TAFF -- TransAtlantic Fan Fund (original) (raw)
Announcements & Updates
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.
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, 6or6 or 6or15 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.