Current location:	Santa Ana CA
Current mood:	chipper
Current music:	Hayseed Dixie - "Big Bottom"
Entry tags:	conventions, ribbons

... Turn to stone. When you comin' home? I can't go on. Turn to stone, when you are gone I turn ...

Ribbon story part 31. Here are a bunch of ribbons that were printed with the L.A.con IV rocket/starburst logo, and all but one of them were hand-typset by RV Awards.

• So long, and thanks for all the haggis
• SCIFI, Inc. Director
• 2000 Bid Veteran LA/KC 2000-2003
• Chairman's Flying Monkey
• DJ Crewe
• L.A.con IV Bottlecap AWARD

The Worldcon in 2006 had a number of ribbons that were meant for a very specific group of people, sometimes just for one particular person. As an example, chairman Christian McGuire wanted a ribbon to give to some key people from inter_action. After we brainstormed at Coral Cafe one Thursday night, he decided on So long, and thanks for all the haggis. This was printed on a tartan ribbon, which turned out to be a lot more trouble than it's worth -- RV Awards offered them as an experiment, and ended up regretting it. It's too hard to whomp the ribbons because it's the wrong material. (It's not an acetate satin material.)

It's something of a tradition at SCIFI, Inc.-sponsored conventions to have a ribbon for the board of directors. Who are the board members? Well, not very many people. I served a three-year sentence term as a SCIFI, Inc. Director, for example, but I've been off the board for four years now.

We printed up 2000 Bid Veteran LA/KC 2000-2003 ribbons to hand to all of the 2006 bid members and helpers -- both L.A. in 2006 and K.C. in 2006. We used the same tartan ribbon as the "So long, and thanks for all the haggis" ribbons, but in this case it was in honor of Jim Murray's Victorian sense of fashion. They were printed with blue printing, which ended up incredibly hard to read on the colorful tartan ribbon. Unfortunately, they weren't very well distributed. My apologies to any KC fen who missed out on this ribbon. (KC fans brought the "SMOFS on a plane" ribbons that were a big hit, but that's another story.)

The original reason for having this ribbon in the first place was to acknowledge those members of the L.A. in 2006 Bid Committee who are not (or were not) members of the board, and additionally those who helped materially without having their name on the project at all. It was my idea to give them to the Kansas City folks too, for a number of reasons. For example, without their vigorous bid's efforts we probably wouldn't have enjoyed $99/night hotel rooms at laconiv. Also it was a fun race, and there was no rancor expressed between the two groups.

Christian didn't have a radio when he was chairing the convention, and he was supposed to give up his cell phone too. The Chairman's Flying Monkey team would pay attention to radio calls, and figure out if the chair needed to get involved.

Christian was also in charge of the dances. So he wanted some DJ Crewe ribbons to give to the small number of DJs that ran the rock dances. (About five or six fans.) I was originally reluctant to put "Crewe" on the ribbons, because "Crew" means team, "Krewe" is a Mardi Gras parade-organizing social group, and "Crewe" looked like a misspelling to me. I looked it up, though, and found the spelling "Crewe" as an urban slang term. Okay then.

Paraphrase: "We're making all of these awards, little ones and big ones and Hugo awards too. Dang it, I want an award, even if it's just a goddamn bottlecap with a ribbon on it." That's what she said, more or less, and so this L.A.con IV Bottlecap Award ribbon was quietly prepared (on the tartan ribbon) and given to her at the convention. (Who said this to whom? Well, that's another story.)

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