Final Updates For THS Worldcon Activities

By Keith Kato

This is the only edition you will see before the San Jose Worldcon 16-20 August 2018. Drop by The Heinlein Society’s Fan Table for last-nanosecond information.

ON OR BEFORE 31 JULY: The Hugo and Retro-Hugo ballots are due by this date. You must be a Supporting Member or higher of Worldcon to vote. There are four Heinlein stories nominated for the Retro-Hugo: “Goldfish Bowl” (Novelette), “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” and “Waldo” (Novella), and Beyond This Horizon (Novel). The field offers very stiff competition and some legendary names. The Board urges you vote your conscience.

WEDNESDAY, 15 AUGUST, UCSC FIELD TRIP: This is the day before the Worldcon officially begins. We are going on a field trip to Santa Cruz, CA, first for a photo drive-by of the Heinlein house at 6000 Bonny Doon Road, then on to the Special Collections Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where a portion of the Heinlein Archives will be on display.

IF YOU PLAN YOUR OWN TRANSPORTATION, NONE OF THE FOLLOWING (PAYMENT OR SCHEDULE) APPLIES TO YOU. Good luck.
Thus far, we have collected names, some tentative, of interested parties whom we shall also contact directly. If you signed up but did not get an email, re-sign up officially as follows:

We will rent at least one large passenger van that can carry 15 persons. To make your final, binding, and official reservation for the UCSC field trip, this link will be active beginning 10 July through 11 August: www.heinleinsociety.org/reservation . We ask that you pay a NON-REFUNDABLE $20 per person fee, and in the “Comments” box, list your name and others in your party for whom you are paying. The “non-refundable” part is because the seat count is critical, and the cost of rental is substantial, so we cannot not afford No-Shows without penalty. DEADLINE FOR RESERVATION IS SATURDAY, 11 AUGUST 2018, 11:59:59 PM PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME, after which the link will be disabled. You can show up and try a “day-of” seat grab (with payment, of course), but you risk not having an available seat without pre-registering.

THE FOLLOWING TYPES OF FOLKS WILL BE REFUNDED OR OTHERWISE WAIVED THEIR $20 WHEN THEY BOARD: Lifetime Members of The Heinlein Society, SFWA Grandmasters, and past or present Worldcon Guests of Honor. Not only will you be rebated, you are invited to bring a “Plus One” at no additional charge. Do please register, however, in the interests of an accurate seat count. If this applies to you, contact Keith Kato beforehand.

Please gather in the lobby of the San Jose Hilton Hotel (300 Almaden Bl) where Enterprise Car Rental is located. The Hilton is across the street from the McEnery Convention Center, the central site for the Worldcon. Check in begins 10:30 AM. We plan to leave no later than 11:00 AM, so there should be the opportunity to get coffee or use the restrooms before we leave. DO NOT BE “FAN-shinably late.” The convoy will depart by 11am with or without you.

The drive from San Jose to the Bonny Doon house is 53 minutes with no traffic. We will stop for about 5-10 minutes for photos, but will not enter the property.

The trip from Bonny Doon to UC Santa Cruz is about 22 minutes, so we’ll reach campus about 12:30 PM. 30 minutes for lunch at the Special Collections commissary, and then our visit begins! If you’d like to view more from the Archives, or any of the Special Collections massive comic book collection, see the Library’s notes below for more details on how to register and request materials. Note that there is a July 15th deadline to request to view items from Special Collections.

Departure is 3:00 PM, and the return trip to San Jose is 38 minutes without traffic. A nominal 4:00 PM return time would allow pickup of Worldcon registration materials after we arrive. Contact Keith Kato with any questions.

WEDNESDAY, 15 AUGUST, MISSION & VISION MEETING: A “Mission & Vision” gathering for THS members is planned for the early evening of August 15, nominally beginning 7:00 PM. The location will be off-site from the Convention Center, address unknown but at a private residence, meaning you must also register for transportation, separately from the UCSC trip.

The Board found this gathering to be highly informative at the 2016 Kansas City Worldcon; the Virginia Edition raffle at the 2017 Annual Meeting came about because of the 2016 Mission & Vision meeting. The floor will be open for questions and discussions relating to THS and its operations.

