From the TAFF ballot form: The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and popular [science fiction] fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean across the Atlantic. Since that time TAFF has regularly brought North American fans to European conventions and European fans to North American conventions. TAFF exists solely through the support of fandom. The candidates are voted on by interested fans all over the world, and each vote is accompanied by a donation [...] These votes, and the continued generosity of fandom, are what make TAFF possible. (See past and present ballot forms for more.)
TAFF Now
2025 Westbound Race - Online voting form
- 2025 TAFF ballot [HTML] with platforms; PDF
- TAFF News (Facebook)
- TAFF News (Twitter)
Current Administrators - Europe: Mikołaj Kowalewski. Mail to Mikołaj Kowalewski, Nørre Farimagsgade 68, st. tv, 1364, Copenhagen, Denmark. Email EUTAFF (at) gmail.com.
- North America: Sarah Gulde. Mail to Sarah Gulde, 3244SE 153rd Ave, Portland, OR 97236, USA. Email nataffemail (at) gmail.com.
- Email both administrators
TAFF Archive
- TAFF Newsletters
- All the Past TAFF Races (in detail)
- TAFF Winner Index (also listing trip reports)
- Past TAFF Ballot Forms
- Free Ebooks
- News Bulletins at this site
- TAFF Publications [largely superseded by the Newsletters page above]
Additional - TAFF in Thirteen Paragraphs
- TAFF Administrator FAQ
- TAFF Logos
- TAFF Group Photo, 2010
- First TAFF Race Announcement, October 1953
- Voting Procedures Since 1954
- Trip Reports Sampler ... brief extracts from unfinished reports
- TROLL (TAFF Reports On-Line Library) ... rekeying/scanning old material – with wants list!
- Older News Bulletins from this page
Archived Elsewhere - FANAC Fan Funds Page
- FANAC TAFF Ephemera – miscellaneous scanned newsletters
- Ron Ellik's letters to Ethel Lindsay and others on the 1963-1964 TAFF races
Announcements & Updates
1 November 2025 Claire Brialey, financial comptroller of TAFF in Europe (including the UK), has published accounts showing fundraising and expenditure from October 2022 to the end of October 2025. Read all about it here.
31 October 2025 In Taffluorescence! #10, Sandra Bond steps down as European TAFF administrator, Mikołaj Kowalewski takes over and offers a first foretaste of his trip report, and both discuss the big question of whether the 2026 eastbound TAFF race should run to Eastercon in the UK (April) or Eurocon in Berlin (July). What does fandom think? "Let's have this public discussion."
28 October 2025 David Langford has been grumpily overhauling this site after sinister communications from PayPal warning that the many buttons for fan fund donations and TAFF voting fees used an "obsolete" mechanism (in the sense of "once the only way to do it, recommended by us for years, still works but we've decided to make life more difficult for you") for which support will cease some time next year. Payment using TAFF and GUFF PayPal email addresses has now been replaced by payment via links to PayPal.me URLs set up by Claire Brialey for TAFF in Europe and Alison Scott for GUFF. Many thanks indeed to both! Still lurking in the depths of the ebook library are two donation buttons for The Corflu Fifty and one for DUFF that need to be "upgraded".... [Later: Sarah Gulde and Rob Jackson have since provided PayPal.me links for TAFF in North America and The Corflu Fifty respectively, duly incorporated. Thanks to both!] • Sandra Bond is even now preparing a final issue of Taffluorescence! that will mark the end of her European TAFF Administrator stint and formally pass the coveted can of worms to her successor Mikołaj Kowalewski.
11 August 2025 Mikołaj Kowalewski has safely arrived in the USA for the Seattle Worldcon. See the latest newsletter from the current administrators, Taffluorescence! #9, for his schedule and much more.
28 April 2025 We have a winner: congratulations to Mikołaj Kowalewski, who as the 2025 TAFF delegate has reaffirmed his willingness to make the trip to the Seattle Worldcon. Details of voting can be found in the list of all races and in the interim newsletter Taffluorescence! #8. A more detailed newsletter covering other TAFF matters including fundraising and Eastercon activity should follow later in the year.
Easter 2025 As already noted, online voting in the 2025 race closes on 23 April! At the Belfast Eastercon, paper ballots can be obtained and handed in at Sandra Bond's dealer table, whose paperback stock includes Watto's Wisdom: Zine and Con Writing by Ian Watson; the author should be there to sign them. The Fan Funds Auction is scheduled for 18:30 (local time) on Sunday 20 April, and here's the catalogue. "We're only taking bids in person this year, so if you can't be there and want something, send a friend with clear instructions and a maximum limit."
