TAFFETA is an irregularly produced information sheet on the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund and is produced by current European Administrator Rob Hansen of 9A Greenleaf Rd., East Ham, London E6 1DX. Dissemination of the information contained herein is actively encouraged.
Well, TAFF nomination time is once again upon us and a new race is about to begin, this time for a trip to the 1986 Worldcon in Atlanta, USA. I assume by now that everybody out there is familiar with TAFF and knows all about it, but just in case there are one or two newcomers reading this, a little background...
The Trans-Atlantic Fan, Fund was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and popular 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 convent ions 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 of not less than $1 or £1. These votes, and the continued interest and generosity of fandom, are what make TAFF possible. Full voting details will be contained on the ballot when it appears, but basically anyone who was active in fandom prior to September 1984 may vote, and the eventual winner will be the candidate who -- having first secured at least 20% of the vote on each side of the Atlantic -- receives the highest number of votes.
Prospective candidates need three nominators from their own side of the Atlantic, two from the other, a £5 bond, and a platform of 100 words or less. Nominations should be sent tome and take the general form "I (name of nominator) nominate (name of prospective candidate) for TAFF" and should be signed and dated. The schedule for the forthcoming race is as follows:
Nominations open: November 1, 1985 ) Nominations close: December 31, 1985 ): 2 months Ballots available: January 15, 1986 ) Voting deadline: May 15, 1986 ): 4 months Worldcon: August 27 - September 1, 1986 ): 3.5months
While the fund's administrators will be producing a limited number of copies of the ballot and passing these on to the candidates it will be the responsibility of the candidates themselves to ensure that verbatim copies of the ballot are distributed as widely as they would wish. Anyone wishing to carry ballots with their fanzines will also be able to obtain a copy of the ballot which they can then reproduce accordingly.
A short while ago the North American administrators (Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden of 75 Fairview #2B, New York, NY 10040, USA) produced, and distributed among North American TAFF voters, the second issue of their own TAFF newsletter, TAFFLUVIA. Though intended primarily for North American consumption some copies of this reached me a while back and though most have been distributed since then a few remain. Weighing in at fourteen pages TAFFLUVIA is a lively and informative fanzine (with an amusing dummy ballot form that provides fandom with its own etaoin shrdlu) and not to be missed. These are available from me for a paltry fifty pence.
Thanks are due this time to those who voted in COFF and those who bid at the TAFF auction held at NOVACON 15 for the money raised there. Thanks are also due, for donating material for auction, to Dave Langford, Paul Skelton and Ethel Lindsay.
Mention of Dave Langford reminds me that his recently-completed report of his own 1980 TAFF trip has been collected together and is now available from Rob Jackson at "Chinthay", Nightingale Lane, Hambrook, Chichester, W. Sussex PO18 8UH for £2. Some 74 pages long and illustrated by fanartists such as Dan Steffan, Stu Shiffman, Alexis Gilliland, Brad Foster, ATom, Taral, D. West, Jim Barker, and me, it's one of the funniest and most enjoyable pieces of fanwriting around. Buy this volume and discover for yourself why Dave won the Best Fanwriter Hugo Award for 1985 at this year's Worldcon in Melbourne.
Well, that's all the business out of the way for now. The next TAFFLUVIA will appear in due course.
............Rob Hansen 18 November 1985.
A QUICK NOTE: Due to being 'under the weather' at the recent NOVACON I was less diligent than I should've been when jotting down the names of those I gave copies of CRANK #2 and Avedon's BLATANT #14 to. If you are on the mailing lists of either of these fanzines and have not received a copy, let us know and we'll post them on to you.
This has been TAFFETA #2 and it was distributed with British copies of CRANK #3.
Rob Hansen
9A Greenleaf rd.
East Ham
London E6 1DX.