2005 - 07/2005 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/29/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 09/14/10.

VIDEO PROGRAM

Video: Trekkies 2

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: July 9, 2005

Meeting Site: Borders Books & Music, Paramus, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 19.

Meeting Program: Video Program.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2005 Philip J De Parto:

A decidedly non typical meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held on Saturday, July 9, 2005 at Borders Books & Music in the Garden State Plaza Mall, Paramus, New Jersey.

Things started typical enough, with a well-attended gathering of the Final Frontier at 7:00 PM. The topic of the discussion was the conclusion of the STAR WARS franchise and its legacy.

The relative merits of the various flicks were debated with A NEW HOPE and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK receiving nearly universal praise. Opinions were more divided on the new trilogy, but these films, especially THE REVENGE OF THE SITH, also had their advocates. Philip De Parto read excerpts from Mark Leeper's review of SITH and of the series as a whole.

Due to a number of scheduling conflicts with Barbecon, Readercon, and other events, we decided to conduct a General Meeting without a guest speaker. The plan was to have a discussion and a video program. However, things did not work out the way we planned.

The initial plan had been to have a discussion first, and then show some STAR TREK fan videos. Most of the people at the General Meeting had also attended the Final Frontier, so rather than have back-to-back discussions involving mostly the same set of people, we flip-flopped the program items. That was when we discovered that the features from the DVD would not play on the store's machine. We had a different feature on another disk, but that did not play, either. We went with our back up, back up and showed TREKKIES 2, which worked just fine. Unfortunately, the feature time was too long to allow for a discussion component for the meeting. We therefore ended the meeting early to allow an extended post meeting gathering at the Suburban Diner.

People seemed to enjoy the program and the evening as a whole, or at least they were unusually tactful about their dissatisfaction. They understood that we did not wish to schedule a speaker for a turnout which was expected to be significantly lower than our usual gatherings.