2009 - Year in Review
Page Created: 10/28/10. Last Updated: 10/28/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 03/11/09.
THE STARSHIP EXPRESS
NEWSLETTER OF THE SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION OF BERGEN COUNTY
136 MANHATTAN AVENUE, WALDWICK, NEW JERSEY 07463
PHONE: (201) 447 - 3652
2009 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)
Gateway Group (Portal to General Google Group Directory)
Meeting Notice (Details on General Meeting with Directions)
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)
Weird Novels (Writers Critique Group Focusing on Longer Works)
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 22, Number 13 Copyright 2009 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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2009: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
It is alway "Twas the best of times / Twas the worst of times" when doing these year end recaps. I publish lots of statistics because metrics are a good reality check, but neither the numbers nor gut feelings give the whole story.
The good news: membership and General Meeting attendance are up, although the attendance is a very modest increase. The new website and the continued growth of our Google Groups give the Association a much better footprint on the internet. The Writers of the Weird critique group continues to flourish in number of members and quality of writing. Financially, we nearly broke even.
The bad news: attendance at a lot of General Meetings and most of the bookstore events (WOTW and the Topic Grou being notable exceptions) remains underwhelming. Too often someone new shows up at one of these events, never to return. Some of the new members who had joined us in 2008 have drifted away. There is the threat of a rent increase in 2010.
Last year I described my mood as cautious optimism. This year I would have to say it's a feeling of restrained excitement. Restrained, because I am very aware of many of the variables which could derail the club's progress. Excitement, because with so much spadework having been done building the web infrastructure, there is the possibility that the redirection of these energies could result in an explosive growth of the Association.
1. Finance
Although we came close, the Association did not break even in 2009. The shortfall was only about $ 40.00 this year, a lot less than in 2008 ($ 200.00) and 2007 ($ 270.00).
The dark cloud on the horizon is that the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, where we hold most of our meetings, and the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, our overflow facility, have stated their intention of raising our rental fee by $ 25.00 per month, which would work out to $ 200.00 per year. We are attempting to convince them that this would be in neither of our best interests.
We have committed to the Cultural Center from January to May. If we are unable to convince the Methodists' Board of Directors to hod the line for us, we will try to hold the September meeting in a rent free facility such as a bookstore. This would save one month's rent. We would probably have to raise the Annual Membership Fee from $ 8.00 to $ 10.00 to make up the balance.
2. Publicity and Recruitment
There are three ways of improving turnout at Association events. You can motivate current members to attend more frequently. You can encourage former members to reenlist. You can find new members. This last option requires either publicity or recruitment.
Publicity is essentially putting messages in a bottle, tossing them into the ocean, and hoping they wash up on some receptive shore. It has a very low probability of success, but it's the only way to reach most people. It's a maddening way to do things, but every now and then you hit a home run and reach several new prospects whom you would never have otherwise encountered. The Association has done little in the way of publicity the past couple of years. We hope to be able to do more of it on a regular basis.
Recruitment is a much more productive approach. It consists of one on one contact with a person you have met. They may be a friend, a neighbor, someone at work, someone you met at a bookstore or met on line. It is a time intensive process, but it has a much better chance of success. Most of our new members have come to us through recruitment and we hope to continue these efforts.
3. Membership
The 2008 Year End Report stated a goal of a membership growth to 60 - 65 people. We successfully met this objective, ending the year with 61 members as recorded in the newsletter. Our target for 2010 is to grow to 70 members.
Most of our growth has been accomplished by expanding our pool of non core members, people who are infrequent attendees of the General Meeting and other club functions. An increase in core members--particularly those attending a General Meeting more often than not--would be an enormous benefit.
A month by month membership total for the past four years appears below.
Membership Totals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2009 50 52 53 52 55 58 57 58 60 64 60 61
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
4. Attendance & Programs
The threat of poor weather conditions caused the rescheduling of the January meeting to the fourth Saturday of the month, January 23, 2009. This proved to be a good call as January turned out to be one of the year's better attended meetings.
