GUFF was created as The Get Up-and-over Fan Fund in 1978, initially as a one-off to bring an Australian to the 1979 Worldcon but continuing to complete the triangle whose existing sides were TAFF (the TransAtlantic Fan Fund, which sends sf fans between Europe and North America) and DUFF (Down Under Fan Fund, running between North America and Australia/New Zealand). Of necessity, GUFF's name changes to Going Under Fan Fund for southbound trips. (See sample ballot for more.)
GUFF Now
Current Administrators - Europe: Alison Scott – guffeurope at gmail dot com.
- Australasia/Oceania: Kat Clay – katclay at gmail dot com.
GUFF Archive
- All the Past GUFF Races
- Index of GUFF Winners
- Past GUFF Ballot Forms
- Past GUFF Newsletters
- Australian Fan Funds
- Australian Fan Funds: GUFF
- GUFF publications at Fanac.org
- GUFF Group Photo, 2010
- Chris Priest (Our Founder) on GUFF, 1979
- David Langford on GUFF, 1999
GUFF Trip Reports available online - 1979: John Foyster, Stranger in Stranger Lands (also photo-illustrated multi-PDF version)
- 1987: Eve Harvey, A Brighton Belle Meets Skippy
- 1987: Irwin Hirsh, instalments online
- 1995: Ian Gunn & Karen Pender-Gunn, Oh to be in England, In the summertime, With my love
- 2001: Eric Lindsay and Jean Weber, Jean and Eric ’Avalook at the UK
- 2004: Pat McMurray, GUFF Guy
- 2010: James Shields, A Rough Guide to GUFF: James Shields Goes Under for Fan Funds in 2010
- 2014: Gillian Polack, Gillian’s Book of Lists
- 2017: Donna Maree Hanson, GUFF Trip Report 2017
- 2018:, Marcin Kłak, The Giant Leap to Never Never
- 2019: Simon Litten, Visiting Nearly Kiwiland
- Fragments: GUFF: The Incomplete Chronicles
Past GUFF Websites - 2013 Announcements
- Great Balls of GUFF (UK home, 2009) (archived)
- GUFF 2008 (archived)
- GUFF 2007 (archived)
- GUFF 2001
Announcements
5 February 2026 Nominations for the 2026 southbound GUFF race are now open and close on 18 February. Time is short! Click here for the administrators' announcement.
2 February 2026 From Ansible 463 – 'GUFF: the 2026 plan is reportedly to run a southbound race from Europe to Swancon (Perth, Western Australia, 29 May - 1 June) with nominations opening very soon and voting to close before Easter.' Watch this space.
June 2025: the GUFF trip report anthology announced below now has a smart paperback edition with all sales proceeds going to the fund. See the book page GUFF: The Incomplete Chronicles for more.
1 March 2025 is publication day for the GUFF trip report anthology, edited by David Langford and titled GUFF: The Incomplete Chronicles. Follow the link for more.
1 November 2024 Following on from the October post, we have today added ten GUFF reports to the TAFF site library – as listed and linked to in the left-hand column. (Which also includes Irwin Hirsh’s 1987 report, still in the form of instalments at the Australian Fan Funds site.) Most are PDFs as originally released, though some had become unavailable; John Foyster’s Stranger in Stranger Lands now has its first ebook edition.
October 2024 David Langford writes: The TAFF site offers many freely downloadable ebooks, including most published TAFF reports and much else, with donations to TAFF encouraged if you enjoy them. This year a former GUFF winner asked whether GUFF reports were also welcome, and in response I rewrote the ebooks script to allow the option of replacing the TAFF donation buttons with one for GUFF on download pages for GUFF reports. Thanks to Euro administrator Alison Scott for approving this. We haven't yet secured permission for any GUFF reports, but Irwin Hirsh (of the Australian Fan Funds site) and I are discussing the way forward. Watch this space!
26 August 2024 League of Fan Funds newletter with Glasgow Worldcon fundraising details.
August 2024 All That GUFF, a newsletter from Alison Scott
July 2024 Simon Litten's report on his trip to the 2019 Dublin Worldcon, Visiting Nearly Kiwiland, has been released and is freely downloadable at the Australian Fan Funds page linked from the title. A donation to the fund is suggested, via PayPal to guffeurope@gmail.com.
27 April 2024 Email from administrator Alison Scott: "The GUFF race has concluded and we are delighted to announce that Kat Clay will be the 2024 GUFF delegate and will attend Glasgow 2024: a Worldcon for Our Futures. We hope she'll enjoy the convention and take the opportunity to visit fans across Europe." Kat Clay won by a simple first-round majority with 42 votes to Ian Nichols's 32 (7 No Preference).
26 March 2024 The 2024 GUFF race is now on, with candidates Kat Clay and Ian Nichols (both from Australia) contending for the GUFF trip to the Glasgow Worldcon on 8-12 August 2024. Here are links to the PDF ballot with candidates' platforms, and to the online voting form. Voting closes on 22 April, 23:59 British Summer Time; see ballot for other time zones.
20 February 2024 GUFF administrators Alison Scott and Simon Litten have announced a new northbound race for 2024, whose winner will travel from Oceania (Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) to the Glasgow Worldcon on 8-12 August 2024. As usual candidates need to find nominators (two from Europe and three from Oceania), provide a platform of no more than 100 words to appear on the ballot, and deposit bond (AU$25 or NZ$25 with the administrators. The full announcement has been posted at File 770.
August 2023 Alison Scott, the 2020 GUFF winner, is at last making her delayed Australian trip this year – arriving in Sydney on 26 September, flying home from Perth on 30 October.
February 2022 Alison Scott is still waiting until it feels likely that a lengthy trip to Australia and New Zealand would not be significantly disrupted by border closures and lockdowns – that looks most likely to be during 2023 at this point. Donations to GUFF remain welcome; we expect the cost of travel to be significantly higher over the next few years than it has been recently.
October 2020 Just to catch up: Alison Scott was the 2020 GUFF winner but was unable to travel physically to the New Zealand Worldcon (CoNZealand), which could not be held as expected owing to the coronavirus pandemic. She made a spectacular virtual trip to the online Worldcon and other antipodean locations, and will follow up with actual travel when this becomes possible. • Marcin Kłak has handed over the GUFF Europe email address to Alison: guffeurope at gmail dot com.
19 January 2020 GUFF 2020 candidates and ballot.
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