Radio Rustycon

Board Chairperson Interview - May 27, 2007

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Transcript (Some editing has been made for clarity)

And welcome back to this next edition of Radio Rustycon. Of course, I am J.C., your host. Here today we are at the Woodland Park Rose Garden in Seattle, Washington. As you can see here it is a really beautiful spot. We’ve got this reflecting pool and fountain in the background. Very nice. Even on a day like this where it’s a little bit gray, it actually helps bring out the colors because you get this really nice contrast. So if you’re in Seattle, this is one of the spots I recoomend you visit.

Today I will be interviewing Michael Kenmir. He is Rustycon’s Chairman of the Board.

J.C.: I’m here now with Michael Kenmir, he is the Chairman of the Rustycon Board of Directors. Michael, thank you for joining us today.

Michael: You’re welcome.

J.C.: First of all, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself?

Michael: Well primarily I work for the Washington State Bar Association as my normal, mundane job and for the rest of the year I’m pretty much working for the Elan Empire. This year, I got elected as the Rustycon Chairman of the Board for the Rustycon 25 convention so I’m really looking forward to serving in that capacity.

J.C.: What are the duties of the Board of Directors and specifically, what are your duties as chairman?

Michael: Primarily the Board of Directors is incharge of the financial aspect of the convention. We pretty much create a budget for the various departments, set membership prices, and makes sure that no one goes over budget. Part of my responsabilities is running the meetings of the Board of Directors and coming up with money making ideas outside of the convention.

J.C.: What are some of the things we can expect to see this year?

Michael: For one, the dealer’s room will have a specific time set aside for autographs by our pros, authors and even some of our artists. We are hoping the Elan Empire will do a formal court. Because it is in January, the them will be a winter court which will mean a lot of new costumes and sets that we will be bringing in for the event on Saturday afternoon. Generally there is a lot of participation from the other science fiction groups in the area: they all send ambassadors to the court.

J.C.: I’ve been to one of your [Elan] courts before and I have to say they are extravagent events.

Michael: Yes, we try and model it with several things in mind: It is the formal court of the Czars with a little bit of Ming the Merciless thrown in for good measure.

J.C.: But no Flash Gordon?

Michael: But no Flash Gordon, no. But I have heard that there might be a sword fight this year. [As for the convention itself] there will be the requisite dealer’s room, the art show will be going on and with luck we will have four or five different tracks of programming. Everything from the sciences through the Arts and even probably how to write and publish your first book.

J.C.: Speaking as the Chairman, what are some of the difficulties that you and the board have had to overcome?

Michael: One of the things that we are very proud of is that we have started a new committee dealing with the bi-laws [of Rustycon] and there have beensome issues in the past and some questions brought up regarding Robert’s Rules of Order and thing along those lines and we are tryinhg to rewrite it so that it is a lot easier to understand and be able to run meetings with greater ease.

J.C.: So basically a lot of the bureaucratic stuff that I try to avoid?

Michael: Exactly. A lot of red-tape we’re trying to get rid of.

J.C.: Okay, now I have to ask you this, about tradition. It’s been a tradition of Rustycon’s past to have a “pie in the face” contest. Will we see a resurgence of that this year?

Michael: The board hasn’t made a formal decision on whether they are going to request that the various members in power [Executive Commitee] go ahead and get a pie in the face. It has in the past served us well and it’s quite possible it will serve us again in the future. Another thing I am aware of is there will be another Chocolate Auction which is always one thing that Rustycon is quite good at providing.

J.C.: I love the chocolate, too. Just for those of you who may not be aware of what the Rustycon pie in the face contest is. We have a jar for each member of the Executive Committee. People donate money into the jar of the person they most want to see get a pie in the face. For example if Michael and I each had a jar and mine got more money, I would get the pie in the face. It’s a lot of fun and quite funny.

So Michael, Rustycon has a reputation for being rather inovative; we come up with these new ideas. Whether or not they actually succeed is neither here nor there but we at least try new things, these podcasts being one of them. What are some of the new things that we might be able to see, if not this year then in the near future?

Michael: One of the ideas I had a few years ago turned into what was commonly called “Good Morning Rustycon” which was a live broadcast of what was going on in the convention the day and night before almost like a newscast and what I’d like to see is that we add a bit more humor into it where we would actually have a studio with an announcer and the possibility of the latest happenings in space. Things like meteor showers and eruptions from the sun. Things that we would warn the vessels in orbit around rustycon about.

J.C.: The “vessels” being the various con groups and fan organizations attending Rustycon as a group?

Yesy most definitely.

J.C.: So what other inovations has Rustycon been known for?

Michael: For the last three years we’ve had very large back-lit reader boards that actually have shown the timetables of all the programming during Rustycon, so if someone came in and they didn’t have their pocket program handy, they could step up to one of the lit boards and be able to find the location and time of day of all the panels that might interest them. And it was referenced to several times by the hotel staff for when they were supposed to do a room change. It’s a very valuable tool that was used by both the hotel and the convention.

J.C.: I seem to recall, I don’t know if this was a rustycon specific thing, but there was a similar reader board but it had a listing of [the various fan based organizations and clubs and convention groups] most notably the clubs from Starfleet International, I.S.S. and the Klingon Diplomatic Corps. Do you think that we will se a return of that?

Michael: That’s a very good question because a lot of those groups have disbanded or they have altered or changed themselves and the board as it stands now shows a lot more groups that have disappeared over the years. I’m hoping that this being the twenty-fifth anniversary for Rustycon those groups might choose to reform and come back, and remember the old days. There will be a twenty-fifth anniversary party Friday night of the convention. And interestingly enough this is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Elan EMpire as well so it’s going to be a twenty-five / twenty-five event so I’m really looking forward to seeing some old friends that I haven’t seen in a long time.

J.C.: Alright well you heard it hear first folks. A message from the chairman of the board telling all you missing groups, you got to come out of the wood work and join us for this big huge party. Michael thank you very much for joining us here today. We appreciate having you as our chairman of the board and we hope to see great things from you this year and the years to come.

Michael: Well that’s all we have for Radio Rustycon today. Once again this is J.C. reminding you to get your geek on with Radio Rustycon.