The Association’s July and August meetings were again held at Barnes & Noble in Hackensack, New Jersey. Attendance at these summer meetings had become spotty a few years back, and we have been able to hold our own last year and this. Parking is far from ideal, but we have a good rapport with the staff of the store, mass transit is an option and there is a diner across the highway, so we will be sticking with this as a summer site for the foreseeable future.
As usual, writers were the most frequent speakers at the General Meeting. While the Association has long included a certain amount of programming which focused on young people--author Bruce Coville and Firebird Books editor Sharyn November come to mind--we made a deliberate effort to add this segment of the market to our event mix in 2009. The year led off with librarian Latricia Markle providing an overview of the area. Authors Robin Wasserman and Katherine Marsh gave varied insights into writing for the younger set.
Although there were meetings which drew fewer people, I considered the November meeting's attendance to be the most disappointing. It is a rare occurrence for the Association to have a two time Hugo winner at the peak of her career as a guest. There should have been more of an audience.
A list of our 2009 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
(E=Editor, F=Film Maker, G=Game Designer, L=Librarian, N=No Program, P=Planetariumist, V=Video, W=Writer)
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005
1 01/23/09 L Latricia Markle 25 23 14 22 25
2 02/14/09 V DR WHO. QUARK.STAR TREK. 16 17 19 14 36
3 03/14/09 W Robin Wasserman 18 6 17 28 36
4 04/11/09 W/P Wm Thomas Hamilton 25 17 21 34 30
5 05/09/09 E Liz Gorinsky 33 15 18 24 32
6 06/13/09 W Aaron Rosenberg 16 20 19 29 25
7 07/11/09 W Joshua Palmatier 19 20 12 15 20
8 08/08/09 W Katherine Marsh 18 16 12 14 19
9 09/12/09 F Paul Chau 25 29 16 19 35
10 10/10/09 W/G Bard Bloom 19 19 20 21 26
11 11/14/09 E Elizabeth Bear 20 17 22 18 27
12 12/12/09 N Holiday Party 25 27 18 12 16
Total: 259 226 208 250 349
Per Meeting Average: 21.5 18.8 17.3 20.8 29.0
5. Bookstore / Special Interest Groups
To repeat what I said in last year's Year End Summation: 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 into the DVD. Hopefully someone else joins me. We may make some changes to the operation of this gorup in 2010. A lot depends on time constraints.
The Writers of the Weird and Topic Discussion Groups are normally our best attended events each month. Turnout at the other activities is spotty.
The Month End Book Group has relocated to a different area of the Food Court of the Paramus Park Mall. The group now meets near the elevators in the alcove behind Dunkin' Donuts. This spot is quieter than the main area. Unfortunately, it's the first section to be closed off for the evening clean up, so we sometimes have to choose between abbreviated discussions or moving to the main concourse around 9:00 PM. Our thanks to Barry Weinberger for suggesting the move at our August gathering.
The Final Frontier's first December gathering went well, and we will continue this special Year End Video Meeting.
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".
