Page Created: 10/28/10. Last Updated: 10/28/10. Last Google Group Page Udate: 01/05/09.
THE STARSHIP EXPRESS
NEWSLETTER OF THE SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION OF BERGEN COUNTY
136 MANHATTAN AVENUE, WALDWICK, NEW JERSEY 07463
PHONE: (201) 447 - 3652
2008 YEAR END REVIEW:
Overview of Activities, Publications, and Internet Presence:
WEBSITE: http://www.sfabc.org
MONTHLY GENERAL MEETING AND LINKED EVENTS:
General Meeting (Presentations by Authorities on Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror)
Animation Associates (Pre Meeting Animation Videos)
Ice Nine (Pre Meeting Discussion)
BOOKSTORE / SIMILAR EVENTS:
Final Frontier (Television Discussions, First Tuesday of the Month)
Monsters of Horror (Horror Book Group, First Thursday of the Month)
Month End Book Group (SF/Fantasy/Horror Book Group, Last Weeknight of the Month)
Special Activity (Events and Days Vary)
That's Science Fiction, Part Two! (Video Viewing, Second Wednesday of the Month)
Topic Group (Multi Media Topic Discussions, Third Tuesday of the Month)
Writers of the Weird (Genre Critique Group, Fourth Sunday of the Month)
GOOGLE GROUPS:
Informational Groups:
Bookstore Events (Listing of Past, Current, and Future Bookstore Activities by Event)
Meeting Notice (Details on General Meeting with Directions)
Monthly Events (List of All Association Activities for the Month)
Speakers & Programs (List of Past Meeting Programs and Speakers with Details)
Discussion Groups:
Books & Authors (Focuses on Literature of Science Fiction and Books Discussed)
Movies (Focuses on Science Fiction Cinema and Movies Viewed at S F A B C Events)
Personals (Private Group Focuses on Matters Other Than Books, Science, TV and Movies)
Science & Science Fiction (Focuses on Science, Technology, and Hard Science Fiction)
Television (Focuses on Current and Classic Science Fiction Television Series)
Writers of the Weird (Private Genre Focused Writers Critique Group)
PUBLICATIONS:
THE STARSHIP EXPRESS (Newsletter; News & Information about Club & Area Science Fiction Events)
THE STARSHIP LOCAL (Meeting Notice Focuses on General Meeting, Directions, and Club Events)
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THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Volume 21, Number 13 Copyright 2008 Philip J De Parto
THE STARSHIP EXPRESS is the monthly newsletter of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. Members, prospective members, and certain groups receive copies of the EXPRESS. If you are not a member and would like to receive this publication, mail a check for $ 8.00 for the electronic version or $ 12.00 for the print version. Checks should be made payable to Philip J De Parto, 136 Manhattan Avenue, Waldwick, New Jersey 07463. All material by Philip J De Parto unless otherwise acknowledged.
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2008: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
The past year had its ups and downs, but here were more pluses that minuses in the overall club eqation and my overall feeling in looking towards the future is a mood of cautious optimism.
1. Finance
The Association again ran a deficit. This year it was about $ 200.00 as opposed to 2007 which was approximately $ 270.00 in the red. Fortunately, the group has enough saved from previous years to carry us through these rough times, barring unforseen events.
Over the past couple of years we have cut our expenses to the bone. Short of making a major change in our operations, such as moving to a rent free facility like a library, there is no fat left in the budget to trim.
The Association's biggest expense is rent. ... If there is one good by product of the nation's economic woes, it is that energy costs have dropped dramatically. As prices continually escalated earlier in the year, I was developing a contingency plan to counterbalance anticipated rent increases due to energy costs for the center.
Our two sources of inclome are the $ 8.00 Annual Membership Fee and the $ 2.00 Meeting Attendance Fee.
2. Membership
Although there have been peaks and valleys, the general trend has been an increase in club membership in 2008. This is a welcome reversal of the declines in 2006 and 2007. My goal is to continue this trend and grow to 60 - 65 members by the end of 2009. It is hoped that half of this growth will result from the recruitment of new members and the rest of it by enticing fallen away members to rejoin the Association. A month by month membership total for the past three years appears below.