April 2025 Friends of TAFF are reminded that online voting in the 2025 race closes on 23 April and that paper ballots (here's one you can print out) need to be received by then. • The latest item in the Free Ebook Library is a new edition of the TAFF Trip Report Anthology of chapters from unfinished or abandoned reports, first published in 2017 and now updated.
March 2025 Voting in the current westbound TAFFrace continues, and there are new titles in the ebook library – most recently Watto's Wisdom: Zine and Con Writing by Ian Watson, with a trade paperback edition sold in aid of TAFF. THEN Again: A UK Fanhistory Reader 1930-1979 (2019) is also released this month as a trade paperback.
1 January 2025 As the chimes of midnight began to sound, Sandra Bond heroically threw the software switch that activated online voting! The 2025 TAFF race has now officially begun. Vote early, don't vote often, and do remember to vote by 23 April....
30 December 2024 Further to yesterday's post, the 2025 TAFF ballot has now been posted here in HTML and PDF versions. See candidates' platforms. The online voting form becomes active on 1 January.
29 December 2024 The 2025 westbound TAFF race is about to begin, with three European candidates: Zi Graves from the UK, Mikołaj Kowalewski from Poland (now living in Denmark) and Jan Vaněk jr. from the Czech Republic. Voting opens on 1 January 2025 and closes on 23 April 2025. See the administrators' newsletter Taffluorescence! #7 for further details.
2 November 2024 Sandra Bond's newsletter Taffluorescence! #6 welcomes Sarah Gulde on board as North American TAFF administrator (replacing the long-suffering Mike Lowrey) and announces the 2025 westbound race from Europe to Seattle Worldcon 2025. Nominations open on 11 November and close on 20 December; voting begins as early as possible in the New Year, continuing to just after the 2025 Eastercon.
1 November 2024 The latest additions to the TAFF free library are Steve Stiles's 1968 trip report Harrison Country – our hundredth title – and no fewer than ten GUFF reports as listed on this site's GUFF page. The library script has been tweaked so that download pages for GUFF reports offer a GUFF rather than a TAFF donation button.
26 August 2024 League of Fan Funds newletter with Glasgow Worldcon fundraising details.
9 August 2024 Just released: Glasgow 2024 Fan Funds Auction Catalogue and Silent Auction Catalogue. If you're not at Worldcon and want to bid, contact someone who's there! (Virtual members can use the Discord server to bid in the silent auction – see catalogue.)
29 July 2024 Sandra Bond's Taffluorescence! #5 gives 2024 delegate Sarah Gulde's crowded UK travel schedule and breathlessly adumbrates the imminent Glasgow Worldcon.
July 2024 The League of Fan Funds, which co-ordinates fundraising at UK events for TAFF, GUFF and other fannish causes, has a new website (to be expanded at leisure after the Glasgow Worldcon).
1 May 2024 Yet more additions to our Little Free Library: New Worlds Profiles 1952-1963 compiled by David Langford (ebook and paperback) and Tobes Valois's 2002 TAFF trip report Tobes TAFF Ting (PDF). Additionally, Rob Hansen has greatly expanded his 2019 fanhistorical anthology Challenging Moskowitz: 1930s Fandom Revisited from 47,500 words to 71,000 words (ebook and now the first paperback edition). There are now 97 titles in the library, including every completed TAFF report with just one exception, and a 98th is in preparation. What will number 100 be?
24 April 2024 Many thanks to Sue Mason and Alison Scott for allowing the addition of Sue's 2000 TAFF report (published 2023 by Alison) to the free TAFF library: Into the Wide Purple Yonder.
14 April 2024 Sarah Gulde's initial travel plans can be found in Taffluorescence! #4, along with further financial details and a minor correction to the first-announced voting figures.
4 April 2024 The winner of the 2024 TAFF race is Sarah Gulde with 58 votes to Vanessa Applegate's 31, a clear first-round majority. Hold Over Funds received 4 votes and No Preference 25. For Sarah's victory statement, the voting breakdown, the list of voters and other news, please see the official newsletter Taffluorescence! #3.
14 January 2024 The 2024 eastbound TAFF race has now begun, with candidates Vanessa Applegate and Sarah Gulde contending for a trip to Glasgow 2024 (8-12 August), the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland. The official announcement is in the just-published Taffluorescence! #2. Click the following links for the ballot form including candidates' platforms, the PDF ballot, and the online voting form. Voting continues until 2 April 2024.
Older Bulletins from this page