Event Attendance
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2009 Final Frontier 4 3 7 6 4 6 6 8 6 4 4 3
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
2009 Month End Book Group 3 5 6 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 6
2008 Month End Book Group 4 4 4 7 6 5 5 6 4 4 7 5
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
2009 Monsters of Horror 1 3 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 4 4
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
2009 Special Activity 3 2 16 6 X 3 5 7 3 26 5 5
2008 Special Activity 5 5 10 X 3 X 2 5 3 29 X 7
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
2009 That's SF, Part Two! 2 3 2 2 1 5 2 2 3 5 2 1
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
2009 Topic Discussion Group 7 7 8 7 8 5 5 8 9 9 7 X
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
2009 Writers of the Weird 9 11 11 9 8 8 8 9 9 6 9 X
2008 Writers of the Weird 9 6 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 9 6
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):
December 1, 2009 Videos: Viewers' Choice
November 3, 2009 Fall Season So Far, Part 2
October 6, 2009 Fall Season So Far, Part 1
September 1, 2009 Fall Season Preview
August 4, 2009 Sword and Sorcery
July 7, 2009 Time Travel
June 2, 2009 Season Review
May 5, 2009 The Outer Limits
April 7, 2009 Vampires
March 3, 2009 Suggested Adaptations
February 3, 2009 Genre Intrusions into Non Genre Series
January 6, 2009 Best Shows: 2005 - 2008
Monsters of Horror Events (First Thursday of Month):
December 3, 2009 Video: To the Devil, a Daughter
November 5, 2009 The Wolfman by Nicholas Pekearo
October 5, 2009 Undead and Unpopular by Mary Janice Davidson
September 3, 2009 Small Favor by Jim Butcher
August 6, 2009 Supernatural: Bone Keby by Keith De Candido
July 2, 2009 Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austin & Seth Grahame-Smith
June 4, 2009 Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
May 7, 2009 The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
April 2, 2009 Better Off Undead edited by Martin Greenberg & Daniel Hoyt
March 5, 2009 Sunshine by Robin Mc Kinley
February 5, 2009 Dark Delicacies 2 edited by Del Howison & Jeff Gelb
January 1, 2009 The Many Faces of Van Helsing edited by Jeanne Cavelos
That's Science Fiction, Part Two! (Second Wednesday of Month):
December 9, 2009 S. Darko
November 11, 2009 Ghost Town
October 14, 2009 Dreams with Sharp Teeth
September 9, 2009 The Happening
August 12, 2009 Hancock
July 8, 2009 Supernatural (Episodes)
June 8, 2009 The Mist
May 10, 2009 Chuck (Episodes)
April 8, 2009 Deathrace 2000
March 11, 2009 The Orphanage
February 11, 2009 Ed Wood
January 14, 2009 Monster House
Topic Discussions (Third Tuesday of Month):
November 17, 2009 Communications & Miscommunications
October 20, 2009 Memorable Planets
September 15, 2009 Exorcisms & Possessions
August 18, 2009 Paranormal Romance / Urban Fantasy
July 21, 2009 Christian Mythos in Science Fiction
June 16, 2009 Why Don't Vampires Rule the World?
May 19, 2009 Elves & Dwarves
April 21, 2009 Teams & Teamwork
March 17, 2009 Memory & Identity
February 17, 2009 Academies & Apprenticeships
January 20, 2009 Heroes & Heroism, Part 2
Month End Book Group (Last Week Night of Month):
December 30, 2009 Good Reads
November 30, 2009 Deader Still by Anton Strout
October 30, 2009 Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear
September 30, 2009 Axis by Robert Charles Wilson
August 31, 2009 To Outlive Eternity & Other Stories by Poul Anderson
July 31, 2009 The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh
June 30, 2009 The Skewed Throne by Joshua Palmatier
May 29, 2009 Pandemonim by Daryl Gregory
April 30, 2009 The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
March 31, 2009 The Stepsister Scheme by Jim Hines
February 27, 2009 Skinned by Robin Wasserman
January 30, 2009 Crashlander by Larry Niven
Special Activity (No Particular Day):
December 25, 2009 Christmas Dinner
November 23, 2009 Dinner at Jose Tejas
October 18, 2009 Halloween Party
September 7, 2009 Video: Torchwood - Children of Earth
August 15, 2009 Signing by 6 Fantasy Writers @ Borders Epress
July 5, 2009 Video: Being Human
June 19, 2009 Video: Red Dwarf - Return to Earth
May 18, 2009 Cancelled
April 17, 2009 Critiques, Discussions, Videos
March 15, 2009 Lunacon Science Fiction Convention
February 27, 2009 Broadcast: Dollhouse Series Debut
January 29. 2009 Signing by 5 Fantasy Writers @ B&N Hackensack
6. Web Site
The S F A B C established a new web site in November. Depending on how you look at it, this is either the third or fourth site for the organization.
