2000 - Year in Review

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Update: 10/25/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/19/08.

Newsletter Account:

Y2K: THE CLUB'S YEAR IN REVIEW: (PART 1)

Year 2000 has been the sixteenth year of the S F A B C. This was neither the best nor worst of times, but offers a mix of hope and concern.

This sigle biggest positive of the year has been a much improved balance sheet. Last year at this time, the club was running a slight deficit each month. We have turned this around by significantly cutting costs in our largest controllable expense: the newsletter. More than half the club now receives THE STARSHIP EXPRESSS electronically, which saves the Association print and postage costs. Our thanks to everyone who has selected this format and to Sharon Archer, James La Barre, Bruce Wallace and Christopher Ward who have done much work to make it possible. (continues next issue)

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Newsletter Account:

2000: THE CLUB YEAR IN REVIEW: (PART 2)

To recap the first part of this article, which appeared in the December 2000 newsletter, our greatest success was in improving the club's finances by expanding the ratio of electronic newsletters to print copies. This has saved on our printing and postage costs.

The next logical point is to examine the year's greatest shortcoming, the decline in Association membership. Membership is off by about 25% from 3 - 4 years ago, and this decline impacts the organization in a host of different ways. Less money comes in from dues, fewer people attend club events, fewer people find out about us because there are fewer of us talking about the group. It becomes a negative feedback loop.

Two factors in the drop off are apparent.

The first is the cyclical nature of volunteer organizations. Like many long running groups, the S F A B C has experienced a number of peaks and troughs. The period of 1994 - 1996 represented the highwater mark of the club, at least from the point of view of membership. A membership of 75 and a per meeting attendance of over 30 would represent a giddying height for much of the Association's existence. It may be closer to a state of normalcy than the years preceding it.

Although there are exceptions, most people do not become Association members for the rest of their lives. Even among the high profile members, many tend to lose interest, move away, or move into other aspects of science fiction after five or six years. This makes a valley statistically probable after a membership peak.

The other reason for the membership decline is self inflicted. We have not done much recruiting for the past several years. The one significant publicity-related event we have established is the use of the internet to remind peoplle about the general meeting and most of our regular events. Our thanks to Paul Dellechiaie, Anthony DiPrima, Alan Polyniak, Steve Spinosa, and Taras Wolansky. Eah of them send out one or more reminders of various events each month. If you are not receiving an e-mail reminder, please contact Philip De Parto and inform him of the event notices you would like to receive. He will contact the appropriate person.

For the most part, however, our resources of time and energy have been focused on other priorities. Some of them have been fruitful. Others of them have not. But there are only so many hours in the day to accomplish things.

The highest priority for the Association in the coming year must therefore be to expand the club's membership. We intend to become more active at science fiction conventions and plan to continue to better use the possibilities of the internet. We also need our members to help with this mission. Either become involved in helping out with publicity or try to get a friend, neighbor, or co-worker to an S F A B C event.

You don't have to try to sell them on becoming a member. If they enjoy movies, bring them to That's Science Fiction! The Art of the Fantastic and the Special Activities Group are also easy entrees into our little world. If they come only to one or two events on a regular basis and never join the Association, we will still benefit from their company.

Turning to other matters.

Things remained pretty much status quo for THE STARSHIP EXPRESS. There were little tweaks in the print version which have probably gone unnoticed by most readers. We did a number of modifications to the internet version to minimize the odd line breaks and ragged columns that formerly plagued the publication. We also took advantage of the freer page count by expanding the Dateline of Events well into the future.

Meeting attendance was pretty consistent. Every year we have one poorly attended meeting (22 seems to be the magic number), but nine meetings drew 30 or more adults. A llist of our Year 2000 speakers appears below, along with the Attendance Totals of the past five years. Note that the figures are for officially attending adults, it does not include children, people who left before the meeting was formally called to order or after the meeting had been officially concluded. The total includes the speaker and any guest (s)he brought.

Date Type Speaker/Program Attendance

(A=Author, C=Cable TV Show, E=Editor, P=Publisher, S=Scientists, T=Teacher)

2000 1999 1998 1997 1996

01/08/00 A Paul Levinson 32 23 37 44 22

02/12/00 A/E Paul Barnett 29 22 15 22 41

03/13/00 A Shane Tourtellotte 34 32 38 32 46

04/08/00 S Paul Nash 30 29 25 38 35

05/13/00 P John Betancourt 36 41 31 34 33

06/10/00 A Greg Costikyan 31 41 37 39 36

07/08/00 C Cast/Crew: THE FRONT ROW 33 40 28 41 32

08/12/00 A Charles L Grant 27 30 37 35 55

09/09/00 T Robert Price 34 39 41 38 42

10/14/00 A Jack Ketchum 22 38 28 35 38

11/11/00 A Tamora Pierce 30 33 21 25 41

12/13/00 Videos/Holiday Party 35 32 33 43 47

Total: 373 400 371 436 468

Per Meeting Average: 31.0 33.3 30.9 36.3 39.0

The Association sponsors 15 different specialized interest groups each month. Most of these occur at area bookstores. The two Livingston groups, The Media Tie-In and The Final Frontier and our That's Science Fiction! movie group are the most popular. Middle of the pack are the Monsters of Horror, Fantasy Gamers, Art of the Fantastic, Writers' Critique Group and Topic Discussion Group. The Classics of Science Fiction, Special Activity, Science and Science Fiction, and Author Discussion Groups draw the fewest people. Anime Associates and Armchair Odyssey are excluded, as they are pre general meeting events, tied to the general meeting attendance.