Membership Totals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2008 41 44 47 49 44 45 47 48 50 50 53 52
2007 55 54 53 51 50 48 48 47 48 45 45 36
2006 66 56 54 50 49 47 44 42 41 41 54 56
3. Attendance & Programs
Per meeting attendance continues to be disappointing. We really need 25+ people in house to make our meetings work. It is more than just allowing us to cover our expenses. It also has to do with presenting our guest with a decent sized audience. Additionally, a turnout of that size provides enough people to populate our pre and post meeting activities and fosters a range of conversations and interactions among our members. We only hit that number twice in 2008 which is admittedly better than 2007 when we did not hit it at all.
Our smallest meeting was in March. However, that turnout is highly misleading. There was a fierce storm raging which toppled trees and power lines. Some people found it literally impossible to make it to the site and turned around and went home. Fortunately, upon hearing the weather forecast, our guest called to discuss the situation. We agreed that it was in everyone's best interest to have him talk at another time.
The closing of Bennett Books necessitate finding a new site for the July and August meetings. The Bennetts are wonderful people and their store was a gem, but Barnes & Noble in Hackensack proved to be a much better fit for the Association. Our July and August meetings are again scheduled there.
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Although more than half of our Year 2008 guests were writers, there was considerable variation in what they write. Jeff Somers writes science fiction. Arlen Schumer and James Broderick both write media non fiction, but are very different from each other. Anton Strout writes urban fantasy, David Keck heroic fantasy, and Sam Butler YA fantasy. Peter Gutierrez writes criticism and reviews, largely about film, comics and horror.
The General Meetings also featured two video programs, one artist, and our annual Holiday Party / Pot Luck Dinner.
A list of our 2008 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 officially called to order or arrived after the meeting had officially concluded. The total includes the speaker and any guest (s)he brought.
Meeting Programs & Attendance
Month Date Typed Speaker / Program Attendance
(A=Artist, C=Critic, E=Editor, F=Film Maker, N=No Program, V=Video, W=Writer)
2008 2007 2006 2005 2004
1 01/12/08 W Jeff Somers 23 14 22 25 29
2 02/09/08 E John Joseph Adams 17 19 14 36 31
3 03/08/08 V DR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 6 17 28 36 36
4 04/12/08 W Arlen Schumer 17 21 34 30 34
5 05/10/08 W James Broderick 15 18 24 32 32
6 06/14/08 W Anton Strout 20 19 29 25 22
7 07/12/08 W David Keck 20 12 15 20 19
8 08/09/08 W S C Butler 16 12 14 19 21
9 09/13/08 C/W Peter Gutierrez 29 16 19 35 34
10 10/11/08 A Ken Kelly 19 20 21 26 30
11 11/08/08 F/E David Baumuller / Ted Bohus 17 22 18 27 35
V HELL ON EARTH
12 12/13/08 N Holiday Party 27 18 12 16 26
Total: 226 208 250 349 349
Per Meeting Average: 18.8 17.3 20.8 29.0 29.0
4. Bookstore / Special Interest Groups
The Writers of the Weird has been the strongest of the S F A B C Special Interest Groups. Not only have we had consistently good turnouts for the event, but the quality of the writing is higher than it has ever been. Although the Electronic Writers Workshop experiment was cancelled last year, the Writers of the Weird Good Group has proved a useful adjunct to the live sessions.
That's Science Fiction, Part Two! continues to be our weakest event. It is also the easiest group to run. I advertise a movie, go downstairs and pop it in the DVD. Hopefully someone else joins me. (It should be noted that I believer that we could get more people coming to this event if it were held in a different locale, such as a store or a library, but for the moment, convenience trumps numbers. I am committed to a number of time intensive projects for the Association at the present time. When more of these have been resolved, we can revisit the approach to this event. In the meantime, we will be content with low numbers and low stress.
The January 2008 closing of the Borders Books & Music store in Wayne, New Jersey necessitated the relocation of the Topic Discussion Group. Several sites were considered, but Barnes & Noble in West Paterson, New Jersey was judged the best all around substitute because of its location and proximity to a good eatery (The Park West Diner). The store does not have a meeting space for the group, but we have made do in the store's Childrens' section.
The club's other events have been more or less stable.
The official attendance of the Association's Special Interest Groups appears below. As is customary, we do not list the pre meeting events of the S F A B C in this section. Cancelled events are indicated with an "X".
