I didn’t get a chance to link it before I went, but this was the programme of Saturday’s BSFA/SFF AGM event. You can also download the agenda and the minutes of last year’s meeting from here [word doc].
These are not official minutes, they’re just some notes I jotted down.
We have a temporary volunteer, but Vector still needs a permanent production editor, so please do get in touch if you’re interested.
There are a couple of other opportunities to get involved with the BSFA at the moment: we need an Awards Administrator and a Website Manager. These positions involve pretty much what you’d expect. Again, email if interested.
On the subject of the website, apparently 17% of membership renewals are now by PayPal. The feeling of the AGM was that (a) this is a good thing and (b) this is quite a high percentage. I’m in full agreement on (a), but I’m actually a bit surprsied it’s such a low percentage.
The BSFA had less expenses in 2006 than in 2005 (no major event), but it was overall a difficult year, from the mailing house we used to use to post the magazines going bust (with £350 we don’t seem to be able to reclaim) to Royal Mail losing a large chunk of one of the mailings at the end of the year (pursuit of compensation for that is still ongoing).
Planning is underway for events to mark the BSFA’s 50th anniversary in 2008, but further suggestions for things we could do are welcome.
I was on a panel about alternate history in the afternoon, along with Jon Courtenay Grimwood and last-minute conscript Francis Spufford (who seems to not have a website, although there’s a bio here), which riffed off the Adam Mars-Jones review of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I think it would have gone better if I’d done my brainstorming more than 24 hours in advance, and had time to assimilate all the points for discussion I’d come up with, so that I could feed them out in a measured fashion rather than galloping through them all in half an hour. But my co-panellists said lots of smart things, and several people said they enjoyed it, so it must have gone ok.
Went for a wander around central Sheffield after the AGM, and parts of it have been really quite nicely regenerated. Whoever planned the redevelopments likes their fountains, though. Some photos.
“The BSFA had less expenses in 2006 than in 2005 …”
I wonder if you mean “The BSFA had fewer expenses in 2006 than in 2005 …”?
“I wonder if you mean “The BSFA had fewer expenses in 2006 than in 2005 …”?”
Which would you say? “My expenses were £200 fewer this year than last” or “My expenses were £200 less this year than last”? I can see arguments for both, but money is normally used with less. And, of course, it’s entirely possible that the expenses were less, but not fewer – lots of small individual sums would mean more items in the expenses, but less value.
(Sum of £200 picked at random – I don’t know what the actual figures were.)
Technically, I think the expenses were both less *and* fewer.
vector-bsfa.com 
“The BSFA had less expenses in 2006 than in 2005 …”
I wonder if you mean “The BSFA had fewer expenses in 2006 than in 2005 …”?
“I wonder if you mean “The BSFA had fewer expenses in 2006 than in 2005 …”?”
Which would you say? “My expenses were £200 fewer this year than last” or “My expenses were £200 less this year than last”? I can see arguments for both, but money is normally used with less. And, of course, it’s entirely possible that the expenses were less, but not fewer – lots of small individual sums would mean more items in the expenses, but less value.
(Sum of £200 picked at random – I don’t know what the actual figures were.)
Technically, I think the expenses were both less *and* fewer.