As you may know I am involved in Fan Funds. Since my GUFF trip in 2018 I am doing my best to support them and make sure the word will be spread. This year is a bit special as I decided to nominate the candidate for TAFF – Mikołaj Kowalewski. And here I will write a bit on why I believe it is good to vote for him.
Great Race
First of all I want to mention that when the candidates were announced I was impressed. I nominated Mikołaj so of course I knew he will be one of them but I didn’t know who else would be standing. Let me then say this in the beginning. We have a great set of candidates. Of course I still support Mikołaj and I encourage you to vote for him. Yet please remember about other candidates – Anders Holmström, Fia Karlsson, and Julie Faith McMurray. They would also make great delegates.
Why did I decide to nominate Mikołaj?
Having said that all candidates are worthy I should explain why I encourage you to put Mikołaj Kowalewski as your first choice on the TAFF ballot.
I am not sure when I met Mikołaj for the first time. At some point in time he simply “appeared” in my part of fandom. Since then I am seeing him regularly on different conventions – in Poland and in other countries. Although he is quite young he quickly became recognizable fan here. Why? I think that because he is active. Whenever I see him, he is somehow involved – gophering, being in concom, or as this year at Konline – co-chairing the convention. Not only that. A few times he was a member in the nominating committee for Janusz A. Zajdel Award (which you may consider, a smaller, Polish equivalent of Hugos). He is all around here doing his best to support fandom.
Is this enough to go for TAFF trip? Well it may be enough but it is not all. Mikołaj is one of the fans in Poland who is willing to meet fandom in other countries. I think it is pretty important. I must say it was one of my goals before my GUFF trip. It still remains one of my goals now. International fans had the opportunity to meet Mikołaj at last two European Worldcons in Helsinki and Dublin. He was gophering at the second one. He did the same at Titancon Eurocon in Belfast. His first international fannish activities were however related to UK Discworld conventions. It is good he already had the chance to make international links. TAFF trip would certainly allow him to make more.
Picture I took when sightseeing Belfast before the TitanCon Eurocon in 2019.
So he is an active member and has some fannish friends in different countries but you may say this is not enough to be a good delegate. And I agree – delegate must not only be active but also nice to be around. This is at least as important as the fannish activity. And I would not nominate Mikołaj should I have any concerns here. He is a fun person to be around. I always find it pleasant to talk with him. He is a good travel companion and I am sure he would be a great delegate and guest.
Conclusions
There are good reasons why I believe Mikołaj would be a great delegate. He is a nice, active in fandom person and he encompasses the fannish spirit. Should he win he would be the first fan from Poland to ever go to TAFF trip. I like to think it would be a great opportunity this year as Worldcon is held in Chicago and Chicago has very big Polish minority.
So what to do to make it happen? Well you may vote for him here: https://taff.org.uk/vote.php. If you will put Mikołaj as your first choice please remember to add others as well – they would also make be good delegates. Should your first choice go to someone else – please consider putting Mikołaj second.