You MUST reserve a space (separately from the UCSC trip, but this one is free) by emailing Keith Kato. We are providing refreshments and need a headcount. You will receive an email on where-and-when to be picked up to travel to the remote site about a week before the Worldcon starts. We will also give out this information if you are on the UC Santa Cruz field trip.

PROGRAMMING NOTES: The Worldcon program schedule is not set as of this article, but it looks like there will be one program item that combines panelists from The Heinlein Society, the Center For Ray Bradbury Studies, the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, and the Arthur C. Clarke Center For Human Imagination. I joked that this panel should be called “New Kids On The Block.” This panel was originally intended for the Academic Track, but has been moved into General Programming. For the Academic Track, THS has proffered, and the Worldcon committee has accepted, a $250 cash prize for “Best Paper” presented during the Academic Track. Leading THS’s presence in the Academic Track will be Director Dr. Herb Gilliland (Emeritus Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy) and Academic Chair/Editor-In-Chief of the Heinlein Journal, Dr. Marie Guthrie (Western Kentucky University). For those with a masochistic bent, Kenn Bates and I have pitched (but not yet accepted) our “Shotokan Karate Workshop,” which we have done frequently at Worldcons. We teach the articulation of karate motion and very simple applications in a safe environment; the Instructors are most at risk of injury.

THURSDAY, 16 AUGUST: Worldcon opens and programming begins. THS will have its information table set up (we hope) by noon in the Fan Table area. Come by to chat, pick up badge ribbons, and get the lowdown on THS’s party. The Retro-Hugo Awards will be presented that evening. Four Heinlein stories in three categories have been nominated, so we have reason to attend (and hopefully be happy afterward).

FRIDAY, 17 AUGUST: The Society will host a (semi-private) Reception on Friday at the Fairmont Hotel for bona fide Society members and special guests. Come to the Society’s Fan Table for exact location and to pick up the special invitation ribbon to pass our Door Dragons. At the moment, we plan to run from 6:00 PM to midnight, so that people can go to dinner afterwards or get some sleep. We aren’t the party animal kids we used to be!

SATURDAY, 18 AUGUST: Masquerade.

SUNDAY, 19 AUGUST: Hugo Awards.

MONDAY, 20 AUGUST: Last day of Worldcon. Our Fan Table will be packed away by mid-afternoon. Dead Dog parties are the norm that evening.

The following comments are from the Santa Cruz Library….
About the exhibit:
The exhibit will primarily feature materials drawn from Heinlein’s archive as well as some related materials, including selections from the Library’s comic book collection.

The exhibit will be installed in the Library’s Third Floor Gallery, which is open for visitors whenever the McHenry Library building as a whole is open. On Aug. 15th, the anticipated McHenry Library building hours will be 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. Your group can see the Heinlein exhibit anytime during these hours. Once you know for certain when you will arrive, however, please let me know because I will mark my calendar so that I can be present to greet you and introduce you to the exhibit as a whole.

Regarding seeing materials beyond the exhibit:
None of the materials in Special Collections and Archives can be browsed on one’s own in a self-serve manner. But if any of your party wish to see any materials from the Heinlein Archives OR our comic book collections (or anything else in Special Collections & Archives, for that matter), they are welcome to do so as researchers on an individual basis while they are here that day.

Here’s how:
One month in advance (by July 15th), any person wishing to individually consult any materials should register as a reader for Special Collections and Archives (via Keith Kato; we will consolidate and forward these requests) and place his or her requests for the specific materials they wish to consult. Advance notice is required because some collections, including those of the Heinlein Archive, are stored at our offsite storage facility and advance notice will allow us to ensure that requested materials are ready and waiting.

Here, for your and others’ reference, are links to the finding aids for the collections that you and I have mentioned, which individuals can study to identify specific requests they’d like to make:

  • Heinlein Archive
  • James Gunderson and Peter Coha Comic Book Collection

Please note that hours for the Special Collections and Archives Reading Room that day will be 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm only that day; they are NOT the same hours as those of the McHenry Library as a whole.

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