The new site is hosted on Google Sites. The layout of the Home Page is pretty much the same as its immediate predecessor, which was hosted on Google Page Creator. The difference likes in the contents of the Side Bar.
Some members have expressed a disappointment with the plainness and lack of graphics. It is not impossible that there will be some upgrades in this area at a future date.
I am personally very happy with the functionality of the site. I find the layout very clean and simple. The new site restores a number of features which were present only on the original website: reprints of newsletter articles, links to convention reports and the websites of other science fiction clubs, a sample newsletter, and more. It does a better job integrating our Google information and discussion groupss into the site. It also has new features like FAQs, Members Blogs, Pages & Sites, and other features.
I rate the new site at a B-, as opposed to the previoius version which I considered C-.
7. Google Groups
The Association created a couple of new Google Groups, dropped one, and made alterations on two in 2009.
The two new groups are the Weird Novels Group and the Google Gateway Group. Weird Novels was created in September as an adjunct to the Writers of the Weird Google Group. The group is designed to focus on novels and other long works by WOTW members. The Google Gateway Group is an information Group created in May. The plan is for Gateway to be our primary portal to the universe of Google Groups, but other matters have demanded our attention, causing this group to stay on the back burner.
Changes were made to two existing groups. Bookstore Events was originally created as a repository for information about the club's smaller events. This had been done in the Group's Pages. It acquired a second function in January, with the Discussions serving as a Reminder Notice for the events of these groups. The group is not used for the General Meetings which use the Meeting Notice Group or for the Writers of the Weird, which has its own distribution list.
The Monthly Activities Group has been shelved. It was designed as an information group to list all Association Events happening on a month by month basis. Some of this function has been taken over by the Bookstore Events section of the website.
Speakers & Programs underwent a make over and became Programs & Speakers. The reason for the change is that some glitches crept into the original group, Speakers & Programs, and it made more sense to recreate this group from scratch as Programs & Speakers than to fix Speakers & Programs. This was completed in May.
These groups enrich the experience of belonging to the Association for its members. It is hoped that access to the groups will provide an additional incentive for non members to join or renew their membership.
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 visitiors 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 accounts 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 2009, for example, the Book and Author Group had 62 members who posted 12 messages.
Google Groups Members / Posts
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2
Books & Authors
2009 56/06 58/22 61/31 62/02 62/12 63/12 64/08 65/03 70/14 72/32 73/26
2008 - - - - 40/10 40/02 42/12 44/10 49/15 52/11 52/07 52/05
Bookstores
2009 36/06 48/06 55/06 56/05 56/05 59/06 62/06 68/07 74/05 77/05 78/08
Movies
2009 59/12 60/66 65/58 65/43 65/95 68/43 69/47 73/37 78/32 79/36 80/17
2008 - - 41/23 42/18 42/12 45/25 46/18 51/28 55/35 55/34 55/30
Personals
2009 51/13 53/21 57/63 57/31 57/109 58/16 60/13 61/13 66/04 67/14 66/17
2008 - - - - - - - 39/08 47/21 48/12 48/29
Science & SF
2009 56/28 58/37 59/49 59/25 59/48 61/53 62/33 66/28 71/55 73/64 74/36
2008 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 - - - - - - - - 06/01 11/16 12/44 15/09
* Speakers & Programs
2009
2008 11/01 15/00 27/00 31/00 34/01 35/02 40/03 41/01 47/00 49/06 49/03 49/02
Television
2009
2008 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 - - - - - - - - - - 13/07 14/09
Weird Novels
2009 - - - - - - - - 28/00 28/19 28/19
Writers of the Weird
2009 21/32 23/47 23/45 25/134 24/62 24/59 27/129 31/62 33/68 31/98 32/114
2008 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 - - - - - - 06/03 08/00 09/01 09/00 09/00