Getting Ready
Marscon was a good time this weekend while I was there. I very much liked their AV room -- they had unique, different features -- including an actual film projector for one item instead of just DVDs.
Later today we've got an open meeting for CONvergence and Misfits. I'm looking forward to it -- I've no idea how well it will work, or how many people will be showing up.
One of the things we're trying to do with this meeting is find ways to make our community better -- one thing we've been talking about for a while is that more dialog needs to happen throughout the different parts of our community. There are multiple levels of community, after all -- there are the people that we can identify as our local tribe. In practice, that's about 150 people at most for people -- and it's certainly difficult to keep touch with all of the people that you know and have relatively close ties with.
But there are other layers as well -- after all, I have probably three times that many connections when I start to add up all of my social networking software and most of them I've met at least once. And, I don't really consider myself to be that social -- I don't feel that I'm particularly good at social interations. And once we start counting up all of the people that are involved in some sort of "fan activity" in a several year period very broadly, we're talking several thousand people in the area centered around the Twin Cities.
So how do we make this *broader* community better? We've got the long term conventions like CONvergence, Anime Detour, Minicon, Marscon, the MCBA Comics Community, or Diversicon. We've got things that come up occasionally like Gaylaxicon or World Fantasy -- things that make us as a broader community richer. We've got the more focused events like Applecon, Fourth Street, Supercon, Omegacon, Arcana, or Convivial. We've got lots of organizations as well; from all of the Trek clubs to Mnstf or Misfits, to every junior high school D&D or Anime club.
This diversity and richness is fantastic and to be encouraged. And perhaps this is me being niave, but I'm a believer in fandom being a positive place for social change in society as a whole -- I have found friends of a variety of backgrounds through this broader community. I'm not saying it is perfect; and we certainly aren't always going to share common interests and goals in everything -- just like society as a whole.
I'm not really quite sure where this all goes. After all, there are reasons why there are all of these different organizations and events -- most of them good ones. But how can things be better, and what do we need to get there?
Later today we've got an open meeting for CONvergence and Misfits. I'm looking forward to it -- I've no idea how well it will work, or how many people will be showing up.
One of the things we're trying to do with this meeting is find ways to make our community better -- one thing we've been talking about for a while is that more dialog needs to happen throughout the different parts of our community. There are multiple levels of community, after all -- there are the people that we can identify as our local tribe. In practice, that's about 150 people at most for people -- and it's certainly difficult to keep touch with all of the people that you know and have relatively close ties with.
But there are other layers as well -- after all, I have probably three times that many connections when I start to add up all of my social networking software and most of them I've met at least once. And, I don't really consider myself to be that social -- I don't feel that I'm particularly good at social interations. And once we start counting up all of the people that are involved in some sort of "fan activity" in a several year period very broadly, we're talking several thousand people in the area centered around the Twin Cities.
So how do we make this *broader* community better? We've got the long term conventions like CONvergence, Anime Detour, Minicon, Marscon, the MCBA Comics Community, or Diversicon. We've got things that come up occasionally like Gaylaxicon or World Fantasy -- things that make us as a broader community richer. We've got the more focused events like Applecon, Fourth Street, Supercon, Omegacon, Arcana, or Convivial. We've got lots of organizations as well; from all of the Trek clubs to Mnstf or Misfits, to every junior high school D&D or Anime club.
This diversity and richness is fantastic and to be encouraged. And perhaps this is me being niave, but I'm a believer in fandom being a positive place for social change in society as a whole -- I have found friends of a variety of backgrounds through this broader community. I'm not saying it is perfect; and we certainly aren't always going to share common interests and goals in everything -- just like society as a whole.
I'm not really quite sure where this all goes. After all, there are reasons why there are all of these different organizations and events -- most of them good ones. But how can things be better, and what do we need to get there?