HRSFANS.org

We are excited to announce that you should Save The Date for: THE SECOND QUADRENNIAL BIG HRSFA REUNION! This will be held on March 15-18, 2012, coincident with the HRSFA undergraduate SF convention, Vericon XII. Our “blue-ribbon” committee of “people who like to volunteer for things”* is busily working out the details of lodging, food, events and costs.

The reunion in 2008 was a blast — attending were scores of HRSFA alums spanning 20 years, sharing many activities such as going to Vericon VIII, partying, playing games, and generally re-uning. We guarantee that, like the prior reunion, this one will be Made Of Win.**

If you like, keep an eye on the HRSFANS Blog, now available on RSS and Twitter, for updates as they arrive. The Big Sign-Up Announcement will be sent over hrsfans-announce, so please sign up there if you haven’t yet.

Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem,
HRSFANS Reunion Committee

* If you, too, are a person who likes to volunteer for things, let us know and we will get you involved in helping to plan the reunion. We are always interested in feedback about what you might like to see happen at the reunion. Contact Jason Brodsky (jaybrod at gmail) if you are interested.

** By FDA rules the reunion must be at least 90% Win to qualify for this certification.

By the way, if you’d ever like to post something here, but you don’t want to get your own posting account, email your post to me and I’ll put it up.

If you’d like to post often enough that this sounds like a hassle, email Emily and she’ll set you up with an account of your own.

[The following email was sent on November 4th. The webmaster apologizes for forgetting to post it to the blog until just now. You have one week left to vote.]

The HRSFAns constitution calls for an election “The Election Chair
shall announce a date and time for counting ballots in November, and
shall distribute ballots to all dues-paying members of HRSFA, no fewer
than four weeks before the election.”

Well I am announcing an election with ballots due by Friday December
3, 29 days from now.

Send your ballots to elections@hrsfans.org

Remember your candidates are:

President:
- Thomas Lotze ‘01

Secretary
- Elisabeth Cohen ‘06

Treasurer
- Emily Morgan ‘07

It’s a turning point election for HRSFAns really, and I fear we are in
for a campaign season of mud-slinging, extremist base-mobilizing, and
last minute bribery. At least I’m hoping so.

Reminder: Only the votes of dues paying members shall count for this
election. In this case, “dues paying” just means:
1) Fill out our survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2BHRSJ6

This is the required portion of renewing your membership! It only
takes five to ten minutes, but it’s very valuable, as it lets us know
how you feel about what HRSFANS is and could be doing.

2) Pay ~~OPTIONAL~~ membership dues.
Suggested dues are:
$23 standard dues (for the Illuminati)
$11 for recent graduates (in the last two years), or other who need a
reduced rate (for Bilbo)
$42 for those who can afford it (for Douglas Adams)

Remember, if no one votes, then we have to have a 4 hour election
meeting at the winter party.

Sincerely,
Tony Vila
Michael VonKorff
Election Co-Chairs

“In the month of November of the third year of service of the standing Executive Committee, the Board shall conduct a general election for the three officers of the next Executive Committee.”

HRSFANS has been around for three years now. We’ve had a reunion, raised an endowment, started SIGs, created ways for HRSFA to connect online and locally, held a Winter Party, started an internship program, and more. HRSFANS is something that’s going to continue, and grow. The next step is to hold elections for the next Executive Committee: HRSFANS’ President, Secretary, and Treasurer.

“The sitting President shall actively encourage all members of HRSFANS interested in serving on the Board to submit statements of Candidacy to the Board.”

I hereby encourage all of you who are interested in serving on the Board to submit statements of Candidacy. The Executive Committee of HRSFANS is a central part of deciding HRSFANS’ future and doing what needs to be done to get there. It’s a great way to be a big part of shaping what that future looks like. Specific duties of the President, Secretary, and Treasurer can be found in our bylaws and constitution.

While you only need to submit your statement to the Board to get on the ballot, I encourage you to submit it to hrsfans-discuss@hrsfans.org.

“Any dues-paying member of HRSFANS who wishes to stand for this November election shall declare their Candidacy no later than September 30 of that year.”

In order to be on the ballot, you must declare your candidacy by September 30th. Note that “dues-paying member” translates to “those who’ve filled out the annual survey”. We’ll have our new one up in a couple of weeks, so all candidates will need to make sure to complete that as well. This is also the criterion for voting membership. Also, please note that due to HRSFANS’ being a SIG of the Harvard Alumni Association, our constitution specifies that only members of the Harvard community (alumni, their spouses/partners, students, faculty, staff, parents, and visiting fellows) may run for these positions or vote in this election.

“Following this date, the Board shall designate an Election Chair, not from among the declared Executive Committee Candidates, and this Election Chair will henceforth preside over the election. The Election Chair shall announce a date and time for counting ballots in November, and shall distribute ballots to all dues-paying members of HRSFA, no fewer than four weeks before the election. In each election the candidate with the most votes shall be selected. In the case of ties, the Board, excluding any of its members who are Candidates, shall cast a tiebreaking vote.”

Elections will be held in November. Good luck.

Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem,
Thomas Lotze
President, HRSFANS

Congratulations to John Abbe ’88 on his appointment to the HRSFANS board!

HRSFANS has decided on an official motto: “Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem”

(“Mingle a little folly with your wisdom” from Horace’s Odes)

Thank you to everyone who participated in selecting the motto, and particularly to Alexa F. and Kartik V. for suggesting the winning motto!

HRSFANS is starting a blog! This blog was jointly inspired by the HRSFANS Index to the Awesome on the Internet and Boing Boing. The idea is to post links and short discussions of things that we like, with the goal of sharing these things both within HRSFANS and with the fan community at large.

You can read the blog right here, or follow our RSS feed.

We’re looking for people to contribute to the blog! If you’re interested, you can find out more about it on the HRSFANS wiki.

We’d also love suggestions for additions to our Blogroll. If you have a blog you’d like us to link to (whether your own blog or just one that you think our readers would enjoy), please let us know.

Greetings, HRSFANS all–

We’d like to briefly update the body politic on the status of our ongoing efforts to foster local HRSFANS communities:

1. We’ve created regional email-lists for the areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Northwest, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, and New York, so that people who live in these areas can share information about local events of interest, pursue geeky activities in congenial company, and generally have a good time together. If you would like to join one of these lists, you can sign up at http://www.hrsfans.org/about/. If you’d like us to create a mailing list for your area, please let us know at contact at hrsfans.org.

2. We’ve begun a search of “regional liasons”, who will work with us to stimulate HRSFANS activity in these areas. We’ve started discussion with several intrepid volunteers, but if you’re interested, we’d still love to hear from you!

So far we have two SIGs that have flourished via the magic of the Internet — Writer’s SIG meets once a month via Skype, and Magic SIG meets weekly via Teamspeak. But there’s so much more we could do! Will you start the HRSFANS MST3K SIG, and collaborate on writing dialogue for a showing at the next reunion? What about a board game SIG that meets online to play Catan? One popular strategy for HRSFA has always been to call whatever it is you’re already doing a SIG — but maybe you’d like to find out who else is in WoW SIG, or recruit more members for RTS SIG? Float your idea by sending it to Kevin Gold (treasurer at hrsfans.org), and the Board will help make it happen.

Congratulations to Elizabeth “Quirk” Goodman ’08 on her appointment to the HRSFANS board!