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Event Attendance
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2008 Final Frontier 4 4 5 2 5 4 4 6 4 6 7 X
2007 Final Frontier 4 4 6 4 5 5 4 2 4 5 3 X
2006 Final Frontier - - - - - - 6 6 1 4 3 X
2008 Month End Book Group 4 4 4 7 6 5 5 6 4 4 7
2007 Month End Book Group 5 5 5 6 5 5 5 5 3 5 4 4
2006 Month End Book Group - - - - - - - - 6 5 4 3
2008 Monsters of Horror 3 5 5 6 5 5 6 4 6 3 5 3
2007 Monsters of Horror 2 6 4 5 3 6 4 3 4 4 5 4
2006 Monsters of Horror 7 11 X 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 3
2008 Special Activity 5 5 10 X 3 X 2 5 3 29 X
2007 Special Activity 2 3 12 5 5 5 3 3 6 33 5 4
2006 Special Activity 11 13 16 4 X X 5 3 3 30 4 3
2008 That's SF, Part Two! 1 X 2 3 2 1 1 3 1 1 3 3
2007 That's SF, Part Two! 3 X 2 3 5 3 2 2 3 2 3 3
2006 That's SF, Part Two! - - - - - - 2 3 3 5 4 2
2008 Topic Discussion Group 5 8 7 X 8 6 5 7 5 7 7 X
2007 Topic Discussion Group X 8 7 X 7 9 8 7 10 8 5 X
2006 Topic Discussion Group 15 12 17 9 ? 6 9 7 7 7 6 X
2008 Writers of the Weird 9 6 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 9
2007 Writers of the Weird 4 4 X 7/6 5 7 6 7 5 6 8 5
2006 Writers of the Weird 9 6 8 8 10 X 6/12 8 8 8 7 4
Final Frontier Discussions (First Tuesday of Month):
November 4, 2008 Fall Season So Far, Part 2
October 7, 2008 Fall Season So Far, Part 1
September 2, 2008 Fall Season Preview
August 5, 2008 Create the Next STAR TREK Series
July 1, 2008 Film to TV / TV to Film
June 3, 2008 Saturday Morning Cartoons
May 6, 2008 The Twilight Zone
April 1, 2008 Pranks, Hoaxes, and Practical Jokes
March 4, 2008 Crossovers: Real and Imagined
February 5, 2008 Love, Romance & Sex
January 1, 2008 Christmas on TV
Monsters of Horror Events (First Thursday of Month):
December 4, 2008 Die, Monster, Die! (Video)
November 6, 2008 Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
October 2, 2008 Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
September 4, 2008 The Terror by Dan Simmons
August 7, 2008 The Wolf Man: Hunter's Moon by Michael Jan Friedman
July 3, 2008 Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
June 5, 2008 Triage by Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, Ed Lee
May 1, 2008 The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo
April 3, 2008 The Missing by Sarah Langan
March 6, 2008 Dark Delicacies edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb
February 7, 2008 The Hollower by Mary SanGiovanni
January 3, 2008 Gil's All Fright Diner by A Lee Martinez
That's Science Fiction, Part Two! (Second Wednesday of Month):
December 10, 2008 Erik the Viking (The Director's Son's Cut)
November 12, 2008 Delirious
October 8, 2008 Volver
September 10, 2008 The Tick (Episodes)
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August 13, 2008 The Others
July 9, 2008 The Omega Factor (Episodes)
June 11, 2008 C.S.A. The Confederate States of America
May 14, 2008 My Super Ex-Girlfriend
April 9, 2008 Flushed Away
March 12, 2008 The Dresden Files (Episodes)
February 13, 2008 Cancelled
January 9, 2008 Bowfinger
Topic Discussions (Third Tuesday of Month):
November 18, 2008 Heroes & Heroism, Part 1
October 21, 2008 Witches
September 16, 2008 Metals, Minerals & Miners
August 19, 2008 Fudging Einstein
July 15, 2008 Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
June 17, 2008 Spaceships
May 20, 2008 Fantasy Economics & Professions
April 15, 2008 Cancelled
March 13, 2008 Assassins
February 19, 2008 Alternate Americas
January 15, 20008 Shakespeare
Month End Book Group (Last Week Night of Month):
December 30, 2008 Good Reads
November 28, 2008 The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A E Van Vogt
October 31, 2008 The Dimension Next Door edited by Kerrie Hughes & Martin Greenberg
September 30, 2008 Mainspring by Jay Lake
August 29, 2008 Smoke & Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
July 31, 2008 Reiffen's Choice by S C Butler
June 30, 2008 Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
May 30, 2008 Dead To Me by Anton Strout
April 30, 2008 The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
March 31, 2008 Heartwood by Barbara Campbell
February 29, 2008 Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
January 31, 2008 Firethorn by Sarah Micklem
Special Activity (No Particular Day):
December 25, 2008 Christmas Dinner
October 18, 2008 Halloween Party
September 7, 2008 Broadcast: True Blood Series Debut
August 15, 2008 Dinner/Browse: Look See / B & N Paramus
July 5, 2008 Film: Wall-E
June 19, 2008 Talk: Conspiracy Theory Web Sites
May 18, 2008 Film: Iron Man
March 15, 2008 Lunacon Science Fiction Convention
February 27, 2008 Dinner/Browse. Chili's / Borders Riverdale
January 29. 2008 Dinner/Browse: Park West Diner / B&N West Paterson
5. Web Site
Although the S F A B C web site remains primitive, there were a number of tweaks done to the system to make it more useful to club members and visitors.
