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
2024 Eastbound Race - Online voting form
- 2024 TAFF ballot [HTML] with platforms; PDF
- TAFF News (Facebook)
- TAFF News (Twitter)
Current Administrators - Europe: Sandra Bond. Mail to Sandra Bond, 1B Chestnut House, Mucklestone Road, Loggerheads, Market Drayton, TF9 1DA, UK. Email EUTAFF (at) gmail.com.
- North America: Michael Lowrey. Mail to Michael J. Lowrey, 1847 N 2nd Str., Milwaukee, WI 53212, U.S.A. Email n.a.taff.2020 (at) gmail.com. Incoming: Sarah Gulde.
- 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- TAFF Publications [largely superseded by the Newsletters page above]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
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.
28 November 2023 Sandra Bond has now formally taken over as European administrator and published her first newsletter Taffluorescence! #1 (click link for PDF). Among other things this announces a new TAFF race from North America to the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon, with the nomination period running from 1 December 2023 to 7 January 2024 and voting from very soon thereafter to 2 April 2024.
1 November 2023 Sandra Bond warns that a new TAFF race from North America to the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon will be announced very soon, perhaps at Novacon (10-12 November) or following discussions there. Prospective candidates should be thinking about their nominators and platforms: see the most recent TAFF ballot form for details of what to provide.
5 July 2023 Sandra Bond began her TAFF trip by flying to the USA on 4 July, and her travel plans can be found in the administrators' latest official newsletter TAFF est #3. This also includes fundraising information and various thanks to FANAC and other supporters of the fund. (The figure cited for TAFF-benefit paperback sales is for the first half of 2023 only. Total TAFF revenues from these books are now over £560.)
16 June 2023 Further thanks to FANAC for sending $200 to TAFF as a reward for the printed publication of Kevin Smith's 1982 trip report Nothing and Anna Raftery's 2016 trip report Cuttlefish and Cake.
30 May 2023 Many thanks to FANAC for sending $100 to TAFF as a reward for the publication of Sue Mason's Into the Wide Purple Yonder – of which more below.
May 2023 Sue Mason's recently published TAFF report Into the Wide Purple Yonder: A Fan Artist in America can be had for £5 as a PDF or £5 plus postage for the paper version. In the UK, £5 or £8 by Paypal to eutaff [at] gmail.com; in the USA, $6 or $15 by Paypal to taff [at] toad-hall.com; elsewhere, contact the eutaff address "and we'll sort it out".
14 April 2023 The 2023 TAFF race is over, the votes have been counted and the winner is Sandra Bond. Read all about it in the administrators' official newsletter TAFF est #2.
9 April 2023 With the current race very near its end – vote! vote! Vote by 11 April! – TAFF has run into a problem with dollar payments into Mike Lowrey's PayPal account, some of which are being returned for unknown reasons. The administrators will count the votes in any case, hoping to sort out the accompanying payment later. For now, please send any dollar voting fees or donations to EUTAFF (at) gmail.com. The donation buttons on the TAFF site have been changed accordingly.
2 April 2023 Sue Mason has released the delayed report on her 2000 TAFF trip: Into the Wide Purple Yonder: A Fan Artist in America. A PDF version is available for £5.00 from Alison Scott; we're not sure about supplies of the print edition but hope to add a purchase link soon.
24 March 2023 Here's the latest TAFF newsletter, TAFF est #1, reminding you all that the voting on the current race ends on 11 April 2023; there are also interviews with the candidates Sandra Bond (UK) and Mikołaj Kowalewski (Poland), a detailed financial report, and thanks to various supporters.
31 January 2023 Please don't forget to vote in the current TAFF race! Voting continues to 11 April 2023, allowing a final spasm of campaigning at Conversation, the UK Eastercon. Here again are links to the 2023 TAFF ballot [HTML] with platforms; the PDF version; and the online voting form. • Not three (as promised in December) but five older TAFF reports have been added to TAFF's Little Free Ebook Library this year: Bob Madle's A Fake Fan in London (1957 trip), Don Ford's TAFF Baedeker (1960 eastbound), Eric Bentcliffe's Epitaff (1960 westbound), Ron Ellik's The Squirrel's Tale (1962) and Len and June Moffatt's The Moffatt House Abroad (1973). Coming soon: Ron Bennett's Colonial Excursion (1958).
24 December 2022 There are now nine paperbacks for sale in aid of TAFF at https://ae.ansible.uk/?id=taff. The latest addition is Kevin's Smith's long-delayed 1982 report Nothing, previously available only online. We're still adding trip reports of yore to the Free Ebooks page, most recently Walt and Madeleine Willis's TAWF Times Two and Ethel Lindsay's The Lindsay Report. In the pipeline for 2023 are three reports by early US TAFF winners: Bob Madle's A Fake Fan in London, Don Ford's TAFF Baedeker and Ron Ellik's The Squirrel's Tale.
Older Bulletins from this page
