1997 - 01/1997 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/26/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 03/04/08.

TONY TELLADO. LINDA ZIMMERMANN.

Business Meeting

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: January 11, 1997.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 44.

Meeting Program: Talks by Genre Radio Show Host and by Ghost Investigator.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

Good weather helped raise the turnout at the January 11, 1997 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County to nearly twice what it had been the previous year. The gathering was held in the Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

The late arrival of the televisions and VCRS for Anime Associates and the Final Frontier necessitated a bit of scrambling around and a late start for both groups. The Frontier was moved downstairs and the Anime viewed in the main room.

There were two areas of club business discussed at the meeting. The first concerned a scheduling conflict with the March meeting. Our meeting falls on the same weekend as the Lunacon Science Fiction Convention. A final decision had not been made by press time, but it appears likely that our group and the New Jersey Science Fiction Society will switch meeting dates, with NJSFS holding a meeting at the convention and our group meeting on March 15, 1997, the third Saturday of the month.

The second area of business was the officers' forum in which the various people who run activities or other areas for the club were invited to briefly introduce themselves and give a quick snapshot of what is happening in their area. Carol Smith talked abvout the Topic Discussion Group, Barry Weinberger about THAT'S SCIENCE FICITON!, Pat Nash about the Writers' Critique Group, William Molendyk about the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Game, James La Barre about the club website and Stephanie Rosen about the television website under construction. Philip De Parto covered the Vampire Book Group, the two branches of the Final Frontier, Anime Associates, the Author Discussion Group, and the website of activities in North Jersey that Tom Zych is constructing. He also talked about the Media Tie-In Book Group in West Paterson and the Computer users Group in Paramus that will commence operations in March.

The January newsletter had stated that this was expected to run 1 to 1-1/2 hours. It ran slightly, though not much, over that timeframe. There were a couple of people who were loudly unhappy about having to sit through this business.

Sharon Archer's Special Activity Group got overlooked in the general hubbub. She will make a brief presentation at the start of the February meeting. We will experiment with covering one activity at the star of each meeting. This may make it unneccessary to devote a large clump of time to this at the January 1998 meeting.

Linda Zimmermann gave an entertaining talk about comets and their effect on history after a short break. She stated that they were composed of ice and rock and were usually found in the Oort Cloud which lies well beyond the orbit of Pluto. She also proposed that the definition of an Astronomic Unit be changed from the distance between the sun and earth to the size of her Christmas Visa Bill.

She talked about how comets had effected history, including possibly being behind the emergence of the swastika as a religious symbol a couple of thousand years ago and how so-called psychics who have "remote viewed" and approaching comet have declared that it is accompanied by a planet-sized spaceship whose crew do not think linearly but in "thought balls."

That was a tough act to follow, but SCI-FI TALK RADIO's host Tony Tellado was up to the task. He began by saying that since his radio show is usually preceded by a show about colon problems, that Linda was the best lead in he'd ever had.

Tony briefly talked about his experiences in radio, then set up the scene, and then played an excerpt from a radio interview. Among the snippets played were interviews with Rene Auberjonois, Chris Carter, and Wes Craven.

Among the highlights were Chris Carter's revelation that he is a skeptic but would like to become a believer and that Sully and Mulder represented those two different aspects of himself.

Tony closed his presentation with a delightful take off on the old Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" Routine, with Worf being brought on board a new starship and being briefed on his new crew.

Paul Dellechiaie, Michael Piazza, Cynthia Soroka and newcomer Mark Wolkoff won free books. Mr Wolkoff showed an admirable degree of finding his way to our meeting. Upon discovering that he ahd left the Newsletter with directions home, he stopped off at Nobody Beats the Wiz, logged on to their demo TV unit, searched for our website, and copied down the directions.

Thanks to Charles Garofalo for the refreshments, Roy Greenberg for the tea set up, Pat Nash for the TV and VCR, Pamela Webber for much help in many areas, Tom Zych for the book donation, and everyone who helped with the set up and clean up.