The first was the prominent placement about the upcoming General Meeting when one arrives at the site. This includes a link to a page about the Guest Speaker, a link to directions to the meeting site, and the date of the meeting.
The second was the consolidation of the various links to the Association's Google Groups near the end of the site. Anyone desiring to visit one of the groups can scroll to the bottom and quickly find the link instead of searching for it within the web site proper.
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The last is the establishment of links to the web pages or sites of our 2008 and 2009 Speakers. Anyone wanting to know more about one of these Speakers can access this information with just a click of the mouse.
6. Google Groups
The Association's most ambitious undertaking over the past year and a half has been the creation of an array of Google Groups to service its membership and visitors to the website.
The work began in 2007. Although we did launch three interactive groups (Science & Science Fiction, Television, and Writers of the Weird) during that year, the primary focus was on creating informational groups like the Bookstore and Monthly Events Groups to supplement the club's new website.
Four new groups were created in 2008: SFABC Movies (April), SFABC Books (May), SFABC Meeting Notice (June) and SFABC Personals (September). The SFABC Speakers and Programs Group, previously a passive group listing information about past meetings, took on a new role as an update service for doings of past speakers.
Most of the interactive groups operate on two levels. The first is as a message board where members can post information or discuss Books, Movies, Miscellany (Personals), Science, Television or Writing. This is done in the Discussions section. The other area is the Pages which hold information about past club activities.
It’s the Pages which will ultimately be the most distinctive feature of the S F A B C's presence on the Web. These are works in progress, but when they are complete there will be accounst of over 200 movies viewed, 300 meetings held, and 400 books discussed at Association functions. Inputting these newsletter accounts and other information is a prodigious task.
Keeping in mind that details vary from group to group, and that all of the groups are works in progress, we will use the Movie Group to illustrate how the Pages are organized and function.
Clicking on the Page tab displays in alphabetical order the 200 genre movies screened at club functions. Scrolling down by title, you see one which interests you. Symbols next to the title inform you if the title includes a newsletter account (#), a movie review (*), and/or links (~) to an official movie site, the Internet Movie Data Base, and a Wikipedia Entry. Opening the Page displays this information as well as when this movie was screened, when the Page was last updated, and subsequent comments about the Page/Movie by club members.
The groups currently enrich the experience of belonging to the Association for its members. It is hoped that access to these groups will provide an additional incentive for non members to join or renew their membership.
The following table provides a month by month account of the number of members and number of posts in each interactive Google Group. This is expressed as members/posts. Thus in May 2008 the Book and Author Group had 40 members who posted 10 messages.
Google Groups Members / Posts
Month
2008 Books - - - - 40/10 40/02 42/12 44/10 49/15 52/11 52/07 52/05
2008 Movies - - - 41/23 42/18 42/12 45/25 46/18 51/28 55/35 55/34 55/30
2008 Personals - - - - - - - - 39/08 47/21 48/12 48/29
2008 Science 19/28 24/21 36/18 39/15 42/13 42/21 43/10 44/08 50/35 52/19 52/53 52/26
2007 Science - - - - - - - - 06/01 11/16 12/44 15/09
2008 Speakers 11/01 15/00 27/00 31/00 34/01 35/02 40/03 41/01 47/00 49/06 49/03 49/02
2008 Television 17/13 21/08 35/08 36/06 38/21 39/06 43/15 42/07 47/15 49/22 49/09 49/10
2007 Television - - - - - - - - - - 13/07 14/09
2008 Writers 12/06 12/04 13/00 15/02 15/04 15/11 16/07 18/13 20/04 20/10 21/35 21/32
2007 Writers - - - - - - 06/03 08/00 09/01 09/00 09/00 09/04
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