2019 – a year summary

The beginning of the year is a good moment to look back (and ahead as well!) and see how the previous year went. I did it last year and I am doing this now.

Some numbers for a start

I visited 14 conventions in 2019 – not my record but it is quite a decent number. Three of those were held outside of Poland – Ytterbium (Eastercon), Dublin 2019 an Irish Worldcon and TitanCon – Eurocon. I wrote about each and every one of those fourteen cons on the blog so I won’t repeat everything here.

Person pointing both hands at the box with GUFF stickers on it.At Ytterbium the last days of GUFF 2019 took place. Here Claire points to the voting box.

As for the numbers, I must mention that Imladris that took place in October was my 200th convention and I wrote a post to somehow summarize my almost 18 years in fandom.

Picture shows a framed diplomma, with dragon magician convention badge and a few wooden coins.I managed to hang the diplomma on the wall and am so happy every time I look at it.

When writing the 2018 summary, I hoped I would manage to write thirty posts on the blog this year. It was not the case – the counter shows 24 posts meaning I needed a little bit more than two weeks on average to write something for my blog. Still, I am quite happy I managed to write not only about the conventions but also on other topics including my short Geek Guide to Brussels.

I managed to do some cool things

I am especially fond of the EFF. In 2019, I managed to post the idea and I was able to collect some money for it (and this means I need to work hard in 2020 to make it happen). Soon you may expect a post summarizing where we are with this project.

Worldcon in Dublin was my third but it was also the first one where I was a part of the programme team. It was hard work and I am not sure whether I am really suited to do it but I did my best and I hope it was good enough. I want to thank the people who gave me the chance to work in the programme division, including Ian Stockdale, Erin Underwood and the head of the literature programme – Liz Loikkanen as well as Vanessa May who encouraged me to apply. I also want to thank all of the wonderful people who put much more work than me into the Dublin 2019 programme preparations.

Multiple people on the stage posing for a group photography. Most people hold Hugo rockets.Picture taken after the Hugo Awards Ceremony.

Thanks to Joshua Beatty, I was involved in the Hugo Ceremony for the second time. I had a much worse view than in Helsinki but I had the unique opportunity to assist the Hugo winners just after their acceptance of the trophy. It was a magical feeling, believe me. I would love to repeat it.

I need to mention that something really pleasant happened to me – Geri Sullivan decided to visit Poland during her TAFF trip and I was her host in Kraków. When I participated in GUFF, I didn’t expect that I’d get the chance to host Fan Fund delegates as Poland was not a typical place to visit and it has been just a little bit over a year since my trip Geri visited Kraków. Being a delegate is a unique experience and I wrote a lot about it. Hosting a delegate was also amazing (in a different manner of course) and I may only hope that I was at least partially as nice to my hosts as Geri was to me.

Seven people in a pub.As part of her TAFF trip Geri organized an Irish Fandom trip – here you can see a picture of part of the team before lunch.

Lastly, I need to mention that we managed to establish regular meetings of the SFF society I am chairing – Krakowska Sieć Fantastyki (Polish only). We meet every Tuesday and new faces appear quite often (and this brings joy!).

There were so many more beautiful moments in 2019 that I am not sure what to write about so I will stop here.

Plans for 2020

I am afraid to make plans for this year. I didn’t manage with my promise to have 30 posts in 2019 so I am concerned that my plans may fail… yet I know I will work on a few things. First of all, it is very important for me to devote some time for EFF. I believe it may help to create and strengthen the bonds within European fandom.

Krakowska Sieć Fantastyki is constantly on my mind and I believe this won’t change. It requires quite some time and effort from me but I believe it is important. What I dream of for 2020 would be for the society to grow in numbers. I also hope that more people will be involved in the different activities we undertake.

Convention t-shirt, badge with lanyard and Programme book. T-shirt shows a portrait inspired by Roy Batty from Blade runner movie and an inscription 'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. I survived Nordcon 2019'.I hope to see some more awesome things that some people wouldn’t believe 🙂

I am really happy that I offered my help to Imladris and it seems I will be involved in it soon. This convention is very dear to my heart and thus I am so happy I can be involved in it again.

I cannot omit the blog. I won’t promise how many posts I’ll write and I won’t promise how many conventions I’ll describe. What I can promise, however, is that I will keep writing and posting. Maybe I’ll manage to create a dozen of posts, maybe two dozens or maybe more – this we will see but you can count on me writing here for sure.

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