to store, so consult your November STARSHIP EXPRESS for additional details.
PUBLICATIONS:
THE STARSHIP EXPRESS appeared twelve times in 1993, with each issue containing eight pages. The emphasis continues to be on news in the metropolitan area, with expanded listings for bookstore happenings and clubs. The February issue featured write-ups about the Prydonians of Prynceton and the Garden State Horror Writers, and we list their meetings on our Science Fiction Calendar except when they fall on the second Saturday of the month. We announce featured guest speakers at area science fiction clubs when we are notified in time. The November EXPRESS announced the opening of Beam Me Up, Watson! bookstore, and there was other information about various bookstores throughout the year.
The July STARSHIP printed a couple of sketches by newcomer Abbi Orenstein. We have been seeking artwork for the newsletter ever since we began publication, so we are thrilled. We may start seeing pieces by another club artist.
Steven Piva nd Henry Wagner have written a number of reviews for us. Most have not yet been published. Roy Greenberg is also working on some. It is good to have new blood in these pages.
The biggest disappointment in this area is that neither Elizabeth Grout nor Philip De Parto were able to produce an issue of THE STARSHIP LOCAL in 1993. Hopefully, things will improve in 1994.
MISCELLANEOUS:
The Association produced a four part "Science Fiction in the Library" series of talks this past year. Author William Mc Cay spoke at the Ridgefield Public Library on March 9, editor Susan Stone at the Ramsey Public Library on May 5, agent Donald Maass at the Lyndhurst Public Library on May 5, and artist David Mattingly at the Hackensack Library on June 9.
We had planned to do a similar series with local colleges in the Fall, but instead turned our energies into expanding ties with area bookstores. We did find time to participate in the "Talking 'bout Writing" event held at Monmouth County College on August 12, 1993.
IN THE REGION:
This has not been a good year for science fiction groups in the Greater New York Area. This is most evident in New York where the local Starfleet chapter, the U.S.S. Tai-Shan, and the Jewish Science Fiction Society have shut down. Attendance is also down among the Lunarians and the New Jersey Science Fiction Society, although it would be awkward to ask these groups for exact numbers. We are probably weathering these times as well as anyone and better than most.