2006 - Year in Review
Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/28/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/31/08.
2006: THE CLUB YEAR IN REVIEW
Newsletter Account:
The following accounts are reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2007 Philip J De Parto:
2006: The Club Year in Review (Part One)
The past year was one of the most trying ones in the existence of the Association. We lost <sfabc.org>. We lost our Yahoo Group. We lost many of the monthly activities sponsored by the club. We lost many of our members. We lost Carol Smith to cancer. We briefly lost Philip De Parto, the founder and director of the group. The Post Office increased their postage rates. The three facilities which have hosted our meetings raised their rates and imposed additional restrictions on groups using their premises. The repercussions from these events will long be felt.
On the plus side of the ledger, programming was strong with interesting and enjoyable speakers. Although <sfabc.org> no longer exists as a separate homepage, it now points to the old website which has been updated to give basic, useful information to someone interested in the Association. A number of new monthly activities have been established. We have revived email notifications of these events. THE STARSHIP LOCAL and THE STARSHIP EXPRESS are back on schedule. There are some challenging times ahead, but the sheer scope and diversity of problems is unlikely to be repeated.
PROGRAMS AND ATTENDANCE:
Membership was at 66 at the start of the year. It dropped down to 41 before rebounding to the present total of 55. Having to do a last minute change of meeting site and day (to the second Friday) for the July and August meetings certainly depressed the turnout for those two events.
A list of our Year 2006 speakers appears below, along with the Attendance Totals of the past five years. Note that figures are for officially attending adults, it does not include children, people who left before the meeting was formally called to order or arrived after the meeting had officially concluded. The total includes the speaker and any guest (s)he brought.
(A=Artist, C=Critic, E=Editor, G=Ghost Investigator, I=Informal, L=Literary Agent, P=Publisher, V=Video, W=Writer)
Date Type Speaker/Program
2006 2005 2004 2003 2002
01/14/06 W Robert Bly 22 25 29 36 35
02/11/06 V DOCTOR WHO/RED DWARF A/Z 14 36 31 30 41
03/11/06 W/E Ty Drago 28 36 36 28 37
04/08/06 L Joshua Bilmes 34 30 34 31 52
05/13/06 W Judith Berman 24 32 32 36 43
06/10/06 G/W Linda Zimmermann 29 25 22 25 43
07/14/06 E/P Ed Hulse 15 20 19 30 32
08/11/06 P James Potter 14 19 21 24 30
09/09/06 W Sarah Langan 19 35 34 33 39
10/14/06 A Tom Kidd 21 26 30 38 32
11/11/06 C/W Marleen Barr 18 27 35 37 43
12/09/06 I Pot Luck Dinner/Holiday Party 12 16 26 25 21
V LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA
Total: 250 373 349 373 448
Meeting Average: 20.8 31.0 29.0 31.0 37.3